Passing on the Faith

After getting everyone back to school, family life has adjusted itself to the new normal of bus pick-ups, car pooling, homework, and getting all the pieces of familiar life together. Christ the Redeemer Parish added another piece to the puzzle this week with the opening of religious education for elementary children and grades 7 & 8; our young adults begin October 15th. Hopefully it’s more than an add-on; it needs to be something important in our Catholic lives.

For several weeks the call has gone out to register the students and to secure teachers/catechists and the many other parishioners needed to carry on the religious formation program. We’ve had several catechists meetings to get organized and to pray together. It’s kind of ready-set-go! This week is “go” and a big hand goes out to parents, students, catechists, office volunteers, hall monitors. This is an important and vital project for families and for the parish.

Talking About It
In recent TV anti-smoking adds parents have been urged to “talk about it.” The implication is that parents don’t always know where to begin or how to continue in helping their children not to take up smoking. The commercial urges the parents to keep up the conversation and assures them that the kids will listen. A similar urgency about faith and life is the need to keep talking and, equally important, is to keep listening about God in our lives.

It’s important for parents to initiate the conversation about God. Children learn faith from adults, not vice-versa. Parents, with their experience, need to share their religious history within their families. Where have they found God? Where has God touched them? Some of that conversation needs to be about finding God in community, in the Church. How do we do that without being “preachy” or overbearing?

The answer is honestly and directly. That’s the challenge of sharing the faith. We need to begin with an autobiography of faith, trust, and wonder at how the Lord has been part of my life. Catechesis within the family presumes faith, prayer, and participation in the life of the Church. Children offer their parents the opportunity to get their own religious house in order. As my high school rector used to tell us teenage seminarians: “Nemo dat quod non habet.” “You can’t give what you don’t have.”

Parents are, indeed, the primary educators of their children in the ways of faith. Like all teachers, one learns best from life experience. In this case life is more than just common sense values, but it is the experience of God in worship, in the scriptures, in intense prayer life, and in doing the works of charity. The Lord is in all those parts of our life and this gracious presence awaits the giving of that gift to our children.

Love the Church
Think about what we share with our children. We reflect the headlines by complaining and moaning about the Church. We, however, remain in the Church not for its problems, which are many. We stay because we find the Lord in our coming together for the Eucharist and the other sacraments. The Lord at various times and on diverse occasions has touched us, sometimes with joy and, at others, with consolation in private moments.

We have learned about God’s Word. We have received values and moral training from faithful adults in our lives: our parents, our grandparents, teachers, godparents, and many others. We have learned to love and be loved in the community of the Church and in the domestic Church, our families. We have prayed at our family tables, we have prayed in the night before going to bed. God was there for us. Sharing the faith in this sense is sharing that story within our families. We need to keep talking. We need to be open to the new stories of our children’s search for God and for meaning in their lives.

RE Challenges
At the center of our lives is the quest for God and the sharing of that faith experience with others. It is essential in our religious and human living. Some challenges as we begin anew with religious instruction in the parish and in your family are listed below:

Pray as a family. Pray at the dinner table. Pray the rosary or other devotions. Pray at bedtime as part of a blessing ritual of the children.

Invite visitors to pray with your family. Include others in the sharing of the faith.

Celebrate Sunday Eucharist each week. Share about the readings whether before or after the liturgy. Talk about the homily. Sing the songs in your home. Keep talking about how the Lord gathers us personally. Keep up the conversation about Church attendance. Share about the prayers and rites which we share.

Share in religious education classes each week. Step forward to volunteer as a catechist or other aid. Actions speak louder than our words.

Share regularly in some work of charity. Learn about Christian life by doing it. Step forward with the Blood Drive, with LINK, with scouting, with other community services.

The faith is shared in the classroom where we are given words to communicate our faith experience, but the words are authenticated by worship, by prayer, and good works for our brothers and sisters in need.

CDH