October 22, 2015 WBAS Topics For Families, REL PD - Family Faith
By: Kathy Hendricks
You can tell a lot about a family by looking at their refrigerator door. Photos tell stories about relationships and rituals. Schedules and appointment reminders highlight favorite activities and everyday needs. Postcards and kids’ schoolwork showcase connections with larger circles of involvement. The fridge door can be a showcase for family faith.
By now most of us are familiar with references to the home as the domestic church and parents as the primary educators of their children when it comes to the formation of faith. What I love about refrigerator doors is how they illustrate the “non-structured” nature of at-home catechesis. The General Directory for Catechesis describes it as one “…more witnessed to than taught, more occasional than systematic, more ongoing and daily than structured into periods.”(255)
I first experienced this while growing up in a large Catholic family. The stories we told and rituals we enacted brought an informal understanding of the larger Story and sacramental life of the Church. Embracing the good and rejecting what was destructive laid the groundwork for an appreciation of Christian morality. Praying around the dinner table and welcoming guests constituted the groundwork for a personal spirituality and recognition of my family’s place in a larger community. My parents may never have thought of themselves as catechists but they fulfilled their roles as “primary educators” in ways that were rich and profound. In raising my own children, my husband, Ron, and I have strived to do the same.
One of the most cherished aspects of being a national catechetical consultant for Sadlier is the opportunity I have to travel the country and speak about faith formation in the family. More than once I have invited participants in workshops and presentations to describe what’s on their refrigerator doors. This becomes a springboard for discussion around the everyday events and interactions that support and nourish family faith. Give it a try. You may discover a whole new way in which your home is a locus for the domestic church!
Bright Ideas
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My webinar on “Making the Family Connection in Catechesis” offers additional ideas about family faith. Share it with your catechists, teachers, and parents as a way to support and affirm the family as domestic church.
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Download my Prayer for a Merciful Home and share it with your family or as part of a parish gathering to affirm the importance of the home as a locus for faith and mercy.