By Susan Ciancio
Someone asked me recently what I thought were the principal responsibilities of a Catholic parent. The first answer that popped into my head was to get your child to heaven. But then I thought about it and amended my response. It’s to help your child learn to choose heaven themselves.
The only person we can get to heaven is our own self. Our children eventually make their own decisions, especially as they grow into adulthood. Thus, it is our responsibility to teach them the truths of the faith so that they are well equipped to make that choice on their own. That is how we help get them to heaven.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues.”
If you’re like me or the millions of other saddened parents around the country after seeing the culture of death win in the midterms, you understand that our kids and grandkids are in trouble. Morality is lacking—even laughed at—in today’s world.
But just as no one is ever too far gone for Christ to redeem them, our country can always find its way back. If we want to elect people who vote against laws that embrace threats to the sanctity of life, such as abortion and euthanasia, we must start teaching pro-life values at home.
That is one of the many responsibilities of a Catholic parent.
Someday we will be held accountable for what we taught our children, what we exposed them to, how we led them in the faith, and the values we instilled. We will have to look Christ in the face and explain our actions. Do we want to admit that phones and TV were more important than talking about God with our children? Do we want to explain that we were too busy to teach them to pray, too apathetic to take them to Mass, or too disinterested to read about the saints? Do we want to tell Christ that we put earthly wants and desires, or other people, before the souls of our children?
If we desire to stand before our Lord and be welcomed into heaven, we must actively choose Him—in thoughts, words, and actions. The reality is that, if we repeatedly tell God we want worldly things before Him, if we do not choose God here on earth, and if we constantly push Him away, He will give us what we have asked for. He will give us eternal life with not Him. Yes, that’s a very nice way of saying hell.
If we, as Catholic parents, are wishy-washy in our faith, if we think teaching the faith isn’t important, and if we are complicit in perpetuating the lies repeatedly spewed by the culture of death, we will most likely raise children who are the same or even more lost.
It is our responsibility to teach our kids that all people are made in the image of likeness of God, that human life begins at the very first moment of conception (that’s science, by the way, not just our faith talking), the difference and complementarity between men and women, that the elderly and those with disabilities deserve protection and respect, and that our actions toward others matter. It’s our responsibility to teach these truths because the world will try to do otherwise.
The home should be the safest place for a child, but it should also be the place where they learn courage, morality, the truths of the faith, and compassion. It should be where they hear biblical stories, prayers, the stories of saints, and words of wisdom from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It should be where they learn to cherish and respect all people and where they take those first steps in living out these beliefs.
Yes, we must wake up as a country. But we will never accomplish anything on a grand scale if we don’t start discussing and valuing the sanctity of life within our families and teaching our kids to go out into the world to do the same. As parents, we must use our voices and our leadership within the home to create an army of Christ’s soldiers who are not afraid to say yes to Him, regardless of the cost.
God gives us all free will and intelligence. We can use them to build His kingdom on earth, or we can squander them. It’s time we stop wasting our earthly time and focus on eternity.
CLSP exists to help you teach pro-life values to your children. Browse our store to see all of our downloadable lesson booklets that you and your children can read and discuss together.