Every Catholic home should be considered a microcosm of the
Church, with the Father as the head, Mother as the cherished spouse
(both equal before God in dignity and, always, treating each other
equally in charity), and with the children brought up learning how to
know, love, and serve God. The true head of the Catholic home is Jesus,
just as He is Head of the Church but appointed a Vicar in the Supreme
Pontiff, our Holy Father. The constant awareness of Christ's Kingship,
with the family's week centered on the Mass, and day centered on
prayer, is key.
At a minimum, in addition to being encouraged to pray in his own words,
prayers that every Catholic child should know are:
- the prayers of
the Rosary: Apostles' Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and
Fatima Prayer, and the Sign of the Cross (the
very smallest of children should know how and when to sign themselves)
- Blessing before
Meals
- Prayer to
Guardian Angel
- Prayer to St.
Michael
- Act of
Contrition
- Hail, Holy Queen
- The Eternal Rest
Prayer
All of these
prayers can be found in both English and Latin on the Traditional Catholic Prayers, Creeds, and
Ejaculations page of this site (please, if you're able, consider
teaching your children at least the Pater, Ave, and Gloria in Latin).
Prayer should be further encouraged by placing Holy
Water fonts near your front door and in each child's room. They
should be taught what Holy Water is, what using it signifies, and how
to use it -- and parents should bless their children with it, signing
them on their foreheads. Each child's room should also have a crucifix hanging over the bed (these
crucifixes should be blessed by a priest).
You should ask a priest to bless your home as soon as you
move into it. From the Roman
Ritual comes this priestly blessing:
P: Our help is
in the name of the Lord.
All: Who made heaven and earth.
P: The Lord be with you.
All: May He also be with you.
Let us pray. God the Father almighty, we fervently implore you for the
sake of this home and its occupants and possessions, that you may bless
+ and sanctify + them, enriching them by your kindness in every way
possible. Pour out on them, Lord, heavenly dew in good measure, as well
as an abundance of earthly needs. Mercifully listen to their prayers,
and grant that their desires be fulfilled. At our lowly coming be
pleased to bless + and sanctify + this home, as you once were pleased
to bless the home of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Within these walls let
your angels of light preside and stand watch over those who live here;
through Christ our Lord.
All: Amen.
It is sprinkled with holy water.
The blessing of
your home is renewed yearly on the Feast
of the Epiphany. Ideally, too, every family should consecrate their home to the Sacred Heart,
overtly stating their intentions of making Christ the King of their
household.
In
contradistinction to the typical home which has a television set as its
centerpiece, the focal point of a Catholic home should be the family
altar -- a place where the family can gather to offer up their prayers
to the Most Holy Trinity and to ask the Saints to pray for them. Morning Offerings, family Rosaries, prayers for special intentions,
family novenas, Lectio
Divina, etc., can all be made here. 1
Family altars, ideally, should be on the Eastern wall of a home, in the
same orientation as church buildings. The altar can be as simple or as
elaborate as one desires, but should be beautiful and conducive to
contemplation. A few items to consider placing on or around the altar
table are:
Crucifix
Sacred Scripture (Douay-Rheims)
Missal(s)
icons (statues and/or
two-dimensional)
a Holy Water font
a
cellar of blessed salt
charcoal incense burner
Rosaries
vigil candles, candles blessed at Candlemas (to burn on All Saints Day and in
times of trouble), and Baptismal candles (for use at weddings and during Unction)
Other things one
might want to consider are Holy Cards,
flowers, a prie-dieu,
the names of dead family members printed on beautiful parchment so you
may be reminded to pray for them (having their funeral holy cards there
would be nice, too), pictures of the Stations
of the Cross or the Mysteries of the Rosary, something with which
to play sacred music and Gregorian chant, sick call sets, palm
branches from Palm Sunday,
certificate of a papal blessing, etc.
Family altars,
like the rest of the home, can be decorated
according to the liturgical season, changing
tablecloths, sacred images, and flowers according to that Season's liturgical colors and themes (check here to see a list of flowers by
liturgical color). One tip I have is to buy one of those little
tiny 6" easels made to display small pictures, or some decorative place
card holders, and then buy an assortment of Holy
Cards to place on them according to liturgical season or Feast. For
ex., on the Feast of St. Nicholas, a
Holy Card bearing his likeness can be set out; on Good Friday, a card depicting the
Crucifixion; on the family's Name Days,
depictions of their patrons can be placed on it, etc.
Artistic mothers (or fathers with the rare interest) can embroider
altar cloths with appropriate Seasonal symbols and colors. Another idea
is to embroider phrases or appropriate verses from Scripture along the
borders or at the center of altar cloths that summarize the Season's
"mood." The Seasons' colors and some appropriate symbols for them are:
Advent
|
purple |
Advent candles;
Advent wreath; empty crib; St. John the Baptist; "Veni, veni Emmanuel"
(Come, come Emmanuel); "Ecce Dominus veniet" (Behold, the Lord our God
shall come); "Ero cras" (the O Antiphon acrostic meaning "Tomorrow I
come"); the titles given to Jesus in the O Antiphons: Sapientia,
Adonai, Radix Jesse, Clavis David, Oriens, Rex Gentium, Emmanuel |
Christmastide
|
white or gold
|
star; manger,
candles; bells; mother and Child; angels; Christmas candle; holly; ivy;
Christmas rose; poinsettia; Glastonbury
thorn; wreath; Christmas tree; mistletoe; cardinals; robins; yule log;
"Glória in excélsis Deo" (Glory to God in the Highest) |
Time after Epiphany
|
green |
water and wine
of miracle at Cana; fish and loaves; Scallop Shell; "Benedícitus
Dóminus Deus Israel, Qui facit mirabília magna solus a saeculo"
(Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, Who alone doth wonderful
things from the beginning) |
Septuagesima
|
purple |
chains; tears;
"De profúndis clamávi ad te, Dómine: Dómine, exáudi vocem meam" (From
the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord: Let thine ears be attentive to
the prayer of Thy servant) |
Lent
|
purple |
Cross; crown of
thorns; nails; Chalice; Host; "Kyrie eléison" (Lord, have mercy);
"Immutémur hábitu in cinere et cilicio" (Let us change our garments for
ashes and sackcloth) |
Eastertide
|
white or gold
|
empty Tomb; egg;
lamb; the Paschal candle; bells; peacock; butterfly; phoenix; "Christus
Resurrexit" (Christ is risen) |
Time after Pentecost
|
green
|
the number 1,000
(the letter "M" in Roman numerals); Church; Peter's Keys; crown
symbolizing Christ's Kingship; "Christus vincit, Christus regnat,
Christus imperat" (Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands);
"Vive Christus Rex" (Long live Christ the King) |
(Just a little note on setting up altars, nativity scenes, etc.: artistic elements
should be arranged so that the most important is to the right according
to Christ's perspective -- which is to the left side
from our perspective. Recall how in our churches, the left side
of the Church from our perspective is the superior Gospel and
Mary side of the church while the right side from our perspective
is the inferior Epistle and St. Joseph side of the Church. This is
because from the perspective of Christ on the Crucifix which hangs
above or sits on the altar, the Gospel/Mary side is to His
right. In following this principle when setting up a creche, for ex.,
Mary should be to Christ's right -- but to our left.
So, if you have a Crucifix or other representation of Christ on your
altar, keep this in mind.)
Also in keeping with the liturgical Seasons and Feast Days, icons and
statues can be covered with purple cloth during Passiontide (the last
two weeks of Lent); statues of Mary can be crowned with roses in May; lilies (especially blessed
lilies) can be placed there on the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua
(13 June); Advent wreaths can be set
up on the first Sunday of Advent;
the crèche ("nativity scene") could
be set up here during Christmastide, etc. Some families even clothe
statues of Our Lady according to the liturgical season, for example,
dressing her in a black veil for the Feast
of the Seven Sorrows and Good Friday,
in white or gold for Christmas and Easter, etc.
It is very important for parents to make the liturgical year
come alive for their children, to make it a part of the rhythm of their
children's lives. This will help them pay more attention at Mass during
the Gospel and sermons, and it has the psychological benefit of helping
the children feel both "grounded" in a stable, traditional family, and
a part of something "bigger than they are" in terms of the Church, the
cycles of the liturgical year being something shared by Catholics for
millennia. These "little things" connect you to your children, your
children to each other, and your family to the Church. From a secular
angle, it is good, too, to have family history books, family trees,
information about any countries of origin in your family's past, etc.
-- in other words, to have, as much as possible, at least basic
geneaological information -- so that kids have a sense of their
ancestors, feel a part of something much larger than themselves, and
have a sense of themselves as rooted in History. It is also another way
to encourage kids to pray for their dead family members.
Customs for particular Feast Days and Seasons are as varied as the
number of families and countries that exist. These customs touch on
everything from prayers to food to things like Advent calendars, skulls
made of sugar, and bonfires. These are explored elsewhere
on this site, but one thing I'd like to mention here is the
planning and starting of Mary Gardens
in Spring, especially on the Feast
of the Annunciation, and at bulb-planting time (Spring or Fall,
depending on the type of bulb).
During family devotions, "set the scene." Turn down the lights, burn
incense, light candles, play sacred music when appropriate, etc. Use
sensory cues to let everyone know that what will be done now is set
apart and sacred. Of course, prayer throughout the day, aside from
special sacred times, should be encouraged, too; our lives should be a
prayer! An old joke comes to mind: Two Jesuit novices both wanted a
cigarette while they prayed. They decided to ask their superior for
permission. The first asked but was told no. A little while later he
spotted his friend smoking and praying an Ave. "Why did the superior
allow you to smoke and not me?" he asked. His friend replied, "Because
you asked if you could smoke while you prayed, and I asked if I could
pray while I smoked!" The point is that while prayer while going about
the mundane is, of course, always good -- we are exhorted to "pray
without ceasing" -- it is also good to set aside time just to worship
God with no distractions.
But be careful with family devotions: encourage them instead of forcing
them, don't do too much, and consider your children's ages, attention
spans, and temperaments when planning -- e.g., perhaps a decade of a
Rosary would be more fitting than a 5-decade Rosary, or maybe praying a
novena to a favorite Saint
would keep a child's interest better than professing a creed. The point
of family devotions is focusing on God together, as a family, but this
doesn't have to always involve formal prayer; reading stories of the
lives of the Saints, or the making of crafts that relate to Bible
stories or the lives of the Holy Family can serve the purpose as well.
It would
be especially good if at least a small library could
be built up containing books to feed the faith: traditional Catechisms
for children and adults, Butler's "Lives of the Saints," Thomas á
Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," St. Thomas Aquinas's "Summa
Theologica," St. Augustine's "City of God" and "Confessions," the
writings of St. Thérèse de Lisieux (the "Little Flower"), St. John of
the Cross, Teresa of Avila, etc. "Coffee table books" that include
beautiful pictures of Christendom's great works of art and architecture
would be very inspiring, too. The Baltimore Catechism No. 1 and
Baltimore Catechism No. 2 have served the
purpose of educating Catholic children for generations. I have all four
of the Baltimore Catechisms
in this site's Catholic Library -- for
free, in pdf format. There, too, you'll find other books that will help
your children.
Catholic children should be taught about our virtuous Saints! Give your
children heroes, inspire their imaginations and feed their will to do
good. They could be taught about the Saints as their Feast Days are
celebrated throughout the Sanctoral Cycle,
as the family's Name Days are celebrated,
etc. The family as a group should adopt a patron Saint for their home
just as each particular church has its own patron and guardian angel (St. Joseph, patron of families, is a
natural for this cause!). Some families, like some religious orders,
choose a different patron each year on the Feast of the Epiphany. Call on
Saints who have patronage in various situations, such as sickness,
traveling, etc. Hang an icon of St. Martha in your
kitchen, an icon of St. Barbara for
use during storms, etc. No matter what, the Church Triumphant should be
experienced as being as real to your children as the Church Militant!
...And the reality of the Church Suffering should be clear and relevant
to them, too. Though we all have the hope that our dead family members
are already in Heaven, it is possible that they are in Purgatory for a
time. Our beloved dead should never be forgotten, and prayer for them should be a part of
your children's lives. Praying the Blessing After Meals ensures that
the souls of our dead ancestors are prayed for every time we eat. And,
as mentioned above, another tradition is to write the names of your
ancestors on a beautiful piece of paper and keep that paper on your
family altar so the dead will always be remembered and prayed for.
Parents should also bless their children, at the least on the Lord's Day. The traditional way of doing this
is for the children to kneel and for the parent to either place his
hands on the child's head and/or trace a Cross on the child's forehead
while saying:
May Almighty
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless you, my child(ren), for time
and eternity, and may this blessing remain forever with you. Amen
St. Ambrose
wrote of this practice:
You may not be
rich; you may be unable to bequeath any great possessions to your
children; but one thing you can give them; the heritage of your
blessing. And it is better to be blessed than to be rich.
On a different level, Catholic homes should be filled with
secular books, art, music, the necessary things to make crafts,
instruments for family members to make their own music, etc. Every
home, ideally, should
have a globe -- not an atlas (though that would be great, too), but a
hands-on globe, which kids
love to play with and look at.
There
should be plenty to feed the mind and heart, and to engage the body. A
well-trained child should rarely speak of boredom or offer it as an
excuse for getting into trouble or whining; he should learn to
entertain himself, to imagine new games and to marvel at and learn
about the world about him. Young children never hate to read and to
learn! That comes later, after bad teachers who ignore the importance
of phonics and don't know how to engage children's interest make them
feel stupid, and when overuse of television and other video-based media
has robbed them of imagination and
taught them to think in sound-bytes and quick-moving images. It is too
much television and internet video that trains them to feel restless
unless pounding music
and rapid-fire motion are assaulting their senses. For the love of all
that is holy, keep your children far away from large doses of
television and video (and, most certainly, far from
programming that assaults basic Christian morals unless they're "of
age" and you talk with them about what you're seeing). Good TV and
movies never hurt anyone, but large doses of quick-cuts, relentless
soundtracks, commercials, etc. are killers of the soul (Note: if you
want your children to be able to watch the old black and white movies,
don't show them color movies -- and especially don't show them movies
made in the CGI era -- until long after they've been exposed to the
older ones. Many children today have cut themselves off from the world
of classic film by being spoiled by modern colorful, quick-cut-laden,
CGI-based.movies. They simply "cannot" pay attention for the time it
takes to get through classically-paced scenes).
Another killer of the ability to marvel is the bored adult who's lost
that ability himself. Cynical teachers who hate what they do and treat
children like inmates; uncultured parents who haven't picked up a book
in years; Pharisaic parents who forget that the purpose of rules is to
serve charity and who sap the joy out of a child's life with their
drive for power, inane rules, and lack of humor; older teenagers around
them who do nothing but express angst -- if this is what your child
sees, this is what he will model himself after.
If you don't: read, draw, paint, play a musical instrument, do
genealogy, embroider,
knit, purl, tat, whittle, carve wood, dance, make furniture, build
model airplanes, birdwatch, brew beer, ferment wine, make
mosaics, learn foreign languages, shoot rockets, shoot guns, camp, do
archery,
garden, bake, swim, work on cars, write stories, model in clay, fly
kites,
develop screenplays, play sports, collect something, walk in the woods,
write poetry, stargaze, etc. -- I think you
get my point
-- then turn off the T.V., get off the internet for a while, pick
something, and begin now. If you've
lost your child-like love of learning and sense of wonder and play,
pray to
regain it!
A third poison is social media. Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook,
Snapchat -- young people don't belong there, period. With their like
buttons, these media are engineered to hijack the brain's dopamine
reward system; in other words, they're quite literally addictive. For
young females especially, these media -- Instagram, in particular --
serve to increase the peer group to a potentially worldwide scale, but
that peer group is made of other girls they only know in pixel form --
and who bend the truth and tend to post
about how absolutely wonderful their lives are, how rich they are, how
skinny they are, how many boyfriends they have, how gorgeous they are
(with their having had their pictures Photoshopped going unsaid), all
under the sway of corporate-sponsored, anything-but-Christian
"influencers." It
makes for a completely unrealistic view of the world, and it dooms
girls to feelings of insecurity. With Tumblr, the game is to glamorize
depression, gender dysphoria, eating disorders, and the like, and
there, girls compete to
see who is the greatest and "coolest" of all victims of these things.
In addition to keeping away from such bad influences, the growing child
must also have the space, silence, and tools to
marvel, "create," think, and learn.
Prepare a space where he can be a child. But know that part of his job
as a child is to learn to become a self-sufficient adult. To this end,
expect your children to do chores, to clean up after themselves, to learn, as soon
as they're able, to do basic things such as washing dishes, setting the
table, cooking, doing laundry, mowing the grass, changing lightbulbs,
bathing the dog, etc. Never make a
habit of doing for your child what he is able to do for himself! And
don't underestimate your child's capabilities! If
you chase after your child and pick up his toys, make his bed, bring
him snacks and cutlery he can well reach for himself, etc., you're
doing him a great disservice, and teaching him to be selfish, lazy, and
to take for granted that "things just magically get done."
Try to at least have dinner together
as a family, and make dinnertime
pleasant with conversation and games. For things to talk about and
games you can play at the table, download these .pdf
documents:
- Questions for Family Dinner Table
Conversation and For Couples
Pages of questions, in the manner of the books "If" and "The
Book of
Questions," designed to provoke conversation and help people to learn
about one another, perhaps while sitting around the family dinner
table. Before the list of questions are other questionnaires, including
Proust's Questionnaire, the famous, short list of questions James
Lipton poses on "Inside The Actors Studio," the "Questions to Build
Intimacy" for couples, and more. Some of these are for adults; others
are for children and families as a whole.
- Making Family Dinners Fun,
and Things To Do To Kill Time on Long Car Trips
Lots of things you can do at dinnertime, and games you can
play with your family. Almost none of the games require pencils,
paper, dice, cards, or anything but imagination and thought, so they
can be played around the dinner table during dinner itself, as well as
in the car, while waiting in line, etc. Some are
good for younger kids, some are good for older kids and adults, some
are good for all
ages. There is a special section on things to do and play in the car.
- Aesop's Fables
A huge collection of the tales from Aesop. Read a few at dinner and
find out what your children
think the morals of the stories are.
Make good music a part of your family's lives. Play classical
music, Big Band jazz, some of the great crooners, etc., during meals or
on car trips. Make a habit of singing together, at least while working
or driving, and use harmony if you know how.
Take your kids outdoors, and inspire them to look at all the marvels
they can find even in their own back yards -- the flora, the fauna, the
skies, etc. Open up "the Book of Nature"
to them and teach them how to "read" it! Consider making Saturdays a
day for a picnic or what the Italians call a "scampagnata." An idea:
each January, contact your State's tourist office and ask them to send
you guides for local historical sites, parks, museums, farmers'
markets, U-Pick farms, sporting events, etc., and spend the occasional
Saturday making
a little day trip to one of those places/events, bringing a picnic
basket with you. Maybe bringing along a great novel that is read aloud
from only during these outings would be a nice touch.
And on a final note, keep your sense of humor! Life is
serious -- quite serious -- but it is also wondrous and
sometimes
hysterically funny. If you are so stressed, cynical, or rigorist that
you forget the concept of epikeia and how to laugh, then something's
got to give. Deal
with any "toxic traddism" before you
pass that dour trait on to your children or let it
infect your marriage. Pray about it and talk to a spiritual director or
other wise person. You will be happier and healthier, and so will your
family.
Addendum: The
above paragraph was to have been -- and was for a long
time -- the final paragraph to this page. But after having run a
Catholic discussion forum for a few decades now, I think I need to add
something else -- a warning. Catholic parents are understandably -- and
rightly --
concerned about protecting their children from "the world." But I've
seen that many go way too far and engage in a sort of protectionism
that doesn't respect a child's need to fit in with his peers. So many
parents confuse innocence with ignorance, and I find this a very serious problem. Ignorance
pertains to the intellect; innocence pertains to purity of heart. One
can know about every evil under the Sun but still be pure of heart. Our
Lord, for example, was certainly not ignorant about a thing while on
earth, but was still pure of heart!
When children have questions, they need and deserve honest answers
given to them in a manner appropriate to their mental acuity and
emotional
maturity. No child wants to feel "stupid" among his peers! He simply must be aware of what the world is
like lest he be made to feel "stupid," which can only breed resentment.
And that resentment can, once the child becomes a teenager, turn into
full-blown rebellion. Further, your child can't fight what he doesn't
know! Making great "mysteries" of things very often backfires, and this
phenomenon deeply concerns me as I watch Catholic parents try to raise
their children so that they'll one day be faithful Catholic adults.
Parents have to concern
themselves with their children's social needs, their needs to fit in or
to at least not needlessly
stand out as
if they're ignorant relics from some overly-romanticized past that
never existed in the first place. What children wear, their knowledge
of trends and fashions and popular culture -- these things are, to a degree and whether we
like it or not, socially important. Of course, the modern world places
an extremely inordinate emphasis on these things; that's a given. But
if you dress your child so that he doesn't look stylishly modest but
weird, if
you keep him so cloistered that he doesn't know who the biggest
celebrities du
jour are, and so on, you're setting him up to resent you when he is
mocked by his cohort, and you're setting him up, too, to, God forbid,
resent the Holy Faith as well. I repeat: ignorance is not innocence!
I recommend that parents watch some of those very popular but
problematic TV shows and movies with
their children so that their children know about them and can talk about
them, so they don't feel like "freaks" among their peers and also
learn to understand them in the
proper way. Watching these things with
your children gives you the opportunity to talk about them during and
afterward. This also allows you to learn a lot about your child in the
process, hearing about his concerns, what he's experiencing, etc.
Innoculate your children against political correctness by clearly
teaching them what those politically correct ideas are yourself, long before teachers and
movies do it. Then teach them why
those ideas are wrong. You'll
have to educate yourself as to what's being taught in our schools and
universities and through popular culture, and then relate that
information to your children so they're able to understand the ideas
and know how to argue against them. Know the basics of Marxism,
socialism, critical race theory, and gender theory!
Another temptation parents face is that of
overstating their case against something or someone they don't want
their children to have anything to do with. Hyperbolic language,
mischaracterizations, treating the designated "Bad Thing" or "Bad
Person" as all bad, all the time, as possessing no
redeeming qualities, not acknowleding the nature of those things
and people honestly -- all of
these amount to untruths, whether overtly or by omission. Children can
see through those things -- or will come to see through them -- and
when they do, they will come to mistrust you and your perceptions. For
ex.,
if you don't want your child to become a Miley Cyrus super-fan, calling
her "talentless" is not something you should do. It is a lie. She does have talent. She does have a great voice. Your kids
can see that; it's obvious. So your overstating your
case will only cause them to question your other characterizations that
may well be true (e.g., she dresses very immodestly, her example is a
bad influence, etc.). We simply must
be honest with our children
and not
interact with them from a place of fear!
I have to tell you that after having done what I do in the traditional
Catholic world for so many years, I am very afraid that too many parents,
by mishandling what I've talked about in the past few paragraphs, will
be in for a huge, devastating surprise when their children come of age.
Christ, have mercy! Please read this pdf file containing the first
chapter of "The
Coddling of the American Mind," by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan
Haidt, to learn the importance of teaching your kids to be antifragile.
See also: Nonna's Books for Children:
free downloadable books, from FishEaters, for children. In pdf format.
Further Reading and Information
There's a
Stranger in Your House
Please read this
article about what we allow television to do to our families. It is so
sadly true! If you have a television, consider putting it inside a
locked armoire, and hiding the key in a different room -- anything to
make watching it something one has to think about rather than
a matter of mindlessly flipping a switch and getting "hypnotized" for
hours on end. Set limits in other ways: if you don't get rid of it
entirely: use it only for taped movies, or watch it for only X hours a
week, or watch only certain programs that you've chosen in advance (if
you do this, consider taping the programs so you can fast forward past
the commercials and keep your children away from a source of our
materialistic and sexualized attitudes). Whatever you do, be on guard
as to what your children watch, and don't for a minute think that
Saturday morning cartoons are safe. They are filled with New Age
thinking, globalist-agenda brainwashing, sassiness, cynicism, and
ugliness. Two additional articles on the dangers of television follow
this article.
There's a Stranger in Your
House
The Truth
about Men & Church
This is an extremely
important article that reveals, based on a
Swiss study, how crucial it is that fathers -- not just
mothers -- attend church and practice their religion. You will be amazed
at what the study showed. A summary (my emphasis): "In short, if a
father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s
devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper.
If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the
mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children
will become churchgoers (regular and irregular)." Article written by
Robbie Low (an Anglican at the time of writing) and first published in
Touchstone Magazine.
The Truth about Men
& Church
Living the Faith
in Exile
Some words on
living true to Christ's eternal Church while being relegated to the
Catacombs. How can we manage? How can we keep the Faith and Catholic
culture alive in the midst of our pagan culture?
Living the
Faith in Exile
The Christian
Home: A Guide to Happiness in the Home
Though
this work by Fr. Celestine Strub, O.F.M. was given an Imprimatur
in 1934 and, so, uses language we might consider "quaint" nowadays,
this book beautifully describes what Catholic home life should be like.
The book was written in a time when Catholic schools were Catholic, and
Catholic periodicals were Catholic, so remember this as you read of
these things in the book. Now we must be much more wary of what is
passed off as faithful to our religion:
Introduction
Chapter I: Necessity of
Religion in the Home
Chapter II: Prayer in the Home
Chapter III: Catholic
Atmosphere in the Home
Chapter IV: Good Reading in
the Home
Chapter V: Harmony in the Home
Chapter VI: Necessity of Home
Life
Conclusion
Beginning at
Home: The Challenge of Christian Parenthood
This online book
by Mary Perkins includes discussion and study topics that parents
should think through together. The husband and wife in a Catholic
family should make a conscious effort to, as Mrs. Perkins
says, "sacramentalize" family life; in order to do so, they must have
that as a clear goal and discuss together ways of
bringing it about.
Chapter I: The Christian Pattern
Chapter II: Our Neighbors
Chapter III: "...You Did It
Unto Me"
Chapter IV: Things
Chapter V: Places
Chapter VI: Work
Chapter VII: Training for
Life's Work and Play
Chapter VIII: Vocations
Chapter IX: Redeeming the
Times
Chapter X: Sex Education
Chapter XI: Attaining Our
Ideals
Scouting
The need for
children to have a healthy peer group can't be stressed enough. Please
consider getting your kids involved in Catholic Scouting if it's
available where you live. The American
Bishops have a Committe on Scouting, but they are
affiliated with the Boy Scouts, which have gone wonky in the past few
decades and are, of course, not traditionalist. So more serious
Catholics are coming up with their own groups.There are a few
options I know of. The links below
are not a part of the FishEaters website; they're
off-site, to the scouting websites themselves.
Troops of
St. George
Federation of
Northern
Explorers
Knights
and Ladies of St. John de Brebeuf
Footnotes:
1 A few pictures people
have sent of their family altars.
|