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aaron klinefelter
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July 26, 2007
> 9:12 AM
train up a child I was going to call this post "those darned kids" but I thought better of myself. It's really not about the "darned kids," but more about us darned parents being lame. This is something I was thinking about last night and this morning. I've been thinking about this a good bit lately, more acutely because of the process my family is/will be going through to enter the Catholic Church. I'm thinking of how I have taught them over the years, what I've taught them, and it actually is my primary responsibility to teach them and raise them in the Faith. It's no one else's responsibility. It's mine. It's Liz's. If you're a parent, it's YOUR responsibility. You see where I'm going with this. And of course I'll say that there is a sense in which it takes a... community. It does take the Church, of which we are a part, to fully complete the formation of any person. I'm not just talking about the institutional/official classes and staff members. They may play their part but only as organically real members of Christ's Body, working in Him and by His Grace and the power of the Holy Spirit to help in the formation of our children into the Image of Christ. If we're talking front-lines here, though, we're talking about ME as a parent. If you're a Catholic, you should know that the Church teaches you exactly what I'm saying. It's not the Parish council's job, not the Priest's job, not the good Sisters at the school, not their job, or the Youth Minister's job, primarily, to transfer the deposit of Faith into your children. That's supposed to happen in what is called "the domestic church" - your family. Again, all those things and people will and can play their parts but they cannot, and should not, take the place of YOU, the parent. My point is that if you abdicate this responsibility to "the Church," you are doing just that, abdicating a real responsibility that has been given to YOU as a member of "the Church." Therefore, the Church doesn't work as it is supposed to work because an integral part of it is not functioning in it's assigned role. See what I mean? It seems that many many parents have been told, by someone, or at least given the idea somehow, that they just work and live their lives and hand their kids over to the (and I'm talking about Catholic kids here - plug in any Christians, it'll work) Catholic school system or any number of classes provided in their Parishes - and that'll do it. The kids will get all they need there and you can rest easy. Well, they may well get good things, very good things, or they may not, but what they will not get, which is really irreplaceable, is the every-day loving and constant teaching about their lives in Christ and what that means at home - from Dad and Mom (not just Mom and Dad's playing golf please, or working). We want to be nice and say that people shouldn't worry, that everything will be alright, even though this is pretty screwed up and is inherently handicapping of a child's spiritual formation, but that's not helping anything or anyone. It just feels better to say that, and everybody feels nice and cozy and a whole generation of kids end up having little or no faith, not understanding Truth, drifting away from the life of the Church, etc. Sure, a portion of our kids will grab hold of anything about God and the Church even without the parents' involvement. It would be hard to say why that is, but I think this is true, it's an anomaly. That percentage will be very very small indeed and it's not something to be counted on. Most of us won't gravitate that way as children if it's not lovingly handed on to us by our parents and constantly reinforced in our homes. Most kids aren't that kid. Of course one needs to be on the journey of real transformation themselves in order to pass something like that along. We can make sure of that. And I'm not talking about an extremely high bar here, or that everyone has to be a theologian or a mystical contemplative. Should we all know a little bit of theology and be just a tad bit of a contemplative? I think so. I think that's bare-bones Christianity. And if you're a Catholic, what in the world? You've got a deeply RICH well to draw from. Everybody else is drawing from it, why don't we dip into it ourselves? No reason really. Sometimes people don't realize the well is there I think, and that's not their fault. In this day, though, access to the deep, rich stuff is not just at the hands of the monks any more. It's right here. Grab hold of it and drink deeply! And then teach your kids to do the same. I know some of that up there sounded a little bit hard. It sounds hard to me when I hear it ringing in my own heart. That's what I hear. I thought it would be helpful to share. We have to know this, too, even though we've not, perhaps, done our part perfectly: God is merciful. His Love leans toward mercy for us. He WANTS to pick up our slack. We can turn to Him and He will do everything He can do inside the maze of our wills, to turn all things to good. So, we shake ourselves awake (because His Grace alarm has roused us up) and we go forward. technorati tags > catachesis, religious education, children and faith, catholic faith, spiritual formation Labels: catholic, church, family, spiritual formation 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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