May 28, 2010
The Bishop's Forum
Strategic Planning to Re-energize our Diocese: And the family
by Bishop Gerald A. Gettelfinger
Part one of two
Little has been written about the role of the family in the strategic planning to re-energize the faith and its practice in our diocese.
Unless our families are re-energized in their faith life at home, all other efforts to re-energize our diocese will fail no matter how well designed or implemented.
We have all heard or read that the family is the domestic church. The larger church is the assembly of many families. Families form the Mystical Body of Christ. Families are the heart of the church. Unless there is renewed energy in our homes, the entire Mystical Body of Christ is weakened. You know . . . the weakest link . . .
Faith development and its nurturance in the family begins with husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Parents then transmit the faith to their children and nurture it with their own home practices of the faith. Children grow up recognizing the faith of their parents by the way it is practiced daily in the home. Hence, children’s faith is deepened by the simple but most powerful and necessary example of their parents.
The home must become the central power-house for re-energizing faith within families. Parents and godparents are charged at the baptism of their children to keep the light of faith burning in their children. They are also reminded that they are the first teachers of their children, especially in the faith and its practice.
In the post-modern era of the Church, so much of the richness of family devotions has been either lost or made difficult by the frenetic pace led by parents and their children today. What little time there is left in the precious togetherness of entire families is so often consumed by school, sports or dissipation in front of the television or “texting,” “tweeting,” or Facebook activities.
We do have hopeful signs in our diocese. The renewal of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament by families is most evident in the annual celebration of Source and Summit. Along with that is the increasing number of Adoration Chapels throughout our diocese. In the latter, it will be especially wonderful when families sign up for an hour of adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
There are wonderful traditions in the Church that are family oriented. Among them are devotions to our Blessed Mother in the months of May and October. Simple family devotions include the common recitation of the rosary and the litany of the Blessed Mother.
The month of June is dedicated to the Eucharist and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Similarly, the Rosary and the Litany of the Sacred Heart as well as adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by the family cannot help but re-energize the family in faith.
In addition there are powerful and re-energizing movements in our diocese. They assist individuals to grow in the faith. They are most encouraging. They include Cursillo, Teens Encounter Christ and Communion and Liberation. These however assist the individual in the community of the Church rather than the community of the family in the Church.
Let us continue to pray for the gifts of the Holy Spirit for parents, children and all families:
“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.
V. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created.
R. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray!
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Next week: The family and strategic planning