“For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” Acts 2:39

Challenging times require innovative solutions. These are indeed challenging times, both in our world and in the Church. It is important for lay catechists to shine as beacons of light in the darkness to draw entire families to the one, true Light—that of Christ himself in the Catholic Church. Most importantly, it is the time for the wise process of the RCIA to move to the forefront of our endeavors for the evangelization and catechesis of entire families.

Whether we realize it or not, we have providentially been training many years for the time in which we are now living. Holy Mother Church takes good care of her children and she has been preparing us for decades. From the restoration of the baptismal catechumenate at Vatican II[1] to the General Directory for Catechesis,[2] the National Directory for Catechesis,[3] and most recently to the newly published Directory for Catechesis,[4] the Church has held up the baptismal catechumenate as the essential model upon which all catechesis should be based.

The new Directory for Catechesis states that it “is becoming ever more urgent, that catechesis should be inspired by the catechumenal model” (DC 62). What is it about the RCIA that makes it such an inspiring model? The new Directory enlightens us: “This formative experience is progressive and dynamic; rich in signs and expressions and beneficial for the integration of every dimension of the person” (DC 2). 

Unpacking this magisterial statement, we begin to see the benefit of using the catechumenal model to form disciples of all ages.  The RCIA is a shaping or forming experience that advocates a change from who the person is at present toward the person God created him to be. This change, or metanoia, is meant to be very powerful and energizing for the participant. It involves much more than passively attending sessions to jump through hoops and receive a certificate of completion at the end. A program has a beginning and an end, whereas a process is fluid and ongoing. The RCIA process is designed to renew and bring into union every aspect of the person with Christ and his Church for all eternity.  This change is going to cost each participant something. The way he or she has lived life in the past will now change in many ways, which can be more than a bit unnerving. The signs and expressions cannot be perceived as “rich” until the person begins to change and seeks to learn and understand how God moves in his or her soul. Each individual needs to be given the necessary time coupled with accompaniment by formed disciples to “to feel called away from sin and drawn into the mystery of God’s love” as they begin to desire to follow Christ.[5]

Missionary Outreach

Deep in the trenches of parish life, our RCIA team has recently begun what may best be described as a missionary outreach to parents approaching Mother Church with their unbaptized children who have reached the age of reason through age seventeen. In the past, we would have focused primarily on preparing these young people via the RCIA process adapted for children and teens. Albeit a worthy endeavor in itself, we have found through experience that it often ends up being both a catechetical and spiritual dead end.

Most often, the parents have never been evangelized themselves, and if they have been catechized, it has been many years since they have received any formation in the faith. This, coupled with the fact they rarely attend Mass (if at all), are not an active part of the parish community, and often have irregular marriage situations, makes it all the more essential to focus on the parents as well as their children and teens. In other words, if we do not minister to the adult parents in whatever situation they happen to be, the children will be unable to practice their faith in the community to which they have been welcomed because we will never see them again. They receive their sacraments, and they are “done”—often for life, due to the lack of spiritual support in the home.

Hay un tema fundamental que corre a lo largo de la Sagrada Escritura: ser llamado por su nombre. Dicho de otra manera, en los ojos de Dios, tú y yo no somos simplemente uno del montón, ni tampoco somos un número seriado.

To sign up for your preferred conference go to SteubenvilleConferences.com or call 740-283-6315.

For many young people, the “domestic church” is like Plato’s world of ideas: a great concept that doesn’t necessarily have a corresponding reality. Marriage and family life have an innate beauty that young people are naturally drawn to because of the heroic love, sacrifice, virtue, and holiness involved in them. But why does the ideal seem so hard to transfer into reality? How do we teach the domestic church to young people in a culture that seems antagonistic to marriage and family life?

Authenticity

Young people crave authenticity. When we teach the hard truths, the high ideals, the demanding precepts, it always helps when they are supplemented with real witness and testimony. Theology and philosophy don’t occur in a vacuum; they need to be tested by reality to verify the truth of their claims. Unfortunately, the experience of a lot of our young people is that the idea of the domestic church is a failed philosophy.

The problem, however, does not lie in the domestic church as a concept or idea, but rather in the human heart. Breakdown in marriages and families are not the result of “structural” or “institutional” conditions, they are the result of the human condition; we are fallen beings and it is alright to acknowledge that. When assessing the credibility or idealism of the domestic church, we have to acknowledge the whole reality; the domestic church doesn’t exist purely as an idea, but is lived out by human beings who are fallen. The splendor and grace of marriage is in a tussle with the fallen nature and vices of man.

Part of being “real” with young people is telling them the whole story—the good, the bad and the ugly. In particular, we need to inform how the bad (sin) can corrupt the good with devastating consequences.

Domestic Church Founded on a Sacrament

All sacraments are salvific encounters with Jesus Christ. They are where we experience the kerygma in a tangible way: “In Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, who died and rose from the dead, salvation is offered to all, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy.”[1] Or as Pope Francis puts it: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.”[2]

This is the good news of the domestic church: it is founded on the Sacrament of Marriage and, therefore, is permeated with the grace of Christ, who is devoted to redeeming the love of the spouses, healing its wounds, and coming to its aid when it is subject to falling.[3] As Gaudium et spes affirms, “authentic conjugal love is caught up into divine love and is directed and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ and the salvific action of the Church.”[4] Jesus does not leave us orphans; he is irrevocably invested in aiding our marriages and families.

The family is the domestic church, a “little Church,” a microcosm of the Church.[1] When you look at the Christian family you see the Church, and when you see the Church you see the Christian family. God is love, and that love is imaged through the union of man and woman in the Sacrament of Marriage; furthermore, as a husband lays down his life for his bride, he images Christ’s sacrificial love for the Church.

Parents are the first heralds of the Gospel to their families.[2] God bestows on them the task of the education of their children, a responsibility for which parents are irreplaceable. Let us take a look at how parents can live out their vocation in light of the four dimensions of the Church’s life found in the Catechism, inspired by the Scripture: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.” (Acts 2:42).

Families can embrace the first pillar, The Profession of Faith, by teaching their children the great story of God’s love in Scripture. This will help the children see their place in this great story by answering two important questions: “Who am I?” and “What am I called to do?” The answers: you are a child of God called to love God above all things and to love your neighbor as yourself. This can be done by weekly Scripture readings with short explanations from the Catechism as a family, especially passages from the Gospels, which highlight the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Who prepared the young heart and mind of Mary to respond to God in humble faith with a fiat, her yes to the Archangel Gabriel? Where did Mary, the Mother of God, learn to listen attentively to God’s word?  

The beautiful painting The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, by Italian artist Andrea di Bartolo in the first decade of the fifteenth century, offers insight into Mary’s life through one pivotal moment in her youth. This event, of course, is known largely from early apocryphal writings. In this masterpiece, the Sienese artist brings to life, in vivid detail, the hidden moment that prepared Mary to take her unique place in God’s plan of salvation. Striking in its simplicity and beauty, this image draws us into the mystery of Mary’s life, a life that always leads to her divine Son, Jesus.

Full of Grace

“Hail Mary, full of grace!” These words of the Archangel Gabriel spoken at the Annunciation are familiar words of Christian prayer. They teach us an important truth about the Mother of God. Long before the Annunciation, Mary was filled with grace. From the moment of her Immaculate Conception, Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin. She was “full of grace” from her conception in the womb of St. Anne to her glorious assumption into heaven.  

Andrea di Bartolo was commissioned to paint a large altarpiece dedicated to scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This panel was one of three small panels that depicted the domestic church in which Mary was raised. Two other panels show the birth of Mary and the generosity of her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, in their almsgiving and care of the poor. In this scene, the artist shows Mary at her presentation in the temple when she was consecrated to God within the devotion and faith of her family.

The Family of Mary

“The family is the basic cell of society. It is the cradle of life and love, the place in which the individual ‘is born’ and ‘grows.’”[1] These words of St. John Paul II remind us that the family has a fundamental and formative role, both in society and in the life of each person. This is true of every Christian, and it is exemplified in a special way in the life of Mary.

The domestic church inhabits a domicile: an apartment, a mansion, a cabin, a farmhouse, a penthouse, any kind of dwelling that we call home. Everyone from the quasi-agnostic Jungian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson to the viral video sensation Navy Admiral William McRaven to your own mother advocates tidying up your living space as the first step to a successfully ordered life, both practically and symbolically. For those with a sacramental vision of reality, we would also say both physically and spiritually.

We rightly understand the Church at every level from Triumphant to domestic as a sacred communion of souls, embodied corporeally on earth and destined for resurrected glory. Until those sacraments upon which our Catholic identity hinges cease and creation is made perfect, how should the sacramental components of the domestic church shape our daily lives? Our Lord has instituted the sacraments and the Church has introduced various sacramentals; thus, the domestic church should rightly see its regular routines in the light of grace. Formal, official sacramentals and commonplace sacramentals understood more broadly[1] can profoundly orient us toward the liturgical sacramental life and better apply its fruits within our families.

Baptism

As I bless new holy water and pray for the people who will use it, I sometimes think I should be refreshing the font more often. Baptism’s premiere initiative effects continue with us forever from our encounter with that blessed water, symbolic of our immersion into the open seas of this world for a journey to the next, eventually even over the waters of death.[2] Catholics contemplate our material-spiritual nature and mission as we leave home in the morning or go to bed at night using the sacramental of holy water in our domestic church, just as we do at our parish church. (Beautiful wall-mounted fonts make very fine house-warming gifts!) Other sacramentals related to the Rite of Baptism include objects like blessed candles and even our clothing. Expressing our divinely-appointed human dignity in dressing modestly and sharply from a young age, as exemplified by parents and older siblings, can not only save some teenage fights later on but also form a true spirituality of our baptismal character and calling as we prepare for the worship, work, rest, and recreation of the day, all in proper measure according to the Lord’s plan. “You have put on Christ, in him you have been baptized. Alleluia, alleluia.”[3]

Confirmation

Look around your room. Our homes should have sacred artwork of patron saints. A shrine or corner or shelf for each family member can hold holy cards, religious articles, and spiritual reading materials. A spiritual director once wisely counseled to have some ongoing hagiography as spiritual reading on the side. All this relates to the Sacrament of Confirmation: the summons to be a saint, the particular saint that only you can be. Commemorate feast days; consider that the Church may well observe one for you one day. Young people of Confirmation age, especially, in discovering their personal and spiritual identities as well as struggling against sin that is so ubiquitous in the adolescent years, need constant inspiration and intercession from their patrons and angels. They also need authentic antitypes to the fantasy figures of superheroes, sports idols, and social media personalities. They learn secular stats and stories quite readily—studying the lives of our holy forebears, including our family histories, can similarly motivate a notoriously hard-to-motivate group. Further, having sufficient autonomy over decorating and caring for their individual spaces engenders responsibility and maturity that then transfers to better personal custody for what surrounds their souls. Sports or exercise gear might profitably be associated with the armor of salvation (Eph 6:10-17) to fight the good fight of faith as soldiers of Christ,[4] saintly witnesses to him in the world as Confirmation deputes us. Every fire and furnace, every lamp and light switch should be connected with the Holy Spirit’s warmth and brightness, creating an atmosphere around us filled with God’s presence.

La familia tiene un lugar privilegiado en la catequesis. El Catecismo declara que “los padres han recibido la responsabilidad y el privilegio de evangelizar a sus hijos”, refiriéndose a ellos como los “primeros heraldos de la fe” (2225). La familia es llamada “iglesia doméstica” – la iglesia del hogar (CEC 2224). Por esta razón, los padres son los primeros y más importantes maestros de la fe para sus hijos. En décadas recientes, sin embargo, ha sido difícil para las parroquias y escuelas católicas cambiarse a prácticas consistentes con esta comprensión. Los padres de familia han llegado a pensar en la parroquia y en la escuela como los lugares donde se les enseña la fe a los niños, y muchas familias han dejado casi por completo a estas instituciones la responsabilidad por catequizar a sus hijos. Sin embargo, recientemente, la cuarentena consecuente de la pandemia de COVID-19 nos impulsó hacia una nueva realidad – una en la cual, por necesidad, los niños estaban aprendiendo todo, incluyendo a su fe, en casa. ¿Cómo podemos utilizar el ímpetu y las oportunidades que se han adquirido en este momento para diseñar un enfoque a la catequesis que involucra a la iglesia domestica de nuevas maneras? Aquí hay algunas sugerencias para la colaboración con los padres de familia.

Dar a las familias maneras para relacionar la fe con los momentos cotidianos de la vida familiar.

Cuando escuchamos que los padres de familia son los primeros y más importantes catequistas de sus hijos, nos entra a veces la tentación de fomentar una sesión catequética estilo didáctico en la casa. Es ciertamente maravilloso que los papás conduzcan clases completas para sus hijos, especialmente lecciones acerca de su fe, hay una variedad de razones – entre ellas el tiempo, la confianza en sí y las competencias necesarias – que pudieran hacer dudar a los padres de familia al momento de echarse un clavado dentro de una sesión catequética de larga duración en el hogar. Ciertamente, los papás son los principales catequistas, pero la parroquia es también el locus privilegiado de la catequesis. La parroquia ayuda para que la catequesis sea sistemática e integral, equipando a los papás en su papel de darle vida a la fe por medio de las experiencias cotidianas.

Si, en lugar de intentar convertir a cada hogar en un tradicional salón de clases, les diéramos a los padres de familia las herramientas para conectar la fe con la vida en los momentos ordinarios, podemos ayudar a las familias a que desarrollen una identidad y cosmovisión verdaderamente católicas. En lugar de ofrecer una hoja de trabajo para completar juntos en familia, considere mejor ofrecer una manera para vivir el contenido presentado esa semana o para reflexionar sobre la relación que tiene con nuestra vida diaria en el hogar. Por ejemplo, si un niño de segundo grado de primaria acaba de completar una lección que incluye el Evangelio en el que Jesús dice que Él es el Pan de Vida, ofrezca a los papás esta instrucción: “Esta semana, cuando les sirve pan a sus hijos (por ejemplo, un sándwich o un bolillo con la cena), recuérdeles que Jesús dijo que Él es el Pan de Vida. Pregúnteles, “¿Que quería decir Jesús con esto?”

The family has a privileged place in catechesis. The Catechism states that “parents receive the responsibility of evangelizing their children” and calls them the “first heralds” of the faith (2225). The family is called “domestic church”—the church of the home (CCC 2224). For this reason, parents are the first and most important teachers of the faith for their children. In recent decades, however, it has been difficult for parishes and Catholic schools to make the shift to practices that are consistent with this understanding. Parents have come to think of the parish and school as the places where children are taught about the faith, and many families have left it almost entirely to these institutions to catechize their children. Still, recently, the quarantine that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic thrust us into a new reality—one in which, by necessity, children were learning everything, including their faith, at home. How might we use the momentum and opportunities that have been gained in this moment to craft an approach to catechesis that engages the domestic church in new ways? Here are a few suggestions for partnering with parents.

Give families ways to connect faith to everyday moments of family life.

When we hear that parents are the first and most important catechists of their children, we are sometimes tempted to encourage a didactic-style catechetical session in the home. While it’s wonderful for parents to conduct full lessons with their children, especially lessons about their faith, there are a variety of reasons—including time, confidence, and competency—that might make parents hesitant to dive into a full-length catechetical session at home. Sure, parents are primary catechists, but the parish is also a privileged locus of catechesis. The parish helps to make catechesis systematic and comprehensive, equipping parents in their role of bringing the faith to life through everyday experiences.

If, rather than trying to turn every home into a traditional classroom, we give parents the tools to connect faith to life in ordinary moments, we can assist families in developing a truly Catholic identity and worldview. Rather than offering a worksheet the family completes together, consider offering one way to live the content presented that week or reflect on its connection to our daily lives at home. For example, if a second grader has just completed a lesson that includes the Gospel in which Jesus says that he is the Bread of Life, offer parents this instruction: “This week, when you serve your children bread (e.g., a sandwich or a roll with dinner), remind them that Jesus said he is the Bread of Life. Ask them, ‘What did Jesus mean when he said this?’”

The surprise winner of this year’s Best Picture Oscar was veteran South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s social satire Parasite, the first foreign-language film to win the award. Set in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, it chronicles the comedic and underhanded attempts of the Kim family to find work in the home of the wealthy Park family, who live in a cavernous mansion high above the city. The contrast drawn between the two families lies at the core of the ensuing drama: the poor but united Kims, and the economically rich Parks—the epitome of privileged detachment. The role of the fathers is particularly crucial to this dynamic. World-weary, unemployed Kim Ki-taek, patriarch and “man without a plan,” may not seem like a model father, but he nonetheless clearly loves and is loved by his wife and children. This is made particularly clear in a scene where the family finds work folding pizza boxes in their cramped basement apartment, teasing and joking together. Park Dong-ik, by contrast, struggles to be at home due to working long hours as a successful software entrepreneur. He therefore remains detached from his teenage daughter and hyperactive young son in a house whose vastness speaks of the family’s emotional distance.

The film clearly stuck a chord with a worldwide audience. Among its many themes, it highlights how both societal pressures on family life and emotional distance between parents and children can have a debilitating effect on human development. Spiritual writer Richard Rohr traces the roots of such disconnect to the industrial revolution, where the patient passing on of skills from father to son was replaced by migrations and work patterns that removed fathers from such immediate and influential relationships with their children. Exacerbated in the intervening centuries, he perceives a great father hunger in many men—with a consequent search for approval and acceptance—in many cultures, including our own in North America and Western Europe.[1]

Abba, Father

This is a problem for a religion where God is called Father, and where all prayer is an outworking of a basic cry of the heart to the One we call Dad. When Jesus spoke of God, he used the unconventional and original Aramaic word Abba. One feature of the originality of naming God in this way lies in naming God at all. Jews refused to speak the name of God, replacing the Tetragrammaton YHWH with the euphemism Adonai, an injunction extended to Catholics by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008. To know a person’s name is to know their core and to gain power over them, which none can presume with the almighty God of Israel. To name this God “Dad” is truly daring; yet, it represents “the cry used by Jesus in the moment of his supreme earthly confidence in God.”[2] Following the Lord’s example, St. Paul sums up all prayer as that of adopted children who cry out in the Spirit in the same words as Jesus (Gal 4:6), placing our trust in the Father who will give us much more than any earthly father (Lk 11:9-13). The child-father relationship, so humanly significant as to be irreplaceable, is to be the blueprint of the Christian’s loving and personal relationship with God.

A Personal God?

If the image of a father is being weakened in Western societies, then catechetics as an affective process, in which the young are initiated into the life of God the Father in the domestic church, will inevitably be weakened too. Indeed, contemporary empirical evidence points in this direction, indicating that belief in the God just described—the God of the Scriptures—is in decline, even among self-declared religious people. A 2018 Pew Survey discovered that 68% of self-declared US Catholics “believe in God as described in the Bible,” as opposed to “believe in other higher power or spiritual force” (which was affirmed by 28% of self-declared Catholics).[3] The figures roughly correlate to findings of a separate 2019 Pew survey, which showed that 64% of self-declared US Catholics are “absolutely certain” that God exists, and 27% are “fairly certain.”[4] Where respondents are “absolutely certain” that God exists, they are almost three times as likely to consider religion important in their life, and more than twice as likely to attend religious services and to pray at least daily than those who are “fairly certain.”[5]

There appears to be an urgent need to rediscover the God who is revealed as Father in the Scriptures—a personal God rather than an impersonal force—in order to open the way for many Catholics to embrace a relationship with the Lord, nourishing that relationship though prayer and liturgy.