Communion with Christ and the Church

Communion with Christ and the Church begins with the Domestic Church, the family. The faith that was nurtured in me, as one of nine in a loving, fun and devout Catholic family, has certainly inspired the passion and joy I have as Director of Family Faith at St. Vincent dePaul Parish in Stirling.

The unity of our family, through love rooted in Christ in the Eucharist and prayer, especially the rosary, was most important to my parents. Even though we are all married now, with a total of 35 children among us, we enjoy spending as much time as possible with each other’s families, including holidays and vacations.

Growing up, we engaged in many interesting conversations about the faith. To this day, all of us and our families have a deep love and appreciation for our Catholic faith.

A national faith survey, including multiple faiths, was recently conducted and analyzed in the book, Handing Down the Faith — How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation.

The study revealed the following three key determining factors, consistent in all faith traditions, in handing down the faith, from one generation to the next whereby children will continue to practice and live the faith into adulthood: families talking daily about religion in the home; parents attending religious services at least once a week, and religious faith is extremely important to parents.

The Church has consistently taught that parents “are the primary educators of their children … and that the childhood religious awakening which takes place in the family is irreplaceable.”

A beautiful aspect of faith formation that Father Richard Carton, pastor, and I developed, is the involvement of parents in every aspect of the program. In response to a noticeable decline in Mass attendance, we restructured the program, so that Mass became the primary component. Sunday Masses are now filled with families. Parents attend with their children and then immediately after, attend a 30-minute family faith session in which they learn and discuss the faith as a family. Families also complete home assignments involving reading and discussing Bible passages.

Many parents see the benefits of Mass-centered family faith. One father of a seventh-grader, commented, “I think the program you run is beneficial to our younger generation and is taught in a way to include the parents bringing the two together with love in the name of Christ.”

In the new Church’s Directory of Catechesis, a deepening emphasis is being placed on catechesis in the family, with the family and of the family. The Directory also emphasizes the integral link between Mass and catechesis. “The liturgy is one of the essential and indispensable sources of the Church’s catechesis, not only because catechesis is able to draw its contents, vocabulary, actions, and words of faith from the liturgy, but above all because the two belong to one another in the very act of believing … liturgy and catechesis are inseparable and nourish one another.”

Communion with Christ and the Church happens in fullness at Mass. Pope Benedict XVI stated, “Without the Eucharist, the Church simply does not exist.”

In my journey of searching for deeper communion with Christ, I began attending daily Mass 20 years ago. One of the gifts Jesus, as Eucharist, has brought me is inner peace and a greater clarity in my purpose in life of knowing, loving, and serving him. There have been days when the gift of inner peace seems to escape me. Then I reflect and realize that I was unable to attend daily Mass that day. This experience is itself a gift from God.

My ministry of leading others to communion with Christ and the Church would simply not be fruitful without my total dependence on Jesus through prayer and the Eucharist. The joy I feel when seeing families at Mass is because I know Jesus will ultimately nourish their hearts and minds, leading them to himself.