Forming Spiritual Values: A Christian Vision of Family Life
Sr. Mary C. Mullaly, FMA, EdD
The Church has always placed great emphasis on the family, maintaining that ordinary family life contains within it moments of great significance for the development of the person and for the vitality of the whole Church. Pope John Paul II stated in a recent address to parents that "as the family goes, so goes the Church, and so goes human society as a whole." Families engender the values and teach the skills that are essential to being a disciple of Christ.
If parents are the primary educators, the question at hand is how best can the school become a community of families, offering adequate support for the dimension of the family's vocation related to spiritual growth in the home?
Often, a danger in this area on the part of well-intentioned persons in ministry is conveying a subtle implication that contemporary families are in need of "fixing" by the Church or school, as certain as that might appear. This attitude can eventually effect a disempowering rather than enabling of families. If families are the center of the Church's life and mission, then the school will strive for a true working relationship which includes respecting them as partners and earning their trust.
It is crucial in today's post-Vatican II era that educators in the Catholic school have a keen understanding of the primacy of families and their relationship to the Church. Once this is clearly established, the school is in a position to assist families, and specifically parents, in their role of formation.
Moving Toward Center
Today's age is one of high tech, high-speed driving, and high stress, not to exclude high prices and high taxes! The second half of the twentieth century brought explosive growth and development in almost every area of our culture. Is it any wonder, then, that more and more people find themselves on a quest to find the spiritual center of their lives?
Recently, I visited a beautifully scenic retreat center overlooking the Pacific Ocean. One of the retreat directors mentioned that an increasing number of persons of all faiths are seeking their spiritual center. This trend is especially true for individuals high up the professional career ladder, as evidenced by the growing number of books on spirituality in the business section of large bookstores. One of the many groups making retreats are executives from the very hub of high technology, "Silicon Valley." These individuals are all in search of one thing: connecting to their own spiritual identity.
If individuals are looking to spirituality for a personal sense of direction, so, too, must spirituality be looked to as a primary resource for families. Families, after all, serve as a bridge between the individual and the Church at large.
Challenges to Families
The rapid pace of social change, its impact on values within our culture, the intrusion in our homes of the mass media, and the impact of political and economic conditions, pose great challenges to families today. Many pressures come from within the family unit, caused by poor choices by some family members.
Divorce has also taken a heavy toll on family life, often creating in young people the fear of making a lifetime commitment. It often reduces a family to poverty and other social ills. Some families face multiple burdens of child care, health care, unemployment, child/spouse abuse, alcoholism, drugs, crime, and violence often compounded by poverty, racism, and other forms of discrimination. Families, in their brokenness, are reflections of the brokenness of society, and hence, of the entire Church.
While many Church families may be spared the extreme expressions of this brokenness, each has problems in varying degrees. The Church needs to communicate strongly the message that there is no such thing as "a perfect Christian family," just as there is no such thing as "a perfect Christian" in this life. As were the shells I picked up on the beach at the retreat center, we are all fragile and in various stages of wholeness, "chippedness," or brokenness.
"The Church of the Home"
Do you remember as a child weaving your fingers together inwardly toward the palms of your hands and reciting the verse, "Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the door and see all the people"?
Family life is sacred because family relationships confirm and deepen the union with Christ we acquired at Baptism. The ordinary moments of daily living—preparing meals, caring for a sick member, cleaning the house, relaxing or vacationing together, holding family meetings—are some of the ordinary ways a family can weave together a pattern of holiness.
The family is our first community, one in which the Lord gathers and forms us, and through whom he acts in this world. The early Church called the Christian family a domestic church, or church of the home. Unfortunately, this concept went underemphasized for centuries, but was reintroduced by Vatican Council II and is frequently echoed in many succeeding documents. In the words of Pope John Paul II:
The family is the basic cell of society. It is the cradle of life and love, the place in which the individual is born and grows.
—Lay Ministers of Christ's Faithful People, 1988, #40
Family Influences on Formation
The family is not the sole formative influence on the child; the school, friends, the parish, organizations (sports teams, scouts), the media in all their forms, and countless other forces mold and shape us. With all these influences, however, it is not possible to overemphasize the importance of the family to a childís total development.
The formation of the home includes all aspects: physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Since the spiritual dimension of life is all encompassing, it is the sphere of our lives wherein all other dimensions find expression. In the home, whatever formation takes place touches our spiritual lives, whether for good or for ill.
In Family, the Forming Center (Upper Room Books, 1997), Marjorie Thompson maintains that families communicate the values and visions of faith in two basic ways. The first is through the natural opportunities of life together: occasions that characterize the relational aspect of family. The second way, she believes, is through intentional practices: structures and patterns that support the spiritual potential within families of faith.
While the growth of our life in Christ is a gradual process, it can be nurtured throughout our lives. Christian spiritual formation requires conscious choice as well as responsive awareness to the life of Christ within. Thompson believes that families of committed Christian faith are privileged places of intentional formation in Christ and the primary places of faith formation for children as well as ongoing adult spiritual growth.
School Influences on Family Formation
The Catholic school is uniquely positioned to supply what todayís society no longer provides, namely, a Christian vision of family life. The vision we are speaking of goes beyond theological teachings to a personal, interactive reinforcement. Thompson reminds us that marriage is not the only vocation of a family, but that rearing children is also a vocation; and, because of this, parents need formation for the vocation of child rearing.
As the document The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School (27) explains, children should come to think of the school as an extension of their homes, which is why the "school-home" should have a pleasant and happy family atmosphere. When this aspect is missing from the home, the school can often do a great deal to help make up for it. And even if surroundings are modest, students can be made to feel at home "if the climate is humanly and spiritually rich" (28). The school has a unique distinction to offer families when it comes to stressing not only quality time, but also adequate time with children.
Many adults are unsure where or how to begin spiritual practices at home. They may lack confidence in their ability to communicate faith. Catholic-school educators should consider it part of their mission to provide ample opportunities to parents to enable them to integrate their daily family lives with spiritual development.
How can we, as Catholic-school educators, most meaningfully share the special gift of mission and formation with parents and their families? The first step is to make a conscious effort to educate ourselves, our co-workers, and then the community to the primary role of the family and its importance to the Church and society. We then view ourselves more in the position of servant leaders and resource persons who educate and inform.
Following are some suggestions that might be included in a family formation program:
• Family Formative Letters—Administrators can include a parent page in monthly distributions or mailouts. Great opportunity to follow the liturgical calendar and give seasonal formative thoughts.
• Spirit Literature Fair—Arrange for a parent book fair of literature on parenting skills, including a good selection of books on Christian formation in the home. Best introduced at a parent-teacher meeting.
• Guest Speakers—Again, parent-teacher meetings are ideal for inviting speakers who address forming spiritual values in the family.
• Family Growth Center—Create a special parent corner in the school library or another accessible place where parents can come in and browse or check out books related to parenting and family formation.
• Guidepost Nights—Provide special evenings for parents, perhaps a mini-retreat, where parents can come together to pray, reflect, and share (effective way to initiate parent support groups).
• Prayer Club—Invite families to compose a prayer together and submit it to the school. The school might publish some of these monthly for other families to use.
• Family Days (or Nights)—Just as the saying goes that "the family that prays together, stays together," so, too, does the family that plays together. Annual family picnic days with games and family skate nights are just a couple of the ways to provide occasions for families to have fun together as a family and with other families.
• Home Activities—Send home ideas for family activities, crafts, prayer services (donít overlook the wealth of blackline reproducible letters, formative information, and prayer services provided regularly in Todayís Catholic Teacher).
In his 1994 Letter to Families, the Holy Father stressed that it is important that families attempt to build bonds of solidarity among themselves. "This," he says, "allows them to assist each other in the educational enterprise: Parents are educated by other parents, and children by other children. Thus, a particular tradition of education is created which draws strength from the character of the domestic Church proper to the family" (16).
We Are One Family
If the school places Christian family formation as a priority, it also bears the responsibility for helping families learn intentional Christian practices in the home. We, as educators, are in a unique position, one in which we can assist families to be the Body of Christ in the home settings where unconditional love, affirmation, responsibility, and forgiveness are known; places where rituals, symbols, and stories of faith are shared.
We can remind families that they are not holy because they are "perfect," but because God's grace is at work in them, helping them to set out every day on the way of love. Are we not all on the journey? We educators and families share one Lord, one faith, one Baptism; we are all one family of Christ.
A FAMILY PLAN
Tips for Parents on Forming Spiritual Values
Parents often turn to us as educators to advise or assist them in their Christian call to parenthood. Following are some tips we can use in our own homes as well as share with our school families.
Families can carry out the mission of the Church of the home in many ordinary ways, when they
F Foster intimacy with the Lord. To be able to share yourselfóboth good and bad qualitiesówithin a family and to be accepted, forming a close relationship with the Lord is indispensable. This also assists family members in being able to forgiveóto let go of hurts and grudges and make peace with one another.
A Affirm and try to serve one another, often sacrificing your own wants for the other's good. Affirm life as a precious gift from God, opposing whatever destroys life. Shun violent words and actions, looking for peaceful ways to resolve conflict.
M Meet with one another, especially for meals whenever possible. Pray together, thanking God for blessings, reaching for strength, asking for guidance in times of crisis and doubt. Attend Mass together.
I Involve yourselves with one another; in other family members’ projects, activities, special days and events. Take an active interest in all that family members do.
L Love and never give up valuing the other person. Before children understand God from "the pulpit," they form a picture of God drawn from their earliest experiences of being loved by parents and other family members.
Y Be "yes"people! Don't be afraid to have to compromise or give in on occasion to one another. Don't be afraid to also say "yes" to God when he calls us to serve him.
(Adapted from Follow the Way of Love: A Pastoral Message of the U.S. Catholic Bishops for Families, NCCB, 1993, pp. 9-10)
Sr. Mary C. Mullaly, FMA, Ed.D., a Salesian Sister of St. John Bosco, is director of the master's degree Catholic School Leadership Program at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, TX.
©1999 Peter Li, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce.
