From http://catholicexchange.com/five-marks-catholic-family
I looked at the challenge of articulating the uniquely Catholic vision of family life that is spelled out in documents like Gaudium et Spes, Familiaris Consortio,
and other post-conciliar documents. In other words, “Should Catholic
families be different in some way from other families (other than in the
ways we pray and the rules we follow) and, if so, what does that look
like?”
Most Catholics, I think would answer “yes, we should be different.”
But at the same time, most Catholics, I think, would be hard-pressed to
say whether or not the particular secular or Protestant experts they
were relying on for advice on how to build their marriage or raise their
kids were actually articulating ideas that were consistent with a
Catholic view of marriage and family life. In my experience, most
Catholics think that as long as they say Catholic prayers in their home
and go to Church on Sunday, they can rely on whatever sources they
choose to tell them how to treat each other. But nothing could be
further from the truth.
The Church cares deeply how we treat one another especially in our
marriages and families. The problem is that it can be difficult to
translate theory into practice. You shouldn’t have to have a degree in
theology to know how to be a Catholic couple or family. There needs to
be some kind of articulation of the Catholic vision of marriage and
family life that even the simplest, poorest-formed Catholic (or
non-Catholic for that matter) can point to as the ideal Catholic couples
and parents should be striving for.
In my response to the survey for the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, I suggest
5 Marks of a Catholic Family.
I don’t suggest that this is a complete list. There may be some
glaring omissions. The point is to get a conversation going about what a
practical guide to Catholic family life (as articulated by the relevant
post-conciliar documents on family life) should look like. Here are my
modest suggestions.
The Five “Marks” of a Catholic Family
1. Catholic Families Worship Together–The Eucharist is the
source of our love and the sign of the intimacy to which we are called.
Therefore, as a family, we attend Sunday mass weekly (and Holy Days and
at other times as we are able) and we actively participate in parish
life–our spiritual home away from home. We also recognize that as
fallen persons, we struggle to be the loving community we are called to
be. Therefore, as a family, we regularly go to confession (recommended:
monthly) to seek God’s healing and grace so we might better live his
vision of love in our lives and homes.
2. Catholic Families Pray Together–As “domestic church” we recognize that we cannot love one another as God loves us unless we ask him,
together, to teach us what this means. Therefore, in addition to our individual prayer life,
we gather together as husband and wife and also as a family for prayer each day.
In that time, we praise and thank God for his blessings, we ask him for
the grace to love each other and the world better, we seek his will for
our lives, and we pray for both our needs and the needs of the Family
of God. We recognize in the words of Servant of God, Fr. Patrick Peyton,
“the family that prays together, stays together.”
3. Catholic Families are Called to Intimacy–Tertullian once
proclaimed, “The world says, ‘Look at those Christians, see how they
love one another!’” The Christian life is first and foremost a call to
intimate communion. We recognize that families are “Schools of Love.”
Therefore, as a family, we constantly challenge ourselves to seek to
discover new ways to be even more open with and loving to each other as
husband and wife, parents and children. We recognize that children are
to be a visible sign of the loving union between husband and wife and we
work to make this a reality in our homes both in the quality of our
relationships and in our openness to life. Further, we cultivate
marriage and parenting practices that make each member of the
family–husband and wife, parents and children– willingly open up to one
another and seek to freely give themselves to create a deeper “community
of love” and practice all the virtues that help us live life as a gift.
4. Catholic Families Put Family First–We recognize that–
because our family relationships are the primary vehicle God uses to
perfect us and challenge us to become everything we were created to
be–family life, itself, is the most important activity. To protect the
intimacy we are called to cultivate as the domestic church, we
recognize the importance of regular family rituals
and we are
intentional about creating and protecting those activities such as
family dinner, family prayer and worship, a game night and/or “family
day”, and regular time for one-on-one communication and
relationship-building. We hold these activities as sacred rituals of
the domestic church and value them over all other activities that would
seek to compete with them.
5. The Catholic Family is a Witness and Sign–God wants to
change the world through our families. We allow ourselves to be part of
his plan for changing the world in two ways. First, by striving to
exhibit– in every way possible in our daily interactions as husband and
wife, parents and children– the love and intimacy that every human heart
longs for. We must show the world that this love is a possible dream
worth striving for. Second, we will carry this love outside the home
by serving the world-at-large in a manner that is responsible and
respectful of the integrity of the family unit. We do this by committing
ourselves and our families to the intentional practice of all the
corporal and spiritual works of mercy within the home and outside of
it. To this end, the ways we, as a family, are trying to fulfill this
responsibility will be a regular topic of conversation in our homes.
As I said above, I have no doubt that this may be an incomplete list.
Nevertheless, I believe it represents the kind of effort that must be
undertaken by the Church to evangelize families. People do not know how
to be a family anymore much less what it means to be a “Catholic
family.” I think the faithful deserve concrete, practical
recommendations (drawn from the relevant documents) that can serve as
an effective launching point for delving more deeply into the Catholic
vision of marriage and family life.
