FAITH BEGINS AT HOME the formula of the Trinity was hammered out in the language of 'nature' and 'persons': three persons in one nature. It is a formulation to preserve the truth of the astonishing dignity of the Christian life, the uncreated, divine Christian life, the life of divine grace. It must defend the truth thai Jesus is truly one of us, a real human being and just as truly Son of God, not some sort of sub-god but divine wilh the divinity that is the source of the being of all that is. Without this he could not be loved by the Father, loved with an adult love, not just as a creature but as an equal. Without this it would not be God who became human, it would not be God who died for us on the cross, and so we could not become God. Cod gives us himself Our doctrine must defend the truth ihat Jesus, Son of God, is distinct from the Father that there may be love between them, And it must defend the truth thai me Spirit of God that we have been given lo live by is not simply some great created gift, some extraordinary' embellishment of our humanity, but is the very life of God himself. In giving us the Spirit, God gives us himself. The source of the being of all that is, the uncreated life of love that subsists eternally between Father and Son — this same love, moreover, subsists between believers and those they love. It is because of the doctrine of the Trinity, or the truth that this doctrine expresses, that we can point to the love between people and say quite literally: There is God. (Jbl caritas el amor. Dens ibi est — 'Wherever there is charity and love, there is God' (From the liturgy of Holy Thursday) It is because of this truth and the Iruth of the incarnation of God the Son that we can speak not just to our maker, our creator on whom all our being depends, but we can take part in, and make our own, the eternal dialogue of love which is the ultimate meaning of all that is. We can speak with our eternal Father because we are in Christ his Son by the gift of the Holy Spirit of love. For you have received the Spirit of sonship. When we cry 'Abba Father' it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Faith begins at home Will our children inherit the faith? This is a question which is often put to Elizabeth Davies, a mother of four children, who works for the Diocese of Menevia Family Life Ministry. Here she emphasises how important the home is in the handing on of faith and then offers some resources. Elizabeth Davies P UBLICITY SURROUNDING the symposium earlier this year on Religious Education organised by the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales Department for Education and Formation has added fuel to a long-running debate on the quality of RE in our Caiholk schools. As a mother of four children and a highly committed practising Catholic I too am very concerned about the religious education of our young people. I work in family ministry and the question of our children's spiritual development is, with barely an exception, the concern of every pareni I meet: will our children inherit our faith and how can we deal with their apparent indifference to traditions and practices that were so important in our childhood'.' Recently I was given the opportunity to study pastoral ministry with families at Regis University. Denver, and so I have been able to explore some of priests & People, JUNE 2000 FAITH BEGINS AT HOME eventually they are able to fend for themselves a bit more and don't want our help. They want to be big children and pour their own orange juice from the carton, and as parents we have to let them — or how else can they learn? Then they go on to say that they don't even like the orange juice we buy — they prefer another varieiy. Much further down the line we discover that our orange juice wasn't all that bad really — it was just a phase they were going through! The first point I would like to make is that there is absolutely no point in criticising our teachers and laying blame for the apparent decrease in faith at their doorstep — nor at the doorstep of the religious education programme. It undermines their work and feeds the paranoia which is at the heart of all of us, if we are honest about ourselves. Our teachers and schools do their very best and who can ask for more? God doesn't, that is certain. Nearly 25 years ago John Westerhoff pointed out that the 'schooling-instructional' method of religious education does not work in terms of developing faith. Sure, our children will learn their prayers and the teachings of Jesus in this way, bul neither of these things can be said to amount to faith. We come back to the o!d adage that faith must be caught not taught. But how can we Ihrow the ball so they can catch it? The work of Jarnes Fowler interests me greatly. He used Piagei's work in educational psychology and applied it to faith development. When you examine the stages of development that he outlines it has great relevance for the way we spiritually raise our children. 1 have to reaffirm here that I am nothing like an expert in these matters — they just seem to make sense to me as a mother. Very young children are dependent on us, their parents, for everything. It begins with the first feed and nappy change until Challenging our faith Spiritual development is much the same — at the risk of sounding anodyne. Our little children accept our faith at face value but as Ihey grow and develop they challenge it and maybe throw it out altogether — along with their higher than natural opinion of us. We know this but maybe we don't appreciate lhat it is just a stage in their development. As more mature human beings we need to help them find their way on to the next stage — rather than become caught up in confrontation. There is, after all, a lot of emotion tied up with all this. The point, however, is that we can use that early stage in their development. When they are receptive and trusting of us we must teach them, as best we can, all that they need to see them through that phase when they kick both us and our faith into touch. This doesn't mean a crash course in dogma for five-year-olds. Rather, an environment conducive for learning about love, which is Ciod's other name, and life. Here I have to state the obvious: the home is the place for developing faith in God, not school. School builds on what happens in the home, not vice versa. Domestic church of the family Vatican II revived the ancieiil name of the family as the 'domestic church'. We would do well to promote and develop this honourable title among our families. It means (hat the family has all it needs to be church right inside its own four walls. The fundamental difference between the church of the home and that of the parish or diocese or Priests & People, JUNE 2000 FAITH BEGINS AT HOME province is size. Families teach, celebrate, break bread, remember and give of themselves to each other every single day. The family home is where our children first experience acceptance, love and, yes, correction and forgiveness, when needed. We know from experience that where families don't do well the problems become very, very difficult to resolve. The damage is nearly impossible to undo, and cyclical in its effect. If we accept that families are the first teachers of their children, we should think about how we can help them be just thai. Again, this is not a matter for programmes but for creating a way of living, of involving our faith in the lives of our families. This involvement slarts by recognising the intrinsic sacredness of family life, that is, by identifying the many ways in which what Jesus asks of us is already lived out in our homes. Michael Himes suggests that one of the 'least inadequate' ways of thinking of God is 'as pure and perfect self-gift, as the relationship of agapic love'. It's easy to see how Christ can be seen as self-gift. Parents, however, often fail to recognise the same principle in, for instance, that nocturnal moment when they wrench themselves from a deep slumber and a warm bed to attend to the needs of the child who has just rudely awoken them. Or indeed in any occasion when the demands of that other take precedence over personal preference. The love that enables our self-sacrifice, our continual giving, is that part of us which is God. In proclaiming this, we acknowledge the essential holiness of family life. We take one siep towards what the Pope refers 10 as restoring the family's 'reasons for confidence in itself1 (Familiarly comnrtio 86). Home rituals Another step involves connecting the ritual of the home with the ritual experienced in church. Families have their own ways of celebrating: milestones such as birthday parties and wedding anniversaries come round at regular intervals. Then there are the movable feasts sueh as passing the driving test, winning a place in the netball team, or losing that first tooth. Just as our domestic celebrations bring together all the joy, love, hopes and happiness (and sorrows) of family life, so we should be able to find parallels in the parish church. The disadvantage for me parish church is that it has to recreate these signs of grace in a more artificial environment. A family home, however, is a natural place for the warmth and emotion of remembering, story-telling, laying the table and sharing the meal. Judaism has the advantage over us here in that the Passover feast is both home-centred and familyorientated — indeed the youngest child is an essential part of the proceedings! But Edward Hays reminds us that the first altar was a kitchen table. He suggests that we need to 'recall and revive the sacredness of the family meal, to regard eating together as worship and prayer'. How radical it would be if families were positively encouraged to enjoy their meals in this way! We might even consider introducing the blessing cup into the routine, sharing it between us to mark both the high and low points of our lives, seeing God in all things. support for parents Involving faith in God in the lives of our families demands that we also offer constructive support to parents in acquiring the skills necessary for bringing up their children as children of God. We can offer all the suggestions for prayer activities we like but if the home is a place lacking in justice and peace then we are building on sand. So much of family spirituality is based on how a family is together, rather than what it does when it says its prayers. Remember Cain and his unworthy offering? I see echoes too of St Teresa and her 'little way' in this principle. True faith is demonstrated in the way we treat our brothers and sisters, our husband and our wife, our children and our parents. It is real prayer in action based on 'whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, you do unto me'. Responsible parenting doesn't always happen naturally: it sometimes needs a little help. Even the best of parents sometimes relish the opportunity to step back and re-examine the way they do things and even, maybe, learn some new techniques. Parenting classes, particularly those of the Family Caring Trust, can almost be defined as parent retreats. They should be offered as a matter of course by any body interested in the faith development of its young. Resources for prayer Once we have offered families ways and means of enriching their relationships, and creating that elusive environment conducive for learning about love and life, we can then move on to more traditional religious practices. Resources abound nowadays for families wishing to explore a varied prayer life. It would be impossible to list them all. Priests & People, JUNE 2000 FAITH BEGINS AT HOME The bedtim* One of many books which incorporate both old a. new traditions is Kathleen O'Connell Chcsto's Family Prayer far Family Times. More suggestions for family activities based on the Church's year can be found in The Family Celebrates, an inexpensive series of booklets produced by the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton. Every family should have a Bible suitable for children but I have also found Michael Forster's series of family bedtime books very good. The Bible-based stories are all just long (or short?) enough and are retold with sufficient humour and insight to reward even the most exhausted parent — for whose benefit some short prayers and reflections are also included. For older children. Flor McCarthy's imaginative retelling of the Gospels in everyday language in Lei The Light Shine can hardly be bettered. On doctrine, a really essential tool for parents who hate to struggle with theological niceties (myself included!) is the Catechism of the Catholic Church — Family Style, by David M. Thomas and Mary Joyce Calnan. It's extremely 'family friendly', and uses everyday language and stories to bring the riches of our faith not just to life but to real life. Whereas programmes of religious education in schools will always have their limitations, the family is the natural place to foster faith. The parable of the sower demonstrates all too clearly the differences in outcome when seed lands on fertile soil as opposed to siony ground. By focusing all our limited resources on school-based religious education we have overlooked, even disempowered, the first teachers of our children. This balance needs to be redressed and diocesan family ministry programmes seek to do just this. Using a variety of resources to listen to the needs of families, they offer acceptance, support and opportunities to celebrate. It's high time that the domestic church was brought in from the cold and accorded its proper dignity, alongside that of the school and parish. If we return to Westerhoff, who identified the weaknesses of the schoolinginstructional mcihod all (hose years ago, we find that he came up with a more fruilfui alternative called faithenculturation. He explained it as the faithful transmission of the tradition through ritual and life, in the context of a community of faith. I would argue that our first community of faith lily, where transmission of tradition ;adily, and that, as Westerhoff further points out, -Our children will have faith if we have faith and are faithful/ Bibliography \\akerin2; Mtrnmmon, 1907. • Chesto, Kathleen O'Connell. Family Prayer for Family Twenty-Third Publications, 1995. • Forster, Michael. A Storv, a Hug and a Prayer: a family bedtime bonk. Bury Si Edmunds: Kevin Mayhew, 1994. • Fowler, James W. 'Faith Development Through ihe Family Faith: CathetU N//V i,oun;-hnok. EJ. John" Roberto. N'eu York: Don Bos Multimedia. 1990. pp.9lJ-126. for nur'.hip in the home. Leaven worth: Forest of Peace Publishing. 1979. Press, 1995. • McCarthy, Plot. Let the Light Shine. Dublin: Veritas, 1994. • Thomas, Djvid \I. & Caln^i. Mar. low. The CuiecMum oj the Catholic-Church — turnip Srvfc. Allen: labor Pub, 1994, • Travnikar, Rock. The Blessing Cup. Cincinnati. OH: Si • Westerhoff, John H. Will Our Children Have Faith? New York: Seabury Press, 1976. Priests & People, JUNE 2000