Tag Archives: The Domestic Church

Faith Formation Series: Living Ideas & Habits

With the last post in this series we have rounded out some important preliminary contemplations regarding our roles as parents and catechists in the faith formation process. We have considered various preconceptions that we may bring to this work, as well as the atmosphere that we construct in our homes and our classrooms. Once we have properly understood our role as instruments of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual life of the child, then we are able to get down to the nuts and bolts of embodied faith formation: living ideas and habits. 

As stated previously, the intersection of the living ideas of our Catholic faith with the formation of spiritual habits (disciplines) is what forms disciples of Christ. We have to both cultivate the mind and train the body in the life of faith. This means that we have to inspire children with living ideas that deepen their knowledge of truth, and we have to walk with them in building spiritual habits that put those living ideas into practice in their daily lives. 

We need both of these components in religious education; moreover, we need to acknowledge and facilitate  the natural relationship between these two components. James 2:17 (RSVCE) says: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” In the life of the properly catechized Catholic (child or adult) there should be a natural flow between learning what the faith teaches and then putting that truth into practice. 

Education philosopher, Charlotte Mason, speaks of this connection as “forming the right habit upon the right idea” (Mason, p. 66). How fundamental this process is in the life of faith—at all ages—but how incredibly helpful in the early years of faith formation to focus on establishing spiritual habits right away as they correspond to the inspiring truths of the faith presented to our minds. Habituating truth, embodying it in our lives, means that we are providing a means for living it out. Applying what we believe in our daily living is what makes our faith real and experienced. 

Mason goes on to say that we shouldn’t be teachers that make children believe “that to know about things is the same thing as knowing them personally” (Mason, p. 66). Earlier this year, I heard Fr. Mike Schmitz make a similar comment, which brought this principle of connecting truth with habit to my mind. He said, “We will never be able to replace worship of God with hearing about him” (Schmitz, Day 51). For our catechesis to be dynamic we must actually practice the faith with the children, live it with them in real ways. Thus we are acting as a real community—real communities of the domestic church and real communities of the local church. 

And so, as we continue this series, our next focus will be to describe for ourselves in practical ways what living ideas and habit formation looks like in our homes and classrooms—keeping in mind that these two components work together. We will identify more clearly what sources of living ideas should be primary teaching texts, and we will identify some examples of opportunities to build spiritual habits with children in the home and classroom settings.

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References:

Mason, Charlotte M. 2018. School education. Volume III, p. 66.

Mason, Charlotte M. 2018. School education. Volume III, p. 66.

Schmitz, Fr. Mike. 2021. “The Bible in a Year”. Podcast, Day 51.

Renewing the Domestic Church – Part 3

In continuing this summer series on renewing our domestic churches, I am writing today about the isolating and dehumanizing nature of technology in our lives. We think of ourselves as extremely connected to friends, family, and various social circles with all of our online touch points; but the truth is that these many connections actually create distance within our relationships and inhibit our human flourishing in private life, which–as G. K. Chesterton rightly observes–is the life and self that matters far more than the public one.1 We often hear a lot of talk about protecting our children in guarding what they have access to online (or what has access to them). While we certainly need to monitor our children’s media use, I would say that our own media habits are the ones that need primary attention, for they are the ones that are going to have the greatest impact on our children in the long term.

Here is the reality that we must face: whatever habits and behaviors we are modeling are the ones that our children are mostly likely to adopt for themselves. We see this evidenced in research. Studies have found that children grow up to be readers not so much because their parents want them to read or created a reward system for reading, but because the parents themselves were readers and modeled reading for pleasure as a habit. Our children do what we do much more than they do what we say. If our faith and values are not consistently lived out in our daily rhythms, if we don’t practice them with integrity and intention, then they likely won’t either.

That means that we are the trend-setters, the culture shapers, in our domestic churches. We cannot look to anyone else or lay too much blame at another’s feet before we have examined our own habits. What do our media/technology habits model for our children? What atmosphere do they establish in the home, and what kind of life do they set up to be imitated?

When our children observe our use of technology, are they seeing intentionality or fragmented attention? If the statistics on average media use are close to accurate (and I wouldn’t be surprised if the tech habits of Catholic adults and parents are in line with the general population), then we need to take an introspective look at what type of life and culture our behaviors are modeling to our children and promoting within our homes.

Let’s operate from the assumption that our children will do as we do, and consider what behaviors they are likely to adopt:

  • Will our children be more likely to live contentedly in the private moments of beauty in their lives, or will every beautiful and meaningful experience automatically be shared for public consumption or voyeuristic interest?
  • Will our children intentionally create quiet moments in their days and embrace the gift of solitude, or will a still moment be met with the anxious impulse for exterior stimulus?
  • Will our children regularly seek live conversations with friends and peers, or will they be more likely to communicate via channels that allow them to edit themselves and keep people at arms-length?
  • Will our children be more likely to let a blinking device steal their attention at any moment, or will they use their technological devices strategically, as tools that aid the rhythms and behaviors of an intentional, rich life?
  • Will they be likely to have their lives run at the pace of incessant digital interruptions and the “tyranny of the urgent,” or will they command purposeful lives where time designated for spiritual activities, family life, work, leisure, and friendships is guarded and not interrupted at any given moment?

Well? How’s it looking? Do we like the answers that are coming to the surface? I think that it is possible that this might be one of those posts (one of those blog series, for that matter) that feels like a downer, like we are being shown all the flaws at once without any relief. But I would encourage a different perspective. It is true that seeing our flaws is unpleasant, because we have a lot of activity and effort logged away there. Our hearts can easily think: waste. failure. But I would encourage us to hear the word: freedom. When we are given a clear vision of how to stop living, then we have the freedom to choose with intention the better option. If we are oblivious to how we are living, how can we change? To recognize error is the first and necessary step toward discovering a different way to be human, a way that leads to flourishing in our private lives and in our domestic churches. It is a way that offers those we love most a path worthy of imitation. If asking these questions reveals things that we don’t like about how we’ve been living and the patterns that we’ve been modeling in our homes, then let’s be encouraged: this is the first step down a better path, toward a hopeful renewal in our domestic churches.

1Chesterton, G. K. “Turning Inside Out.” In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011: 163. 

Copyright 2019 Jessica Ptomey

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Renewing the Domestic Church – Part 1

By Kok Leng Yeo – https://www.flickr.com/photos/yeowatzup/314819829/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12535522

The domestic church—the Catholic family—is an essential part of the life of the Catholic Church as a whole. Recently, I have become increasingly aware of certain points of vulnerability within Catholic family culture, and these phenomena put our domestic churches at risk of failing to fulfill their vital role within the body of Christ. 

As I see it, there’s not one single issue at play here, but rather the interplay between a collection of growing cultural norms within the lives and rhythms of American Catholic families. In order to unpack and do justice to each of these related, yet distinct issues, I’m dedicating a summer blog series to examining the ways in which our domestic churches are vulnerable and discovering how we can renew them, in order that Catholic families may better serve Christ’s mission for His Church as a whole.

Before outlining some of the significant cultural issues at play here, we need to remind ourselves what the role of the domestic church actually is within the body of Christ. The Catechism tells us that the Catholic home is the “first school of Christian life,” the place where each individual within the family acquires the necessary virtues for the Christian life, “above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one’s life” (CCC 1657). I am particularly moved by the Catechism‘s description of Catholic families as “islands of Christian life in an unbelieving world” (CCC 1655). 

What an image that paints for our imaginations. We see that Catholic families have a distinctly missional role within the greater Church. Our domestic churches are meant to form individuals (both parents and children), through the structure and rhythms of family life and being, into self-giving vessels that bring the hope of the gospel to the world. Here’s my question: do we Catholics walk out daily family life with this purpose in mind?

When I honestly examine the culture of many Catholic families, I have to say that I don’t see this end being sought after with intention. What I see more often than “islands of Christian life” easily accessible to their communities are islands that have been cloistered by impenetrable walls, islands of well-meaning families that have knowingly or unknowingly cut themselves off from the world outside their doors.

Is it possible that we have made family life into a self-serving culture? Do we perhaps elevate the life of the family above the mission of the Church, making the Church subservient to the family rather than placing the domestic church at the service of Christ’s mission for his Church?

These two questions get to the heart of what I see taking place within many Catholic families in American culture today; and I think the repercussions of failing to ask why and how this may be happing are too significant to overlook. Within this summer series, subsequent posts will focus individually on primary issues related to the larger question of whether our domestic churches are fulfilling their mission within the Church. Some of these topics include: the absence of deep friendships, the isolating nature of our technology, confusion about the sacrament of Confirmation, the lack of intention in family rhythms, and the role that fear plays in sabotaging our mission.

I hope you follow along with me on this series and contribute your constructive thoughts along the way. We need to consider these issues in earnest. We often discuss and decry the outside attacks on the family within the greater culture, but I wonder if we have been insufficiently introspective and ignored indications of how we have been thwarting our own mission from the inside.

Copyright 2019 Jessica Ptomey