Ecclesia Domestica

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Mid-Atlantic Congress, a conference for people who work and/or volunteer at Catholic churches.  It was super amazing!  I browsed exhibits from many wonderful ministries, I attended some great workshop sessions, and I got to hear the keynote address from Fr. Mike Schmitz - I even got a meet & greet with him afterwards!

it's fuzzy, because I was so excited to

meet him, my hands were shaking

Because I'm a support staff person at the church, and not a designated Faith Formation or Liturgy person, I chose my workshops based on what I was personally interested in as a Catholic woman & mama.  Of course, it turned out I learned a lot of great things to share with my coworkers in those departments, but I also took home a lot of ideas to use with my boys.  One of my favorite sessions was called "The Liturgical Life of the Family," and it focused on how we, as parents, can guide our children in a Christ-centered environment, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to as "Ecclesia Domestica," or "the domestic church."

I have to admit, this is an area of mamahood I struggle with!  I am a cradle Catholic, so of course my parents taught us about our faith, openly talked to/about God, and took us to Mass & Sunday School.  And I am incredibly thankful for that, because being Catholic is the core of who I am!  But now that I am the parent, I am realizing I want to do more than that.  I personally feel that I've had my "conversion moment" just in the last few years, and I am hoping to set my kiddos up to start their relationships with Jesus a lot earlier than I did.

We go to Mass every Sunday as a family, and we send our kids to Sunday School (well, just Aidan now, but Leo will go when he's old enough).  On the home front, we do Bible Time every night, which my Aidan particularly enjoys, we say grace before meals, and I try to casually mention God and all His works whenever possible... all of this is awesome, but none of it is uniquely Catholic (except for the Bible version, of course!).  What I learned from the workshop leader was how important it is that our "Domestic Church" emphasize the Liturgy, to help our children really appreciate & gain something from Mass and everything else we do at church.

So, keeping that in mind, I created three tools to help us, as a family, root each day in our relationship with God: a simple Liturgical calendar, a "Saint of the Day" sign, and a family prayer note.

The calendar tells us if the day is Ordinary Time, a memorial, or a feast day.  February's is pretty plain, but it will ramp up in March, with the start of the Lenten season.  This, of course, matches nicely with the "Saint of the Day" board, which I will update daily for the kids.  So far, this has proven to be a great opportunity to chat about the celebrated person's story at breakfast each morning!  And the last item is where we can talk about what we want to ask God for, or ask Him to help us with throughout the day.  Aidan prays for a baby sister daily, so that stays right at the top of the list, but the other things vary based on what the day has in store.  And I sneak in a little parenting moment there, too, when we pray that God will give us (i.e. Aidan, but all of us) patience & self-control throughout the day ;)