Your Family: On A Mission From God

The following article is part of our ongoing series on the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life.  To learn more, join our Facebook discussion group:  CatholicHŌM (Households on Mission)–Family Discipleship.

Every Christian family is on a mission from God.  I want to walk through some simple steps every family can take to discern their mission. But first, where does this idea of a mission even come from?

The Roots of Your Family Mission

The Sacrament of Marriage is founded on the idea that God, himself, has called a particular couple together–not only for their mutual benefit–but as a visible sign of his free, total, faithful, and fruitful love in the world.  Christian couples and families don’t just live for themselves.  God means to use your marriage and family life to be an outpost of grace.

As a vocation, marriage–like Holy Orders–represents a particular way that a couple has been called by God to live out their three-fold baptismal mission of priest (blessing the world by modeling Christ’s sacrificial love), prophet (being a witness of how God’s children are meant to live), and royal, (using their gifts to be a blessing to others).

Likewise, in Familiaris Consortio, St John Paul said that every family serves three important tasks in build the Kingdom of God.
1) To create an intimate communion.
2) To serve life by being open to children and forming those children to be Christian disciples.
3) To be a force for good in their communities. (i..e, “participate in the development of society.”)
4) To be an outpost of grace in the world. (i.e, “to share in the life and mission of the church.”)

Likewise, a Christian household is called a “domestic church.” That means that Christian households are meant to be little branches of the larger church, bringing God’s love and grace out to the world.  Like the larger church, your domestic church is charged with building the Kingdom of God.

These various calls and tasks serve as the roots of both your personal and family mission.

It’s Not What You Do It’s The Way That You Do It

A “mission” represents the specific way a particular person or community lives out a more general call. So, while all Christians are called to be priests, prophets and royals, and all couples are called to witness to Christ’s free, total, faithful, and fruitful love in the world, and all families are called to live out the four tasks in their lives, what living that out looks like for you and your house is going to vary widely from what that looks like for every other family.

Developing a family mission represents your effort to discern the specific way God is asking you and your household to live out these various calls in the unique circumstances of your lives. It’s as simple as that.

How Do You Create A Family Mission?

There isn’t one way to create a family mission but there are some general suggestions.  We walk through the following steps in more detail in my book, Parenting with Grace, but this will get you started.

  1. Pray Together (in general)–You can’t develop a family mission unless you are going to God together as a family ask asking him why he called you together and how he wants you to live.  Every day, get in the habit of asking God to help you be the family he wants you to be and to understand how to live out your call in the unique circumstances of your life.
  2. Pray Together (About Your Mission)–Pray as a family about the particular virtues or qualities God is calling your family to exhibit so that you could face the challenges you need to face more effectively and live more abundantly. Would you like to be more joyful, loving, responsible, faithful, generous, respectful, and so on?  Obviously we all want to grow in all the virtues, and you will.  But for the purposes of discerning your mission, you want to focus on the specific virtues or qualities you need to live more abundantly in the circumstances God has placed you.  Identify the top 2-4 (max) qualities or virtues that would help you take the life you are currently living to the next level.  That is, what qualities would enable you to celebrate the joys in your particular life and rise to the struggles in your particular life in a more graceful, godly way?  Write them down.
  3. Discuss–Next, take each of the virtues you identified one-at-a-time. Each person in the family (starting with Dad and Mom and then down from the oldest child) should suggest one or two ways you could use that quality to be a better parent or brother or sister and at least one example of how that particular quality might help your family handle a specific situation better than it currently does.  For instance, if you were discussing joy, you might say, “If I were going to be a more joyful dad, I would make a point of playing a more active role in planning family activities, instead of leaving that to mom so much.  And to be a more joyful family, I think we need to put regular family time on the schedule so that we aren’t just trying to squeeze each other in whenever other stuff wasn’t happening.”

    This part of the discussion should focus on the particular action steps you want to try to focus on to help you do a better job of living out the virtues that make up your family mission.

  4. Reflect/Revise–Discuss your mission on a regular basis.  Over dinner at least once-a-week, ask each other to reflect on each of the virtues in your mission.  How are you doing?  What’s working well?  What are the challenges?  How can you do a better job supporting each other as a family to overcome those challenges?  What choices do you need to make (i.e., activities to be involved in, priorities that need to be set, rituals that need to be created) to help you live out those qualities more effectively? Use your mission to help challenge each other to be better living, breathing examples of the virtues that make up your mission and to help you make decisions for your family that enable you to live out those virtues more effectively in your daily life together.

These are some basic steps of creating a mission. For more ideas, check out Parenting with Grace and join the discussion at our FB Group CatholicHŌM (Households on Mission)–Family Discipleship.

 

 

The Point of Family Prayer Is “Love” Not “Getting it Right”

The following article is part of our ongoing series on the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life.  To learn more, join our Facebook discussion group:  CatholicHŌM (Households on Mission)–Family Discipleship.

Family prayer isn’t supposed to be stressful.  If that comes as a surprise, keep reading.  Help is on the way.

Image: Shutterstock

In my work with families, I find that the more concerned you are with “getting prayer right” (being in the “right” position, staying still for the “right” amount of time, saying the “right” words the “right” way) the more miserable the experience is going to be for you and your kids.

My heart often breaks for families who take this approach because they obviously care deeply about their faith and they are working really, really hard to get their kids to love God too. Unfortunately, as the years go by, more often than not, children raised in households that adopt this approach fall away from the faith.  Why? Because for these kids, prayer was never really about encountering a loving God who was the source of the warmth in their home (and their own lives).  It was just another way to disappoint mom and dad and  trigger family fights.  Who needs that? What kid in his right mind wouldn’t leave that behind the first second he had the chance?

The families who have success with family prayer are the ones who realize that the point is creating connection–with each other and God. These families don’t worry about getting the words right. They’re more interested in keeping it real.

There are lots of different ways to do family prayer and all of them are “correct” if the family keeps in mind that the most important thing is coming out of the experience feeling closer than you did going into it.  Prayer should involve both vertical and horizontal dimensions.  That is, it should connect us to God and each other. Parents who make family prayer work–whatever prayer form they use (e.g, spontaneous prayer, family rosary, chaplet, reading bible stories, kid-friendly praise and worship, etc)–go into the experience asking themselves three questions;

“How can we make this accessible and d0-able?

“How can make it pleasant for everyone?”

“How can we make sure we come out of this time feeling more connected than we did going into it?”

Families who aren’t stressed by family prayer don’t dictate what family prayer is going to look like. They let the kind of prayer they do emerge naturally out the ages and stages of their kids.  They might start by asking, “What do my kids like to do and how can we do that with God?”  For instance, “Do my kids like to read stories?  Great, let’s read a bible story.”  “Do my kids like to sing?  Great!  Let’s sing some praise songs.”  “Do my kids like to color? Great! They can color a picture of the mystery while the rest of us pray that decade our loud.”  “Do my kids like to talk and get my attention?  Great! Let’s all take turns sharing our thoughts about how God has blessed us today and what we need God’s help with, and then I’ll teach them how to tell God directly.”

Of course there are times when kids need to behave. We have other strategies for helpful kids make it through mass.  But when it comes to watching mass at home, or doing any regular kind of family prayer, parents can’t be so focused on “getting it right” that they forget that the real point is creating a loving connection with God and each other.  

Want a more rewarding family prayer experience?  Stop worrying about “getting it right” or doing it “just so.”  Instead, think of family prayer time as time to cuddle up in your Heavenly Father’s lap while your kids cuddle up in yours. Play together in God’s presence.  Share with each other.  Make a joyful noise. And above all, remember that the real point of family prayer is letting God stoke the fire of love that you feel in your hearts for him and your family.

Want more tips for making the faith the source of the warmth in your home?  Check out Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids.

Discipleship Discipline: A Saintly Approach to Parenting

The following article is part of our ongoing series on the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life.  To learn more, join our Facebook discussion group:  CatholicHŌM (Households on Mission)–Family Discipleship.

One of the most important practices in the Rite of Christian Relationships in the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life is what we call “discipleship discipline.”  This loving-guidance approach to childrearing is largely inspired by St. John Bosco’s work with children. He wasn’t a parent, but he was a great Christian teacher and the founder of a religious order (the Salesians) dedicated to helping and educating children. Many of the students St. John Bosco taught were homeless or delinquent. At the time, people believed that children in general—and these kids in particular—were little better than animals who responded only to physical punishment and harsh correction.  One day, the Blessed Mother visted St. John Bosco in a vision. She told him that children should be corrected, “not with blows, but with sweetness and charity.”

Deeply moved by this vision, St John developed a system of discipline he called The Preventive System in contrast to what he considered to be the heavy-handed “repressive system” of his day. He taught his followers that even the most willful, defiant children would offer their heartfelt obedience if they were treated with love and respect.  He argued that Christian discipline shouldn’t just be about getting kids to behave.  It had to about evangelizing children in the way of love and virtue.  He said that his method…

consists in making known the rules and regulations…and then supervising in such a way that the students are always under the vigilant eye of the [caregivers], who like loving fathers will converse with them, act as guides in every event, counsel them and lovingly correct them, which is as much as to say, will put the [children] into a situation where they cannot do wrong.

St John Bosco never wanted to lead his students into temptation. He preferred to focus on teaching children what to do and then supporting their success as opposed to ignoring children until they misbehaved and then punishing them after-the-fact. The Preventive System forms children’s characters through “reason, religion, and loving-kindness.”  Regarding the harsh punishments popular in the day, the Saint famously said, “To strike a child in any way…should be absolutely avoided, because…they greatly irritate the young, and they degrade the educator.”  In this, he echoed the sentiments of another great saint, St. John Chrysostum, a “Doctor of the Church” (an official Church title given to saints whose teachings are especially important to understanding our faith) who said, “accustom (your child) not to be trained by the rod; for if he feel it…, he will learn to despise it. And when he has learnt to despise it, he has reduced thy system to naught.”

In many ways, Discipleship Discipline, like Don Bosco’s Preventive Method that informs it, is just as much a model of family spirituality as it is a means of getting children to behave.

Click this link to learn more about St John Bosco’s approach to childrearing.  And to learn more about Discipleship Discipline, check out Parenting with Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids.

Hey Parents. Tired of “Losing It?” Here’s What To Do Instead.

This article is part of a series on the “Liturgy of Domestic Church Life.”  To discover ways to experience more grace at home, join our facebook discussion group, CatholicHŌM (Households on Mission)–Family Discipleship.

Every parent has had that moment where our kids get under our skin and we react. We might find ourselves lashing out, or making threats we know we have no intention of following through on, or punishing too severely, or just giving up,  or a million other things that make us feel ineffective and undermine our power as a parent.

Many of these reactions are rooted in attachment wounds we received in our families-of-origin. Healing these wounds requires us to become aware of the unconscious scripts that drive our actions so that we can intentionally redirect our emotional energy down healthier paths.  

Remember, the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life–like liturgy in general–is a tool God uses to heal the damage sin does to our relationships. Instead of beating up on ourselves for responding to our children in less-than-ideal ways, the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life asks us to bring these moments to God and consecrate them so that he can heal us and transform these experiences into moments of grace.  We need to be willing to say, “Lord, I know that I am not being the parent you want me to be.  Give me the grace to fill in the gaps between what I am able to give my child and what you want to give my child through me.”

In addition to bringing these moments to God, it can be helpful to pray through what I call the Four Questions Exercise (this exercise is outlined in detail in the new, upcoming 3rd edition of Parenting with Grace).

1. How did my mom and/or dad approach situations like this? 

2. As a child, did their approach draw me closer to them or make me afraid of/close off to them?

3. Would I want my child to feel the same way toward me as I did toward my parent in  this situation? If not, how would I like them to feel toward me?

4. How could I need change my approach so that I could effectively address this problem, but still allow my child to feel the way I would have wanted toward my mom and/or dad?

The point of this exercise isn’t to condemn your parents.  Every parents does the best they can with what they have.  The point is to make us more thoughtful about how our own experiences with our parents continue to influence our own relationship with our children and whether or not we would like those patterns to continue.  This exercise allows us to make sure we’re giving our kids the correction that they need, but to do it in a manner that is both effective and actually strengthens our relationship with our kids rather than undermining it.

But why should we care about our relationship with our kids? Isn’t the most important thing just correcting their behavior? Yes and no.  When we correct our kids in a manner that closes them off to us (or makes them afraid of us) the lessons we are trying to convey tend not to stick.  Brain science tells us that learning is impaired when we are stressed.  Although conventional wisdom says that unless we come down hard on our kids they’ll never learn, science actually shows the opposite.  The harsher we are, the more we undermine our own effectiveness.  Kids focus on the fact that “Mom/Dad is mad” instead of “I did something wrong and I need to do better next time.”

The more we can be conscious of where our reactions are coming from and how we can respond to our kids’ problem behaviors in a manner that allows them to open up to us, the more we can make sure the lessons we’re trying to teach will sink in. Let the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life bring about the healing God wants for your heart and your home.

Need more help healing the hurts that undermine our relationship with our kids? Visit CatholicCounselors.com to learn more about our books, resources and Catholic tele-counseling services.

“Watching Mass” With Your Family. Futile or Fulfilling? What Makes the Difference.

This article is part of a series on domestic church life.  To learn more about creating a dynamic domestic church,  join the conversation on our Facebook discussion group CatholicHŌM (Households on Mission)–Family Discipleship.

A friend made me aware of this article in The Catholic Thing about the frustration the author, Randall Smith, felt about watching mass online.

Photo via Shutterstock.com Used with permission

He writes…

The danger for me is that I get spiritually numb.  It’s easy to get busy with work and just skip it without a thought.  There’s something good about having to get up and walk over to the chapel.  You must commit to something, physically.  There’s not the same movement either of the body or the spirit if I just click a link and then sit there and watch Mass, as if I were watching the video of an online lecture….I’m not always wrapped into a state of ecstatic contemplation at a regular Mass either, but watching Mass online is like listening to someone narrate the events of their vacation trip while they slowly scroll through the pictures on their phone.  “And here’s Gladys and me with the waiter at a great sea food restaurant in Galveston.”  And you think, “I could be doing something useful now.  But I’m not.”  

I certainly appreciate the author’s view.  But something about it made me a little sad.  That feeling grew as I read the comments on my friend’s Facebook page in response to the article. One, in particular, stood out.

…my husband is not Catholic, and I am not always in charge of what the house is doing while we are home. [Watching Mass] just becomes another boring TV show the younger kids want nothing to do with, and after my first attempt, I’m sure the teens are not “into it” either. It is so much easier to pack everyone up and go to church, and I can’t even believe I’m saying that!

I want to be clear. Nothing I write here is an attempt to deny the experience of these good and faithful people.  We are not obliged to watch Mass online.  We are free to feel whatever we feel about it.  There isn’t a “right” answer.

At the same time–spiritually, as in life–I often find it helpful to try to cultivate a spirit of openness.  I find that–at least in response to more important things–it isn’t enough for me to say, “Meh, this isn’t my thing.”  If someone I care about believes that there is something good, true, or beautiful about something–especially if I don’t–I find it useful to try to ask what I might be missing.  How do they approach that thing in a way that’s different from me?  What about their approach allows them to experience it differently than I do?  And would it be useful for me to change my approach so that, maybe, I could get something out of it too?

As I reflected on my own, surprisingly, positive experience of watching mass online with my family, and reading a few comments of those who also found it to be a positive experience, it occurred to me that those who appreciated it did so for exactly the reasons the author of the article found it uncomfortable.  It challenges us to be more intentional about mass.

My family has made a point of actively watching.  We literally behaved as if we were at church. We stood, knelt, sat, sang, and said all the responses out loud.  We even got dressed up for Easter Mass. And it’s been kind of wonderful.  Why?   Because we were forced to be intentional about everything.

In some ways, I agree with the person who’s comment I posted above. It is actually a lot easier to just pack everyone off and go to church.  When I’m at church, everybody is doing the same thing.  I don’t have to think about it. And I don’t have to work that hard to get my kids to go along with it.  Sure, they can get squirmy, but in general, they aren’t going to draw attention to themselves by defiantly standing when others are kneeling, or sitting with others are standing.  Herd mentality takes over and we all go through the motions.

But doing church in my family room was…weird.  We had to think about it.  Why are we doing this?  Isn’t this a little… crazy? Yes!  It is!  And that’s the point. Even though it’s weird, it was important enough to all of us to be weird and keep doing it.  The question, “Why, exactly, is this so important that we would put ourselves out this way?” was in the back of our minds the whole time, which led to some really good conversations about what our faith means to us and what we would be willing to do to proclaim that with our lives.

But My Family Isn’t Faithful.

But what if your family doesn’t share your faith?  Is it still worth doing?  Could you still get something out of participating in an online mass?  Of course everyone has to decide that for themselves.  It’s a question to take to prayer.  But I would suggest that it is a question worth considering.

Imagine the witness it would be for a mom (or dad) to value their faith so much that they insisted that for this hour–whether anyone cared to join them or not, and whether anyone approved or not–they were going to commandeer the family room to watch Mass.  And what if, while they watched, they actually attended.  Imagine that they stood, and sat, and knelt, and sang and said all the responses out loud. Imagine that they were willing to deal with the snarky comments, and eye-rolls, and, afterward,  have the discussions, and, ultimately demand the respect that they deserve as a son or daughter of God?

What if not one other family member joined this parent?  And what it, afterward, their spouse and kids mockingly said, “So, how was Mass?”  What if they answered truthfully. “Honestly, guys, it was kind of hard and kind of lonely.  I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but the fact is, it’s sometimes hard being part of a family that doesn’t love or respect me enough to even try to see what’s good about things that are important to me.  But the thing is, I am grateful that, each time I go to Mass, God gives me the strength to hang in the and hope that maybe things can get better.  So, I’m going to keep doing it even if you make fun of me. OK, then.  What would you all like for breakfast?”

Just imagine the conversations that would get started.  And just imagine the what it would say the next week when that faithful spouse/parent did it all over again.

Spiritual Eyes Wide Open

I would respectfully suggest that whether one’s family is faithful or not, participating in mass at home is an exercise in being more conscious and intentional about attending mass.  There is nothing about it that allows you to just go through the motions, check the boxes, and pat yourself on the back because “at least we showed up.”  Participating in mass at home is a commitment that I truly believe will make me and mine more mindful of why we’re participating at mass when we finally get to go back to our parish church.

Nailed It! Do I Have to Be “Crafty” to be a Catholic Parent?

In the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life, The Rite of Family Rituals asks families to create regular, daily times to work, play, talk, and pray together. Rituals like these enable families to practice the prophetic mission of their baptism by modeling Christian attitudes toward work, leisure, intimacy, and spirituality.

Crafting is one great way families can model a healthy approach to fun, and religious crafts can give kids a concrete way to connect with spiritual concepts. That said, to loosely paraphrase Jesus, it’s important to remember that crafts were made for man, not man for the crafts (see Mark 2:27—sort of).

In order to gain the spiritual benefits of any family ritual—including crafting–it needs to build relationships. Any activity that becomes about itself and not the people doing it, misses the point.

For instance, if you play Monopoly and winning the game becomes more important than building your relationships, you end up tearing each other to shreds. If you bake together, and decorating the cookies “just so” becomes the point of the experience, you’ll end up chasing the kids out of the kitchen to make sure it gets done “right.” And if you’re crafting for crafting’s sake, you have a family that looks great on Pinterest, but that’s about it. The last example is, I think, the modern take on Jesus’ “whitwashed tombs” (Matt 23:27).

We run into a lot folks who feel guilty that they aren’t crafty like “so-and-so.” In some circles, it can seem like being a holy family is synonymous with being a “crafty” family. How are our kids ever going to get to Heaven if we don’t make handmade nun’s habits for all their Barbie dolls—and in all the liturgical colors?!? “Now stop talking and hand me those ribbons for Heaven’s sake!”

If that’s your thing, and it truly draws your family together, that’s awesome. But if your family projects never quite work out as planned, or the very idea of working with construction paper makes you itch, that’s ok too. Failing to be a latter-day Martha Stewart doesn’t make your family less holy or your home less domestic-churchy than anyone else’s.

Living the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life isn’t about making beautiful props that turn your home into a miniature version of St Peter’s Basilica. It’s about spending time connecting, really connecting, with the people that God has given you to love and be loved by. It’s about being silly together, and cuddling together, and serving each other, and trying to be a physical sign of all the love God has in his heart for each of you. Whatever rituals help make that happen in your house are the “right” ones—even if they’re completely different from the rituals that the family in pew next to you (or that online family you admire) do in their domestic churches.

The Liturgy of Domestic Church Life isn’t about trying to get every family to do the same things or act the same way. It’s meant to be a template that helps families cover certain important bases in their own unique way. So, be mindful of the 3 Rites of the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life, but ask God (and your family) how you can use the model to bring out what’s best in your family.

Parents, Is Sheltering In Place Burning You Out? There Might Be a Simple Solution.

A friend brought this article to my attention. I have been reflecting on it in light of our larger conversation about the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life.

This is certainly a challenging time. Even the strongest families are feeling the strain, not only of being together 24/7 but also for the reasons we’re obliged to be together. But I do think there is at least one major false presumption the author makes which makes home life even more difficult than it needs to be. He writes:

“There’s a subtle expectation that parents must find creative ways to handle this on their own. My in-box, social media feeds, and countertops are filled with creative ideas for educating and caring for your kids. Workbooks, games, creative projects and experiments, virtual yoga, virtual doodling, virtual zoo visits, virtual everything. I honestly am too tired and stretched thin to read the suggestions, let alone try them. The few I have tried have been met with astounding and fierce rejection by my son.”

The problem, as I see it, is that our culture has convinced us that our children need to be entertained by us. They don’t. That’s why kids can sometimes push back against all these “creative ideas.” Kids don’t want to be entertained by us. They just want to BE with us.

The author gets at this when he writes, “[My son] stormed upstairs to cry, he told me it was because I had stopped smiling at him. Knife, meet heart.”

“Knife meet heart” indeed.

That’s the point of the Rite of Relationships in the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life. We don’t need to kill ourselves coming up with craft projects, or new awesome games, or the NEXT BIG THING we can do with our kids to keep them happy and occupied.

We just need to remember to smile at them. To hug them more. To read more stories together. To let them talk about what they’re interested in and actually listen. To see what games they’re playing and join in as we can. To “waste time together” (as Pope Francis puts it). To ask them to come with us and keep us company (and maybe even help out) while we fold the laundry and do the dishes, and dust, and….whatever. Kids don’t actually mind doing chores with us IF the focus is THEM and not just pushing through the chore.

The Rite of Relationships challenges parents to stop thinking that all the stuff we do at home is just stuff we have to get through so we can finally do other stuff that is more entertaining. The Rite of Relationships invites us to ask, “How can I do whatever I’m doing RIGHT NOW in a way that lets me share God’s love with the people around me and draw closer to them.” The Rite of Relationship h
elps us “choose the better part” and discover the gift of presence. It allows us to stop acting around each other and reacting to each other and Just. Be. Together.

Parenting IS hard. Parenting during this pandemic is even harder. But let’s stop making things even worst than they need to be. Let’s stop thinking of our kids as projects and just connect with them as persons who love us and just want to BE with us. Let’s allow the grace of the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life to remind us that we are human beings, not human doings. It’s easier than you might think. It’s certainly a lot easier than the alternative. And it just might let us all learn to enjoy our families a little more.

Gentle Discipline: The Power of Catching Them Being Good

In the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life, the Rite of Relationship is concerned with modeling Christ’s love in everything we do in the home.  How can we, as parents and

Image Shutterstock

kids, challenge ourselves to stop settling for the love that comes naturally to us, and intentionally use this moment to live more like Jesus.

Gentle discipline is one of the four ways families can celebrate the Rite of Relationships (along with prioritizing family time, extravagant affection, and promptly, generously, and consistently responding to each other’s needs). “Catching your kids being good” is a powerful tool of gentle discipline.

It’s easy to fall into the bad habit of exclusively pointing out when kids fail to meet our expectations. A much better approach is to note good behavior with small gestures of affection and affirmation. Studies consistently show that simple, positive reinforcement produces consistently better outcomes than punishments and consequences (Dwyer, Dweck, and Carlson-Jaquez, n.d.). Your child wants nothing more than to see the light of approval in your eyes.

You don’t have to throw a parade everytime your child does something that pleases you but remarking on good behavior lets them know that you’re actually paying attention AND that you glad to see them succeed.  Here are some examples of catching kids being good.

“I really like the way you guys are playing together.  You’re really good at sharing!”

“It means so much to me when you just start picking up your toys on your own. I love how responsible you are.”

“I know that you’re frustrated, but I see how hard you’re trying to be respectful anyway.  That really means a lot to me.  Thank you.” 

“I can see from the look on your face that your homework is really tough tonight.  I really admire the way you’re sticking with it through.  That’s really impressive.”

In each of the above examples, the parent remarked on a desireable behavior that occured spontaneously and complimented the child for the virtue that the child was displaying. Doing this also helps you deal with times your kids aren’t behaving well. How? Because they’ll know exactly what you mean—from experience–when you ask them to be “better sharers,” or show more responsibility, respect, or stick-to-itiveness. They won’t just understand the words.  They will be able to relate to the specific behaviors associated with them because you took the time to punctuate their successes.

Would you like to learn more about living the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life?  Join the discussion at Catholic HŌM–Family Discipleship on Facebook.

Stuck at Home? Your Family Can Still Be a Blessing To Others

This article is part of a series on the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life.  Want more information on having a more dynamic at-home faith life?  Join our  Facebook discussion group: CatholicHŌM (Households on Mission)–Family Discipleship.

The Liturgy of Domestic Church Life is a model of family spirituality that helps Catholic families “bring Jesus home” in more meaningful ways so that we can make the faith the source of the warmth in our home.  “Liturgy” is a word that refers to the work God does through the Church to heal the damage sin does to our relationships with him and others.  The Liturgy of Domestic Church Life has three “rites,” each of which looks at how families can use elements that are common to almost every family to draw closer to God and each other.

The Rite of Christian Relationships helps families leave behind the selfish–and sometimes sinful–ways we treat each other and learn how to care for each other with the love of Christ. By living out Christ’s sacrificial love, this rite helps us practice the priestly mission of our baptism.

The Rite of Family Rituals encourages families to take a little time to work, play, talk, and pray together. More than nice things to do, when a Christian family has strong family rituals, they are practicing the prophetic mission of baptism by modeling Christian attitudes toward work, leisure, relationships, and faith.

Finally, the Rite of Reaching Out lets God use your family to be a blessing to others.  This rite helps families practice the royal mission of baptism. Jesus, the King of Kings humbled himself and served us.    “To reign with Christ is to serve with Christ” (Lumen Gentium).  We share in Jesus’ royal dignity by using our gifts to make other’s lives easier and more pleasant.

Even while families are sheltering in place, there is still a lot you can do to be a blessing to others.

erving One Another at Home.  St Paul says, If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1Cor 13:3). Did you ever notice how much easier it can be to be kind to strangers than to the members of our own households?  The Rite of Reaching Out helps families remember that authentic Christian service begins at home.

-Do you respond promptly, generously, and consistently to each other’s needs?

-Do you serve each other cheerfully (instead of grudgingly)?

-Do you see the chores and tasks you do around the house as ways to say, “I love you!” to your family, and “Thank you for this blessing!” to God?  Or do you think of them as “just stuff that has to get done so you can get to the other more fun/more important stuff.”

The more we practice loving, generous, cheerful service at home, the more the service we give to people outside our homes will be genuine (instead of self-aggrandizing) and properly-ordered (instead of competing with our domestic-church life).

The second way to practice the Rite of Reaching Out is by Thinking About Others While Being a Family-At-Home. The main way to practice this habit  is by remembering that everything you have been given to you by God—your food, your clothing, your furniture, your toys, does not belong to you.  They belong to God. The Church teaches that Christians are stewards, not absolute owners, of the things God has given us. We are to care for the things we have well, so that when we are done with them, we can pass them along in good condition to others who may need them. Thinking about others while being a family at home means regularly asking if you can prepare a little extra food for a sick or disabled neighbor, or if—together as a family—you can go through the gently used toys, clothes, and other things you no longer need and pass them on to other brothers and sisters in Christ who might need them next.

There are other ways to practice the Rite of Reaching Out, but just because you can’t leave your house doesn’t mean you can’t still make a difference.  God wants to bless others through you and through your family.  These two habits can help you celebrate some of the simplest ways God can work in you, with you, and through you to make a difference–starting right now!

Stuck at Home? Your Family Can Still Be a Blessing To Others

This article is part of a series on the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life.  Want more information on having a more dynamic at-home faith life?  Join our  Facebook discussion group: CatholicHŌM (Households on Mission)–Family Discipleship.

The Liturgy of Domestic Church Life is a model of family spirituality that helps Catholic families “bring Jesus home” in more meaningful ways so that we can make the faith the source of the warmth in our home.  “Liturgy” is a word that refers to the work God does through the Church to heal the damage sin does to our relationships with him and others.  The Liturgy of Domestic Church Life has three “rites,” each of which looks at how families can use elements that are common to almost every family to draw closer to God and each other.

The Rite of Christian Relationships helps families leave behind the selfish–and sometimes sinful–ways we treat each other and learn how to care for each other with the love of Christ. By living out Christ’s sacrificial love, this rite helps us practice the priestly mission of our baptism.

The Rite of Family Rituals encourages families to take a little time to work, play, talk, and pray together. More than nice things to do, when a Christian family has strong family rituals, they are practicing the prophetic mission of baptism by modeling Christian attitudes toward work, leisure, relationships, and faith.

Finally, the Rite of Reaching Out lets God use your family to be a blessing to others.  This rite helps families practice the royal mission of baptism. Jesus, the King of Kings humbled himself and served us.    “To reign with Christ is to serve with Christ” (Lumen Gentium).  We share in Jesus’ royal dignity by using our gifts to make other’s lives easier and more pleasant.

Even while families are sheltering in place, there is still a lot you can do to be a blessing to others.

erving One Another at Home.  St Paul says, If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1Cor 13:3). Did you ever notice how much easier it can be to be kind to strangers than to the members of our own households?  The Rite of Reaching Out helps families remember that authentic Christian service begins at home.

-Do you respond promptly, generously, and consistently to each other’s needs?

-Do you serve each other cheerfully (instead of grudgingly)?

-Do you see the chores and tasks you do around the house as ways to say, “I love you!” to your family, and “Thank you for this blessing!” to God?  Or do you think of them as “just stuff that has to get done so you can get to the other more fun/more important stuff.”

The more we practice loving, generous, cheerful service at home, the more the service we give to people outside our homes will be genuine (instead of self-aggrandizing) and properly-ordered (instead of competing with our domestic-church life).

The second way to practice the Rite of Reaching Out is by Thinking About Others While Being a Family-At-Home. The main way to practice this habit  is by remembering that everything you have been given to you by God—your food, your clothing, your furniture, your toys, does not belong to you.  They belong to God. The Church teaches that Christians are stewards, not absolute owners, of the things God has given us. We are to care for the things we have well, so that when we are done with them, we can pass them along in good condition to others who may need them. Thinking about others while being a family at home means regularly asking if you can prepare a little extra food for a sick or disabled neighbor, or if—together as a family—you can go through the gently used toys, clothes, and other things you no longer need and pass them on to other brothers and sisters in Christ who might need them next.

There are other ways to practice the Rite of Reaching Out, but just because you can’t leave your house doesn’t mean you can’t still make a difference.  God wants to bless others through you and through your family.  These two habits can help you celebrate some of the simplest ways God can work in you, with you, and through you to make a difference–starting right now!