It is common to speak of "handing on the faith" to one's children, "raising our children in the faith," and analagous comments which denote transplanting the Catholic religion from ourselves into our kids.
Strictly speaking, however, we cannot give the faith to our children.
Faith is a theological virtue infused by God at baptism, bestowed through the mediation of the Church in its administration of the sacrament. We can, perhaps, speak of "giving the faith" to our children in the sense that we can bring them to the holy laver of regeneration. But while baptism remits sin and imparts the virtue of faith, that gift of faith must be nurtured in order to blossom into a fully formed, mature faith. To have faith ultimately means to assent to the truths of the Catholic faith; it is a personal act, and a virtue of the intellect (cf. STh II-II, Q. 4 Art 1). In this sense, we cannot give the faith to anyone else, inasmuch as we cannot truly assent for someone else. No matter how fervently I believe, my belief remains my own, unable to be given to another. It's the old "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" situation.
Then why does it matter whether we raise our children in the faith if I can't ultimately give them the act of assent which is at the core of faith? Why bother? Why so many admonitions to raise our children "in the faith"?
Because while I obviously cannot literally give my own faith to my children, I can create a culture of faith in the home where conditions are right for their own faith to blossom. To borrow the imagery of our Lord's parable, I cannot make the seed grow, but I can work to ensure that the soil is as rich and fertile as possible. This is why godparents make promises at baptism—they cannot, of course, literally believe in place of the child, but their profession of faith serves as an promise to the Church that the child will be raised in an atmosphere of faith, allowing what is imparted at baptism to take root and flourish, bearing mature fruit unto eternal life. And this is what people generally mean when they speak of "passing on the faith."
So providing that rich soil where the seed of faith can grow is super important. But how do we nurture this fertile soil?
This is where tradition becomes so important, for if we do not have a strong resevoir of Catholic traditions to draw from, exactly how are we creating that faith-nurturing environment? Tradition is precisely how the atmosphere of faith is created. Sometimes this is seasonal. For example, last week we celebrated Epiphany. I baked a King's Cake and scrawling the Epiphany blessing upon the house doors with blessed chalk in the presence of the family. Next month we will participate in the evening Candlemas liturgy to commemorate the purification of Mary. When Ash Wednesday comes, we will begin observing the disciplines of Lent, both those imposed upon us by the Church as well as those of our own choosing. I will attend the Holy Week tenebrae service and then participate in the solemnities of the Easter Vigil. In March there is the Joseph Table. When May comes, I will plant fresh seasonal flowers in the Mary garden in my backyard as a way of honoring Our Lady. At Corpus Christi, we will process with the Blessed Sacrament along with the rest of our parish, something we've done since as far back as I can remember. And during the week of All Souls I will drive my children to a Catholic cemetery to light candles and pray for the dead. When Advent comes, the entire cycle will begin again.
But beyond the seasonal traditions, there are traditions embedded in the structure of Catholic family life, traditions that become the pulse of the household. There is the evening Rosary. The bowing at the name of Christ. The signs of the cross when passing a Catholic parish. Wearing the Brown Scapular. The prayers before meals and bed time. The little family prayer table with candles, crucifix, and images of Our Lady and St. Francis. The visits to the Blessed Sacrament. The veils worn by the girls at Mass. The lighting of holy candles for prayer intentions. Prayers in the cemetery for the Holy Souls. And all the other numerous little customs that make our lives uniquely Catholic.
Strictly speaking, none of these customs require faith as they could just as easily be observed by someone with no belief whatsoever—someone merely going through the motions. These customs do, however, nurture faith by incarnating it into the household and community at large. I can't give my children belief, but I can give them traditions which have a profound connection to faith—they point to it, give expression to it, reinforce it, instantiate it, provide structure for it, explore implicit lessons of it, make it part of daily life. In other words, these pious traditions can add a depth of meaning to faith that vivifies it and helps it take root in the soil of our lives.
This is wonderful. This is what we all want for ourselves and for our children.
It becomes even crazier, then, to think how much of this stuff the progressives wanted to ax in the years after the Council. Pious traditions as venerable as Eucharistic Adoration and the Holy Rosary were ridiculed and discared, to say nothing of some of the lesser customs, many of which have gone almost entirely extinct outside of traditional parishes. It's a miracle any traditions at all survived the 1970s, and the only reason they did so is because Catholic families continued to practice them despite the mockery and condescension of the theologians. These time-attested expressions of popular piety were deemed too sentimental, too superstitious, too soppy for today's Catholic. In their place, we got...talking. Lots of talking. A purely didactic approach to Catholicism that naively thought it could revitalize the religion if we only had a lot more explaining. A half a century on and the talking is still proceeding apace to increasingly empty pews.
I can't give my belief to my children; but I can give them traditions which play a vital role in nourishing faith. If we eviscerate our customs, if we throw out our venerable traditions, are we surprised that people find the faith increasingly irrelevant? Can we feign surprise that it no longer speaks to them? Theological propositions are great, but it is not the abstract principles of theology which engage the common man...much less children! Having your daughter place a wreath of flowers upon the brow of a statue of Our Lady will speak much more eloquently than five sermons. Visiting a cemetery by night and leaving candles upon the graves of the dead instills belief about the Holy Souls much more effectively than reading a Catholic Answers tract or listening to a podcast. I'm not crapping on podcasts or Catholic Answers tracts or homilies; these things are certainly all good, but we end up leaning on them to fill a role they were never meant to fill. Resources that are purely intellectual or didactic are used as a panacaea to patch every crack in the spiritual edifice, something they are incapable of doing. And so the cracks widen.
Whenever Church leadership discusses the continuing demographic crisis it is facing, they inevitably lean hard into "more catechesis" as the answer. And, yes, we do need more catechesis for sure (although the issue there is quality not quantity, but that's a rant for another time). But the catechesis would be vastly more effective if it were carried out within the context of the Church's traditions, be they liturgical or devotional, public or private. While we can't actually translate our personal act of belief to someone else, handing over our tradition is the next best thing, for in this we cultivate the soil wherein new faith can grow.
How stupidly negligent are we if we refuse to use the most effective tool we have for nurturing faith in the young?
This is wonderful. This is what we all want for ourselves and for our children.
It becomes even crazier, then, to think how much of this stuff the progressives wanted to ax in the years after the Council. Pious traditions as venerable as Eucharistic Adoration and the Holy Rosary were ridiculed and discared, to say nothing of some of the lesser customs, many of which have gone almost entirely extinct outside of traditional parishes. It's a miracle any traditions at all survived the 1970s, and the only reason they did so is because Catholic families continued to practice them despite the mockery and condescension of the theologians. These time-attested expressions of popular piety were deemed too sentimental, too superstitious, too soppy for today's Catholic. In their place, we got...talking. Lots of talking. A purely didactic approach to Catholicism that naively thought it could revitalize the religion if we only had a lot more explaining. A half a century on and the talking is still proceeding apace to increasingly empty pews.
I can't give my belief to my children; but I can give them traditions which play a vital role in nourishing faith. If we eviscerate our customs, if we throw out our venerable traditions, are we surprised that people find the faith increasingly irrelevant? Can we feign surprise that it no longer speaks to them? Theological propositions are great, but it is not the abstract principles of theology which engage the common man...much less children! Having your daughter place a wreath of flowers upon the brow of a statue of Our Lady will speak much more eloquently than five sermons. Visiting a cemetery by night and leaving candles upon the graves of the dead instills belief about the Holy Souls much more effectively than reading a Catholic Answers tract or listening to a podcast. I'm not crapping on podcasts or Catholic Answers tracts or homilies; these things are certainly all good, but we end up leaning on them to fill a role they were never meant to fill. Resources that are purely intellectual or didactic are used as a panacaea to patch every crack in the spiritual edifice, something they are incapable of doing. And so the cracks widen.
Whenever Church leadership discusses the continuing demographic crisis it is facing, they inevitably lean hard into "more catechesis" as the answer. And, yes, we do need more catechesis for sure (although the issue there is quality not quantity, but that's a rant for another time). But the catechesis would be vastly more effective if it were carried out within the context of the Church's traditions, be they liturgical or devotional, public or private. While we can't actually translate our personal act of belief to someone else, handing over our tradition is the next best thing, for in this we cultivate the soil wherein new faith can grow.
How stupidly negligent are we if we refuse to use the most effective tool we have for nurturing faith in the young?
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