Living Catholicism: Making Family Life First

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August 01, 2007

Making Family Life First

I recently read an article in the Summer 2006 issue of Faith and Family entitled "Your Overextended Family" by Fr. Richard Gill, LC. Father Gill had received a question from a concerned mother about the her family's active lifestyle. She wrote:

It seems that everything is conspiring against our family having time together, even on Sundays. During the week, there's no time for meals with everyone present. My husband winds up working most Saturdays. When he doesn't, we are going in separate directions driving the kids to sports, lessons, parties, you name it. Sundays aren't much better. We get to church as a family, but that's it. We want to do the best thing for our kids and give them all the opportunities we can, but this is killing us.

Can't we all relate to this in one way or another. So what's a family to do? How do we balance our lives so that family is a priority? Fr. Gill makes several practical suggestions:

1. Take Stock - analyze all activities, both for the family and for individual members, make sure all activity serves some meaningful goal.

2. Take Control - decide what activities will be kept up and what activities need to be ended. Fr. Gill suggests limiting sports and outside activities to one per season per child.

3. Make Mass the #1 Priority on Sunday - Fr. Gill advises to resist the temptation of planning Mass attendance around activities. Mass should be the #1 priority for the family on Sunday.

4. Plan family leisure time for Sunday - Avoid sports leagues that insist on Sunday matches and practices. Make time for family faith sharing (i.e. reading/discussing the readings from Mass, discussing a section from the Catechism, faith roundtable discussions), picnics, trips, healthy entertainment, works of charity for the poor, and/or evangelization.

5. Make time for Mom and Dad - As Fr. Gill states "the quality of love and unity within the family is almost always a reflection of the love and unity in your marriage." Husbands and wives need to make each other first, even before the kids. Spend time together alone, go on dates, try a marriage encounter weekend (if kids are old enough to be left with friends or family).

6. Develop a Family Mission Statement - Last but not least, a family mission statement is a wonderful way to create focus for the family. Fr. Gill provides the following questions as guidelines for this task:

Mission Statement

A family mission statement tries to answer basic questions such as:
- What is the purpose of our family?
- What kind of family do we want to be?
- What kind of things do we want to accomplish?
- What kind of spirit do we want in our home?
- What role does Christ play in our family?
- What are our family's highest priorities?
- Who are our heroes, and why?
- What families inspire us and why do we admire them?
- How can we contribute to a society and to the Church as a family?
- What will we do to communicate our faith with others?

Fr. Gill recommends taking your time with this one. If the kids are old enough, he suggests making sure they participate as well. Revisit the family mission statement at least once a year to assess how the family is doing.

I believe these are excellent suggestions for nurturing and maintaining a wonderful, well-balanced, faith-filled family life.

May the Holy Family continue to bless and guide each of you and your families.

Joe

Posted by jay at August 1, 2007 08:58 AM