By Susan Ciancio
This week we celebrate the feast of St. Monica and her son, St. Augustine. For nearly 20 years, St. Monica prayed that Augustine would return to the Catholic faith. She agonized over his actions and his disbelief, and she prayed fervently for his soul. Her prayers were finally answered.
Sadly for many, Monica’s life in that respect is very relatable. Children adopt secular ways of life, they forego Mass to sleep in or party, or they outright renounce the faith we so desperately try to instill in them.
The heartache that parents feel is real. It’s raw. It’s gut-wrenching. And it leaves parents wondering where they went wrong. Yet even those parents—like St. Monica—who seemingly did everything “right” endure this heartache. Children employ their own free will, and when we see them make bad decisions, it breaks our hearts.
So while there is no easy fix and no sure fire way to help our children remain faithful to the Church and to Christ’s teachings, we all have the responsibility to try. After all, it’s our job to get our spouses and children to heaven.
We can bring faith into our daily lives in many ways, but when we love, protect, pray, and educate on a daily basis, we can rest assured that God hears our prayers and sees our efforts. Doing these things doesn’t mean our children will never leave the faith, but it helps keep faith front and center, where it should be.
Love
Our children are immense gifts to us, and so we must treat them as gifts. That means that we let them know that they mean the world to us and that we take great responsibility for their souls. Sometimes parents need to employ tough love, and what that looks like can be very different in every family. But someday God will ask us what we did with the gifts He gave us—specifically our children—and it is our responsibility to say that we loved them unconditionally, treated them with dignity, and showed them the love of Christ.
Protect
Protecting our children looks different at different ages because threats come in all shapes and sizes. When children are small, we protect them from harmful TV shows, from mean friends, from inappropriate books, and so on. As they grow older, we must continue to protect them from these things, but we then add in social media and even news outlets and specific teachers and teachings. Part of protecting children means arming them with the ability to protect themselves. That means educating them in the faith so that they can battle the secular forces on their own and feel secure in doing so.
Pray
We must pray unceasingly for our children. We certainly should set aside time each day to pray, but during the days when you have a few minutes, say a quick prayer, ask their Guardian Angel to watch over them and help them make good decisions, and offer up your sufferings for them. Let them know their soul matters to you. It’s okay to tell them that you’re praying for them, and it’s important to let them see you pray. Modeling that prayerful relationship with God allows them to also develop that relationship. At the very least, it makes them think. Even planting small seeds can reap a huge harvest. Oftentimes when I go to Adoration, I take a picture of the monstrance and text it to my kids with just a quick note that I love them and that I said prayers for them there. Even if they don’t respond or simply send a smiling face back, kids, especially adult kids, need to know that we care enough to pray for them.
Educate
Finally, no matter how old our children are, we must never stop teaching the faith. Just as when we want to get to know a new friend we ask questions, we have conversations, and we learn about each other, the same goes for our relationship with God. If we don’t get to know our Heavenly Father, how can we grow in love for Him? There are thousands of ways—big and small—to teach kids of all ages about Jesus and about the faith He started. Lessons from the Culture of Life Studies Program can be taught at home, in schools, or in CCE programs, and we have something for all ages (pre-K-12th grade). You can also share articles, watch faith-filled documentaries, listen to podcasts, read books together, and more. Many of these suggestions also work for adult children.
There’s so much beauty in Catholicism. When we recognize that beauty and live in awe and wonder of God’s love, of the Eucharist, of the saints in all their glory, of our Blessed Mother, and of the countless beautiful teachings, and when we pass that on to our children, we take one step closer to eternity with God our Father.
