The laity are called by our secular vocation to go out into the world as leaven to grow the Kingdom of God. The Domestic Church is the starting place for living this mission within the larger Church and the culture. As parents and spouses, we are meant to cooperate with grace in the sanctification of our families. We are the “primary educators” of our children. The most important education we give our children is how to live as disciples of the Lord through prayer and action.
The Domestic Church is nurtured through a life of prayer and frequent reception of the Sacraments as a family and individually. We as mothers and fathers cannot give what we ourselves do not possess. We must first be seeking holiness ourselves, which will then allow us to form our children in their Christian vocation. Our life of prayer will shape our family. It is from the wellspring of our prayer lives that we will be able to help our children learn how to pray, how to dwell in intimacy with the Lord before preparing them to go out in service of others.
This prayer is nourished by the Sacraments. Our families should be regularly going to Confession. Mass should be non-negotiable and central to our Sunday routine. Giving glory to God on the day set aside by Him and being nourished through Word and the Eucharist are the central hallmarks of the Christian life. If we do not prioritize Mass, or if we complain about attending, then we will plant seeds of doubt and discontent in our children. Our example is essential.
Once we have established a rule of prayer and reception of the Sacraments, it is our duty to teach our children the Catholic Faith. This is accomplished in a variety of ways, but sending our children to religious education at our parish once a week is not enough. Spiritual study is a life-long endeavor that we must be living within our families. Our children should see us growing in the Faith ourselves through reading about the lives of the saints or other works that help us grow spiritually. We should be teaching our children the Faith through catechesis and our witness. Our children will not be able to learn the Faith through once-a-week instruction for an hour at the parish. We should be fully embracing our role as the “primary educator” of our children.
Once we have established the spiritual life within our Domestic Church, we must fight against the tendency to remain insular and inwardly focused. The Church as a whole in the West runs the risk of falling into a bunker mentality that leads to an over emphasis on protecting and maintaining parish and family functions and convincing ourselves that this is discipleship. Nowhere in the Gospel does the Lord tell us that we get to remain in our churches or homes and simply live a comfortable suburban life. In fact, this is a worldly lie of our age.
When we leave Mass each Sunday, we are called to go out to the world. What does this mean? It means that the Domestic Church is not a cloistered monastery. That is not the vocation of the laity. We can and should be contemplatives in the world, but it is the “in the world” part that matters. Nor should we be teaching our children that secular pursuits are most important. It should be abundantly clear that Christ comes first in our families.
Our children cannot mature into full disciples of the Lord if they do not see the love of God and authentic discipleship lived. Discipleship in action can take many forms, but it should not be confused with solely political activity either, which is very much a tendency of our day. To be a disciple of Christ, we must be willing to enter uncomfortable places. If we are comfortable, we are not fully living the Gospel call. Many of the saints are honest about this fact. Have our children seen us doing some of the following?
Reaching out directly to the homeless in our area.
Ever since 2020, there has been an explosion in the homeless population across the United States. Anyone who works with the homeless knows there are many difficulties in getting people to accept resources that help them get off the streets. It is not our job to force others, which means we can only love and invite. Mental illness and addiction, which can plague these populations, makes it difficult to help people out of homelessness. We must guard carefully against our own hardness of heart and cynicism. What we can do is prudently engage with the homeless the Lord sets in our path each day.
I carry around “blessing bags” in my car that have snacks, water, resources, prayer cards, and hygiene products in them. If I run out, I go through a drive thru and order a meal for someone I see. I have also packed lunches in the past to take to regulars who I know are at certain street corners. My engagement with the homeless population often depends on how easy they are to access from my car.
This has been essential in the life of our Domestic Church because it has taught our daughter that we are called to love the most vulnerable among us, but to do so prudently, especially as women. The other day, she and I gave another “blessing bag” to a woman who has been a regular at a street corner near our parish for at least a decade and then chatted with her while we waited for the light to change. It is not about only providing material goods; we must truly see and converse with the poor. This honors their inherent dignity as beloved children of God. This is not always possible, but we should never fall into the lie that handing food to a person and driving on is enough. There should be an encounter with Christ taking place, and our children should see that.
Reaching out to the suffering in our midst.
There is a great temptation within the Church to avoid the suffering of others. It is a human tendency often caused by fear, distractedness, and even selfishness. We are called by Christ to go to the brokenhearted and to help bind their wounds. Do our children see us helping the suffering in our midst? Do they see us visiting the sick and the homebound? Do they see us guiding the lost? Depending on the age of our children, it may not be possible for them to go with us to serve others in these situations, but they should know that we are dedicated to helping the suffering around us.
Evangelization.
We live in a secular and increasingly pagan society. Even among the Catholics in the pews, the majority of people have not had a life-changing encounter with Christ. How do we know? We know because our communities and culture are not being transformed. We simply have not done our job of evangelizing the culture. It is an essential aspect of discipleship to go out to lead others to Christ. We do not get to compartmentalize our faith and pretend like we are only Catholic on Sunday. Do our children see us engaging with the spiritually lost in our communities and workplaces?
Evangelization is something that is lived throughout our daily lives. The culture needs us to be light in the immense darkness, which means going into deeply uncomfortable and hostile settings in order to proclaim Christ crucified and risen from the dead.
Depending on the ages of our children, evangelization may not be easily done. There are periods of the Domestic Church that necessitate a more inward focus, such as in the caring of infants, but for the father or mother who works outside of the home, evangelization is an aspect of discipleship. We are not meant to hide our faith. Our children should hear stories of encounters we’ve had where we sowed seeds of faith and followed it with dedicated prayer that the Holy Spirit grows these seeds.
The call of the Domestic Church is the same as the Church at large. We are meant to live in deep intimacy with Christ through prayer, the Sacraments, and spiritual study, but we cannot remain there. We must go out to the world and bring others to Christ through our families. If our Domestic Church is comfortable, then we are failing in our calling. To be a disciple is to walk into uncomfortable places for the salvation of souls. Our Savior’s bed was the Cross, not the fineries of suburban life.
As we seek to lead our families to Christ, let us never forget that the formation of our children is not only for their sake. It is for the sake of the countless souls Christ wants to save through our children and our families. The life of the disciple is both prayer and action. It cannot be only one or the other. We cannot serve others without a life of deep prayer, and prayer cannot bear fruit if it is not shared.
May we truly embrace the beautiful calling of the Domestic Church, so Christ can bring many souls to the Kingdom.
