Catholic Parenthood and the Summer

July 26 is the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Their commemoration serves as an opportunity for all parents to reflect on their influence on their children. While the Blessed Mother was free from original sin from the moment of her conception, her parents still would have supported her in her faith and taught her about how to live it out. They would not be saints if they didn’t live a life of piety and proclaim the love of God in an effective manner.

So, how do parents accomplish such a goal?

Taking summer as a chance to examine the way we carry ourselves in parenting is perfect. Summer is when our young children (by that I mean those who are younger than 21) are away from school. They are simply with us more in the summer. Whether a family chooses to homeschool or not, the summer is typically when families spend the most time together. Summer is the time to slow down and focus on what is most important in life: our relationship with God and our relationship with those who are closest to us.

However, the spiritual and practical truth is that the more time we spend together the more chance there is for us to treat each other imperfectly. Leaning on the intercession of Joachim, Anne, and the Blessed Mother can aid us in this regard.

Mary would have been uniquely holy from her youth. There would have been something beautifully different about her. The way she listened to her parents and cared for others would have been grounded in love for God and His commands. Our children don’t have the same qualities. No child is exactly like Mary. Our children grow up, and they make mistakes. They sin and need our guidance. Equally true is the fact that parents are sinful. We are broken and tend to showcase our deepest flaws as we attempt to correct and form our children.

Despite their sinfulness and need for growth in the life of virtue, every child is beautifully unique. I don’t mean this in the modern and ambiguous way that communicates that children can do no wrong. We all know our children are flawed. The role of the Christian parent is to form our children in a way that enables them to integrate holiness and virtue into their souls. The beauty of this formation is that it also forms the parent who is doing the forming.

In July 2006, Pope Benedict XVI preached the following in a homily at the Mass for the World Meeting of Families in Spain:

None of us gave ourselves life or singlehandedly learned how to live. All of us received from others both life itself and its basic truths, and we have been called to attain perfection in relationship and loving communion with others.

Teaching our kids right from wrong is easier said than done. Teaching our children the “basic truths” requires our witness but also our words. Summer is the perfect chance to have more organic conversations with our kids about important things. Dr. Christian Smith, from the University of Notre Dame, is a sociologist who has done great work on the best practices for passing down the Faith. His findings on the importance of organic conversations about the Faith being critical for forming young people has been proven by the more recent findings from the Institute for Family Studies this June.

“Research consistently shows,” the IFS study notes, “that families are the single most important factor in whether children adopt and maintain faith into adulthood.” To properly pass down the Faith in an effective manner, parents must showcase a loving relationship between each other to their kids as well as explicitly lead their children in the Faith. This is shown through praying together as a family, attending Sunday worship, speaking about the Faith at home, and loving their children with patience and care. Most importantly, the study found that children must see that the Faith actually impacts the way that their parents love each other and provide a loving home.

This is the simple recipe of the saints. Since Joachim and Anne are the patron saints of married couples, we ought to depend on their intercession for aiding us in accomplishing the most important task of our fatherhood or motherhood: to bring our spouse and children to Heaven.

Pope Benedict continued in his homily,

The family, founded on indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman, is the expression of this relational, filial and communal aspect of life. It is the setting where men and women are enabled to be born with dignity, and to grow and develop in an integral manner.

Nothing could be more pivotal for a child’s development than learning how to pray and follow Christ. Parenthood must demonstrate the relational love of the Trinity. This is how it bears the image of God. In the parents’ forming of their children, they can develop them for a life of sanctity by clinging to the need for the grace of God in the process.

So, take this summer as the chance to better be present to your kids, or grandkids. Examine how your faith and formation of those in your care is an opportunity to become more formed yourself. And pray that Jesus can guide us in proclaiming the love of His Sacred Heart to all we meet, especially those closest to us.