Bulletin Column: Family Life and Passing on the Faith, Part II

Greetings in Christ on the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. Continuing with our reflection on the concept of family catechesis we may recall from my last article that the Church, reflecting on both Scripture and Tradition, describe “the role of parents in education” to be of “such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute” and that “the right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable.” (CCC 2221) Considering the Church’s strong language, it is clear that parents have the primaryresponsibility to be the educators of their children and that this is deeply rooted in God’s vision for the family. We concluded that the family catechesis model of faith formation used at St. Michael is designed to uphold that vision, through encouraging and equipping parents to be the spiritual leaders of their homes. Today, I would like to take a closer look at what the Church means by the word education and what is the most effective form of education when passing on the faith to our children.

When the word education is used today there are a number of preconceived ideas that most people hold. It is assumed that we are talking about classrooms, curriculums, teachers, or formal instruction in particular subjects, skills, trades, or professions. Education in modernity is primarily seen as an action of the intellect. Education in this context is important for every person to be able to mature into a well-balanced individual and is an essential foundation for the common good and for creating a healthy and stable society. However, when the Church speaks of parents as educators it has a broader idea in mind. When we consider the root meaning of the word education, we encounter notions like to lead, to draw out, to nurture, to rear, to train, or to mold. With these ideas in front of us we begin to get a clearer picture of what the Church means when describing parents as primary educators. The historic use of the word education certainly includes intellectual formation, which is how most people understand it today, however, it also includes dimensions that are not always considered like morality, socialization, vocational discernment, and spiritual formation. At its core, the Church is teaching that parental responsibility for the education of children is about the formation of the whole child and what kind of person that child will eventually become. In the context of the Catholic Faith this means that parents are to lead their children to become fully mature and intentional disciples of Jesus Christ.
 
What is the best approach to leading and nurturing our children to become fully mature disciples of Jesus Christ? In the Church today this conversation is often reduced to discussions about curriculums and education models, with an almost exclusive focus on intellectual formation. Of course, I deeply believe in faith formation for our children and advocate for passing on the heritage of our Catholic intellectual tradition, but the most effective means of passing on the faith does not happen in the classroom. St. Pope Paul VI reminded the faithful in his apostolic exhortation, Evangelization in the Modern World, that “…the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life… modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” (EN 41) It is only when parents themselves become mature disciples, leading lives as authentic witnesses of Christ, that they are truly able fulfill the command of Christ to “make disciples of all nations.” (Matt. 28:19) The “nations” Christ speaks of certainly includes the whole world, but in very real sense it’s about making disciples to those all around us, including our children with whom the Faith better caught than taught. In my next article on October 8, we will take a closer look at what a mature and intentional disciple looks like.

To be continued…