The
2015 First Holy Communion Class. From
left to right are Eden Stapleton, Yuriana Reyes, Addison Nolan, and Reagan
Skidmore. Behind them are Noah Lewis,
Ayden Stapleton and Fr. Thomas Hamm.
Who
is primarily responsible for passing down the faith to the next
generation? Priests? Nuns?
CCD teachers? Wrong on all
counts! According to Canon Law and as St. Pope John Paul II in his
1994 “Letter to Families” brought out, it’s us; we "Parents are
the first and most important educators of their (our) own children”. It’s an inalienable right and duty. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1653)
reiterates that. OUR MOST IMPORTANT JOB AS PARENTS IS TO PREPARE OUR KIDS FOR
ETERNITY.
In a moving homily Fr. Thomas Loya
gave at the funeral of his father, an Archie Bunker type, he recalled him
telling his five children: “I have one purpose for being on
this earth—to bring you kids into this world and into the Faith and help this
family get to Heaven.” Parents, that’s
what it’s all about!! For a copy
of this homily and a glimpse into the agony and the ecstasy of Joe Loya’s 61
years of marriage, go to my blog #129.
Are
we faithful to that great mission on which we will be judged when we die and
face our creator? If we don’t do our
jobs, the salvation of our children will be in danger. Many will fall away from the Church and
eventually America will become a godless secular society with little or no
religious freedom left. Christ commanded
us to “Teach all nations……” (Matthew 28:19-20) before ascending into
Heaven. That includes first and
foremost…….our kids. Every mother and
father is a domestic missionary with the mission of transforming their homes into
domestic
churches and passing down the faith.
Do
we meet our grave responsibility by simply dumping our kids off at CCD and
then picking them up after shopping?
Then with a secular environment we do no follow-up until next week when we again dump our kids off
at CCD? Job done; mission accomplished? Absolutely NOT! According to the letter of the law, maybe. According to the spirit, absolutely NOT. The “preeminent role” of the Parish School of
Religion (PSR) is to help parents meet their critical responsibility. One hour a week of CCD is only a small although
very important part of the spiritual formation of each child……a supplement and
reinforcement of what the parents are supposed to be doing at home.
We are in a vicious cycle that we must
stop. Teachers do their very best to
prepare the children for first Confession and Holy Communion. Then some disappear for a couple of years and return for Confirmation class. Once
confirmed, some kids see the sacrament as a passage into adulthood and an end to catechesis…….”I’m done;
I graduated”; and then you don’t see them again. Years later it repeats with the
grandchildren. No wonder there are so
many fallen away Catholics! When they become parents, the cycle repeats if
they are still in the Church. PARENTS, WE
TOGETHER MUST BREAK THIS VICIOUS CYCLE. Parish school of religion (PSR) classes are only the
beginning of learning the faith and must be followed up at home, college
(Catholic school or Newman Club) and beyond for the rest of our lives. We love our
sports and traveling teams, but so much more important is passing on the faith. Sunday games should never prevent our kids
from attending Mass (there’s Saturday too).
OUR FUTURE IN ETERNITY DEPENDS UPON IT.
Some kids come into PSR already well versed
in the faith. Their parents are doing a
wonderful job! But sad to say, most kids
come to CCD knowing little or nothing about the faith. They don’t know their prayers and have no
idea regarding basic concepts of the Faith that they should have learned at
home. Teachers must start at point zero
and teach these concepts over and over again because the kids forget from one
week to the next. Frustrated teachers complain
about this again and again. Then the
values and virtues they teach are often cancelled out by the public schools,
television, movies, friends in the neighborhood, and other aspects of our
secular culture where even our constitutional freedom of religion is being
eroded.
It always makes
things so much easier and more effective if parents help the teacher……review the concepts taught in class with the kids.
Practice the prayers from class at
nightly family prayer. Parents are welcome to sit in on
CCD classes and help the teacher. It
would be a HUGE help if the parents would go over with the kids the outlines,
handouts, and pages of the book which are covered in class. Teachers
desperately need reinforcement at home and help from the parents. It would be so much easier to cover more material
in the precious little time available to teach the faith if the teachers could
give the children modest homework assignments and reading selections while the
parents conscientiously make sure that the kids do them. In days gone by, most Catholic kids went to a
Catholic school staffed by an abundance of priests, sisters, and brothers. . They had Religion class five days a week and the
faith was integrated into all subjects. On
top of that, there was a Catholic culture at home. The teachers in our Parish School of Religion
cannot do it by themselves in one hour a week.
Parents, HELP!
Bedtime stories that promote
virtue and others based upon the Bible and the saints are a must and the kids
read them for fun. Our own parish
library has many such books for children which you can borrow by simply signing
them out. Catholic books, magazines, and
newspapers are easily obtained for the home; some are available free in the
back of our church. Musts in the family
library are a Bible and the official Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).
The most effective teaching is the example of parents conscientiously living the faith. On the other hand the example of parents neglecting their faith does immense harm to the children, perhaps for the rest of their lives and eternity too. Most effective in the spiritual formation of young Karol Woytyła (now St. Pope John Paul II) was observing his widower father fervently praying late at night. Dr. James Dobson, told his children: “I’ll be waiting for you in heaven. You be there.” Grandparents also have an important role in handing down the faith with their example, stories, and advice, especially if the parents are failing in their duty.
Another big problem is that many
parents don’t know the faith either and for that reason do a poor job with
their kids and do not volunteer to be CCD teachers. Statistics show the sad reality is that the average Catholic
in the pew does not know his or her faith.
Our parish has a solution for that.
Our pastor, a walking encyclopedia of knowledge, gives great classes for
young and older adults every Wednesday while the kids have CCD. It is scheduled for the same time as PSR so
that parents could drop off their kids for CCD and stick around for the class instead of going to Walmart.
 |
| The Future of the Church |
We all can learn more about the
faith through daily Bible reading, conferences sponsored by the diocese and the
annual youth rally. The diocese
organizes great catechetical workshops for school and CCD teachers, marriage
seminars, men’s conferences, women’s conferences, right to life seminars, etc. The featured speaker at the October 11
diocesan Youth Rally is a fabulous speaker, Leah Darrow……a top model who
underwent a profound conversion to become a role model on dress and
chastity. There are so many opportunities
for adults and youth to become knowledgeable regarding the faith, but we must
take advantage of them. Of course there
are good Catholic books, newspapers, magazines, internet websites, CDs, etc. Our
parish website has an archive of Fr. Tom’s excellent columns in past bulletins
at stlouiscatholicchurchgallia.org. My blog at paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com has
this article and all of my past bulletin inserts.
Our kids are the future of the Church and
the entire USA. The Country needs a
moral Society in order to function. A
country cannot be a moral society without Faith. Otherwise, we would need a policeman on every
corner to maintain order and public safety because everybody does what is right
in his/her own mind as their own popes.
George Washington saw “religion
and morality” as “indispensable
supports to political prosperity.” John
Adams, our second president, observed: “We have no government armed with power
capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…….Our Constitution was made only for a moral
and religious people."
Our
children depend so much upon their parents to pass down the faith especially in
secular America**. When our homes with the help of our pastor become
domestic churches within The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, parish
renewal will be complete and our after-Mass prayer for renewal will be answered
in full. No family has achieved the
ideal domestic church, but we can aspire to it.
Only a step to two in that direction is progress.
**St.
Pope John Paul II foresaw secular societies as ours in Catechesi Tradendae (see http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2CATEC.HTM), a wonderful summary of Church
teaching, wrote in 1979 (#68): “…in places where widespread unbelief or
invasive secularism makes real religious growth practically impossible, the
‘Church of the home’ (Domestic Church) remains the one place where children and
young people can receive an authentic catechesis. Thus, there cannot be too great an
effort on the part of Christian parents to prepare for this ministry of being
their own children’s catechists and to carry it out with tireless
zeal.” Of course a good Parish School of
Religion is a big help, but we must take advantage of it. We owe it to the kids to become
knowledgeable of the faith by taking advantage of such opportunities as
Fr. Tom’s Bible Study, catechetical workshops, marriage seminars, men’s
conferences, women’s conferences, right to life seminars, etc. as well as reading,
CDs, EWTN, and Catholic websites.
No comments:
Post a Comment