Is your faith contagious?
When I was writing my book, Head & Heart, I kept hearing over and over again from men and women I spoke with that when it comes to raising children in the Catholic faith, “Faith is more caught than taught.” But what does it look like to have a “catchable” faith? How can we know we are on the right track in witnessing a kind of faith that our kids (and others!) will want to embrace fully themselves?
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- Am I seeking an ongoing, deeper relationship with Jesus? You can’t give what you don’t have. If you want your children to have an intimate relationship with Christ, you need to have one. This means actually working to grow in relationship with Him, and not just saying that you have one or expecting your relationship with Christ to deepen without any work on your end. Our children sense our authenticity (or inauthenticity) especially in matters of faith, and study after study demonstrates that children are very likely to follow in the footsteps of their parents’ in their own spiritual lives.
- Am I praying regularly (and do my kids see me doing it)? If you are seeking an ongoing, deeper relationship with Christ, you must spend time in prayer. That’s how you nurture your relationship with Him. And though you don’t need to make a
dramatic, public display of prayer every time you do it, you should make sure that your kids frequently see you praying. Pope Saint John Paul II said, “The concrete example and living witness of parents is fundamental and irreplaceable in educating their children to pray.” Seeing a parent pray with sincerity, regularity, humility, vulnerability, and trust has a powerful impact on a child.
- Am I exhibiting virtue? Do you actually act like Christ around your family? Do your children see you living the faith you claim to preach? Do you exhibit joy, charity, hope, patience, forgiveness, and other virtues that characterize someone in love with their faith and their mission to become a saint? If you answered anything but an emphatic “yes” to these questions, pick one virtue right now that you want to exhibit more intentionally to your kids. Set a phone reminder or post a note in a prominent place reminding you to radiate that virtue, so that your kids can catch it, too.
- Am I working on my marriage? This might not seem to directly relate to having a “catchable” faith, but you and your spouse help form your children’s image of God! They will often relate to and understand God through the “analogy”—for lack of a better word—of their parents. The more you image the life-giving love of the Trinity in your marriage, the more your children will catch onto that love and crave it from the source of Love Himself.
- Am I embracing Catholic culture? Do you celebrate baptism anniversaries and Catholic feast days with the same fun, food, and traditions as you do on days like
Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July? Make Catholic holy days become celebrations that your children anticipate with excitement.
- Do I set faith-based goals and dreams, and then actively seek to accomplish them? If you want to accomplish any goal, you need a plan to achieve it. So if you want to possess a catchable faith, you need a plan to acquire one. Set goals for learning more about your faith, getting involved in ministry, or serving your family more intentionally. Set reachable goals—like praying for ten minutes a day, listening to a faith-based podcast during lunch or while folding laundry, or reading the Bible before you go to bed—but then, dream big. Dream about sanctity.
- Do I care more about being or doing? Your children might be more likely to “catch” faith from you as a Mary parent than they are from you as a Martha one. Prioritize your desire to become the person God created you to be (ultimately, a saint!) over all the other stuff you have to do. Let your children see and catch the peace that comes from being in love with the Lord and being This will matter more than all the other stuff you might be tempted to “do” to increase their chances of embracing the faith. I often have to adjust my thinking from “I haven’t had them memorize a new Scripture verse this week!” to “Am I a more loving, patient, Christ-like person today than I was yesterday?” The Lord cares more about being than doing.
Which of these 7 ways to develop a more catchable faith could you improve on right now?
