The Components of a Family Faith Curriculum

In my last post, I shared the why behind our family’s decision to create its own faith curriculum. To sum it up, we found that we simply couldn’t rely solely on our local parish or Catholic schools to provide what our kids needed. The inconsistencies in preaching, teaching and programming were just too great.

What we learned in the process is that the Church has invited us all along to make our home a “domestic church”. That is to say, we finally embraced what we were called to be all along. Our home would become the primary place of formation. This would then be complemented by our church and schools.

Covid-19 challenged us to see what we could do at home as our local churches have been closed. As a father, it’s been a wonderful opportunity for me to learn (again) what it means to be the spiritual father of our family.

“Thus the little domestic Church, like the greater Church, needs to be constantly and intensely evangelized: hence its duty regarding permanent education in the faith…the family, like the Church, ought to be a place where the Gospel is transmitted and from which the Gospel radiates…the future of evangelization depends in great part on the Church of the home.”

— Saint John Paul II

As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”. I guess we’ve become more of discoverers than inventors. I look at this process as one of curation rather than creation. We’ve pieced together a loose system that works for us. Will it work for you? Probably not in its same format. You’ll need to curate for yourself. I think the key is to be intentional and tweak and adjust as you go.

The Lenses

Anyhow, back to the family faith curriculum. You’ve heard of why we created this. Today, I’ll share with you exactly what it looks like each week. Remember the lenses through which we’ve crafted this curriculum:

1. A lens of Truth, Goodness & Beauty.

2. An emphasis on classical things.

3. Variety.

4. Personal ownership.

5. A nightly practice.

6. Scripture.

The Day-by-Day Names

With these lenses in mind, my wife and I decided to then look at each day of the week and “assign” a them to each day. We also decided to brand each day, making it easy for the kids to remember our point of emphasis. Here are the days:

• Marian Monday: a focus on Mary, Marian spirituality and Marian practices

• Theological Tuesday: a focus on a classical theological concept of text

• Works of Mercy Wednesday: a focus on the importance of doing good and practicing mercy

• Thankful Thursday: a focus on Divine Mercy and gratitude

• Free Friday: typically an “open” night to do whatever feels right

• Saturday & Sunday: a focus on beauty

The Day-by-Day Activities

Now we’ll look at exactly what we do in each night’s time of prayer:

• Marian Monday: We pray the rosary. Sometimes, to mix it up, we might have a slideshow up on the tv with images of Mary, forming a sort of Visio Divina. When our kids were younger, we started out with just a decade of the rosary. Over time, we were able to cover the entire rosary.

• Theological Tuesday: On Tuesdays, I like to find some rich theological text, poem or excerpt for us to look at and discuss. This might be a poem by Chesterton, a quote from Sheen or a phrase from Augustine. This night is very profound but also brief. We might “wrap” this with everyone going around and offering prayers for others.

• Works of Mercy Wednesday: On Wednesdays, we might write to our sponsor child, call the grandparents, or write notes to people who are alone. The key is to help the kids see a world bigger than just our home and our family.

• Thankful Thursday: On Thursdays, we do things related to gratitude. This could be praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet or just going around and praying for people for whom we are thankful. The key is to emphasize gratitude to God in very specific ways.

• Free Friday: On Fridays, we typically make pizza and maybe watch a movie. Prayers are typically brief and we go with the flow.

• Saturday & Sunday: on Saturday, we’ll hand the Bible to one of the kids and invite them to find the Sunday Gospel reading. This teaches them the skill of Bible literacy. Then, we’ll talk about the upcoming Sunday’s Gospel and what it means to each of us. On Sunday, we might look at a famous icon (emphasis on beauty) and discuss its meaning.

As I’ve stated before, this is a work in progress. This framework is a starting point. It’s not meant to be so structured so that it feels tight. Rather, it frees us up to be together as a family of faith.

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Outstanding Guests, Practical Tips

how to Create a Family Faith Curriculum

My wife Cary and I have been married for nearly 22 years. It took little effort for us to pray at night before bed. It took a lot more work to develop a system for educating our kids in the faith.

Let me explain.

“Each family finds within itself a summons that cannot be ignored and that specifies both its dignity and responsibility: family, become what you are!”

— St. John Paul II

For many years, I’d say 10-15 or so, we relied on outside resources for teaching the faith. Catholic schools and Catholic Churches were our primary means of instruction. We saw those as the best “vehicles” for faith instruction. Our approach was simple enough- we would send our kids to Catholic schools, attend weekly Mass and then complement those with our own at-home example. Sprinkle in praying before meals and emphasizing good morals and we were done.

Except that it didn’t work.

You see, we had it all backwards. We thought that the outside structures would be enough. Over time, we found our hearts broken by the Church we love. Scandal and corruption became common. Schools closed. The clever “system” we had relied on was no longer enough. We still loved being Catholic but realized, painfully, that our Church simply could not provide all that we needed.

A Sobering Reality

And, this part is harder to admit- our kids really weren’t grabbing hold of the faith. They knew Jesus but didn’t really know Him- if you know what I mean. I started to acknowledge that if we didn’t make some adjustments, they would likely leave the Church and the faith.

For many years, Cary urged us to “do more” at home. I would deflect, pointing out others who did far less than we did. But she was right as converts often are.

It wasn’t until we moved to a new home in a new city with new parishes that we fully embraced what the Second Vatican Council meant by the family as the “domestic church” (Lumen Gentium). Then, unplanned by us, the coronavirus struck. Our new approach was all we had. Our “curriculum” is essentially a curated system for teaching our kids the faith that we love and want them to embrace.

Our Inspiration

Two resources that have been tremendously helpful are Dr. John Cuddeback’s LifeCraft website and the Messy Family Project by Alicia and Mike Hernon. John places a lot of emphasis on the role that “home” plays in faith formation, with a nod to classical concepts. Alicia and Mike take a practical approach, weaving in their experience of parenting 10 kids (!) with their faith. If you haven’t spent some time on either website, pour yourself a cup of coffee and you’ll be in for a treat.

We’ve been inspired to create our own system, not to detract from the model of our own family. I grew up Catholic and my parents provided a wonderful example to me and my two brothers. Cary grew up in a home without faith and later became Catholic. Where we live in Bethlehem, PA, there are few supports for Catholic families. No intentional Catholic communities. No charismatic prayer movements. No couples ministry. We have tons of great people and wonderful parishes but if you want to be intentional with your family, you have to be crafty. For a while, I complained about this. Now, I accept it as Fr. Thomas Judge, CM described it as the “providence of everyday life”.

The Components

Here are the components of our Family Faith Curriculum. Keep in mind that these work for us. You’ll need to try things out and make some modifications as you go. We start with lenses and in later posts I’ll detail the exact things we do each day.

1. A lens of Truth, Goodness & Beauty. Bishop Barron talks a lot about this as did Hans Urs von Balthasar. We make sure that each week, we are talking about and emphasizing topics that deal with the intellect, with justice and with art.

2. An emphasis on classical things. Whenever we can, we use original sources, obscure readings and old things.

3. Variety. Kids need this as do we as parents. Variety is key so that you don’t become stale. Variety also allows you to pivot when you feel that you need to. Variety lends to flexibility.

4. Personal ownership. We don’t want a curriculum that is passive. Rather, we want to be training our kids to know the Lord and practice the skills that are necessary for fruitful discipleship.

5. A nightly practice. We do something prayerful every night. This provides the family with an anchor they can rely on. The average night’s activity is about 15 minutes.

6. Scripture. We want our kids to be touching a Bible as often as possible and over time, learn to love Scripture.

In future posts, I’ll detail what our Family Faith Curriculum currently looks like, with detailed examples of each day’s points of emphasis. This can change from month to month but it will at least provide you with a glimpse. Then, you can take this framework and customize it to your family.

How to use Freeform Journaling as Part of your Devotions

“I just sit down, close my eyes and pray.”

This is easier said than done for most of us. When I sit down to pray, I’m bombarded by at least ten items on my to-do list. When my kids sit down to pray, they are unfocused because they were playing a video game a few minutes earlier. When my wife sits down to pray in church, she’s distracted by the people behind us who are talking.

Our minds are crowded places.

As a result, prayer is not easy. We need some tools to help us pivot and then refocus on God. Instead of feeling badly about this, I suggest we embrace it. 

These tools are myriad- using a pair of rosary beads, taking deep breaths, closing our eyes, etc. Finding the ones that work for you is a martial art. The Saints use multiple means to draw closer to the Lord and no two Saints are the same.

A classic tactic for easing into prayer is the use of a journal. I’ve written about this many times on the blog. It’s simple- in the morning, take five minutes to write in your journal. Either pour out your thoughts into the page or use the ACTS formula, incorporating journaling into your prayer. As a reminder, ACTS stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. By writing a few thoughts under each of those headings, you’ll be well on your way in prayer.

Something I’ve been trying out lately is freeform writing. Others call this free association writing and it’s actually quite effective as you lead into prayer. It certainly blurs the lines between serving as a primer for prayer or for prayer itself. Don’t feel like you have to figure that distinction out- just go with it.

An Example in Real Life

Here’s how it might look on any given day in my journal:

Lord

God

Trinity

Father

Spirit

Redeemer

Friend?

Savior

Praise you

Grateful

But worried

Anxious

Anxiety

Sleeping less

Woke up

Dreamt of others

Couldn’t get back to sleep

Alone

Dark

Morning

Grateful

Moments ahead

Now

Quiet

Walk the dog

That can wait

Hungry

Thirsty

Back to writing

Birds outside

Warm inside

Journal

Writing

Prayer

Breathing

Sitting

Stillness

Here

Effects of Freeform Journaling

The effects of something like this are profound. By giving myself permission to paint “out of the lines”, freeform journaling is freeing, no pun intended. You’ll feel more creative, more artistic and it could be that God will loosen you up.

This loosening up is so important. Let’s face it, we can be tight when we approach God in prayer. This is sort of like visiting an upscale mall- you feel as if you should dress up for the visit. 

Not so with God. He wants us as we are- the good, the bad and the ugly.  Come on people- he sees the ugly anyways so why are we trying to hide it from him when we pray? It’s better to approach God humbly, as one who is looking forward to our visit.

I was once asked by a college student if God gives priority to the prayers of the Saints versus those from a “regular Joe”. I told the student that I have no idea but what I am certain of is this- God is delighted whenever we pray with an honest and simple heart. That much I know. And that gives us confidence to approach the throne of Grace, over and over again. God loves that and we can learn to love that too.

At first, you might find freeform journaling strange. Give yourself permission to try it. You could use freeform writing once in a while, whenever you feel like it or straight out for a whole week.

I suspect that, like me, you’ll begin to incorporate freeform writing as a primer for more intimate prayer.

Five Clever Ways to Memorize a Bible Passage

There’s a popular Catholic hymn that features the words, “take the Word of God with you as you go.” 

There are two meanings to this:

1. To savor God’s words from Scripture as if to appreciate them in your heart.

2. To remember particular Bible passages such that you can “recall” them at a moment’s notice during the day.

It’s the latter meaning that I’d like to discuss today. I suspect that most of us have little trouble appreciating various passages from the Bible but do we remember them throughout our day?

Protestant Christians are often taught to memorize Bible passages when they are young. Catholic Christians are not and this is a detriment to them as they get older after all, memorization is not just an academic technique. It can be a spiritual skill as well.

Consider that God makes hundreds of promises in the Bible- wouldn’t you want to remember at least some of those? Or, consider the amazing words of Jesus throughout the New Testament- wouldn’t you want to carry these in the back pocket of your mind so that you can claim them at a moment’s notice?

There are many ways that you and I can become better at remembering God’s words from the Scriptures and here are five of them:

1. Spend some time with your Bible in the first half hour of the day. Don’t just read your Bible but spend time with it. Hold your Bible in your hands (apps are not as effective) and enjoy the habit of morning reading.

2. Use a physical Bible. I know that there are apps (I use them too!) but a Bible in your hand is just better. The touch of the pages activates something in your brain that is very effective for memorization.

3. Read a passage 3-4 times. Then, close your eyes and let the Lord imprint the words on your brain. If you need to read it a 5th or 6th time, give yourself permission to do so.

4. Write it down on paper and carry it with you through the day. Take it out when you are waiting in line at the store. Read it before a meal. Let the crumpling paper sound remind you to read the passage again.

5. Revisit the passage later in the day. This might be at lunchtime or before bed. It’s also important to recall the book (i.e. Matthew), chapter and verse. 

While there are printed Bible verses in card-format that you can purchase, these five techniques should do just fine.

Prayer for When You Can’t Breathe

I live in a house with other humans plus one adorable dog named Ace. On most nights, all are sleeping peacefully and the house is quiet. Sure, you can hear the growns of the heating system if you really listen. 

Still, things are typically quiet.

Occasionally, one of us is up in the night, breaking that silence with a trip to the bathroom or worse, waking from a nightmare. At other times, you simply can’t sleep due to anxiety.

I was listening to a recent episode of Divine Intimacy with Dan and Stephanie Burke. His new book deals with the reality that many of us face- increased worry in our everyday lives. Why are we so anxious about so many things?

This is when you can’t breath. This is when you wake in the middle of the night.

My wife and I commute an hour to work three times a week on a major interstate. On any given day, you can find yourself in the middle lane. On the right might be a tractor-trailer truck and on the left, a logging rig. You have no place to go and nothing to do except to hope that breathing room presents itself. And, thankfully, it almost always does.

“In order to succeed in prayer, it should be done when we first awaken, when our whole being is calm and recollected. We need to make our meditation before anything else.
”

— Bl. Peter Julian Eymard

As with our anxiety, there’s almost always breathing room on the other side of things. This “other side” might be five minutes later or 55 minutes later. It might show up a week later but it always does show up. 

How does this happen? How do we make our way through anxiety? While prayer is no silver bullet, it surely plays a part. 

When you feel anxious, try to pause and add prayer to your worry. Lord, I’m anxious right now. There it is again. I’ve been here before. I know that you’re with me right now. I know that you sense my anxiety. You’re here and that helps.

If you can make it through this stage (and good news, you can!), you might take things even further into prayer. Lord, why do I feel anxious? Is there one cause of this or several? Can you help me get to the bottom of it? What’s really going on here?

Naturally, there might be several further stages of prayer that can be applied when you have anxiety. It’s not a straight line. Rather, it’s a curvy road and sometimes, unfortunately, your tires may veer.

The key- the Lord is very much present in and through your anxiety. He wants to be there with you, redeeming your worry into trust and confidence in His love. He will provide breathing room and can walk you through whatever is getting you up in the middle of the night.

What’s Your Story When it Comes to Prayer?

You can’t go zero to sixty in a car in less than about five seconds. In case you don’t drive often, five seconds is very fast. Sports car stuff...

The average car? About 10-12 seconds.

Speed takes time to develop. Then, when momentum takes over, the car is moving at a brisk pace and watch out- before you know it, you’re speeding and see the blue lights in your rear-view mirror. Uh oh.

When it comes to prayer, most of this metaphor applies. We need time to build up momentum. Once we get going, thankfully, it’s no turning back and our prayer lives are really humming. As for the police, forget that part.

St. John of the Cross once said that you don’t become spiritually mature until you are at least 40 years old. As someone on the north side of 40, I read this with a smile. The older you are, the more wisdom you can attain.

I go to church all of the time. Several times a week. I hear my pastor and priests and deacons tell the congregation that we should add prayer to our tool belt of resources. I’ve never heard anyone disagree with this.  Makes sense right?

The problem, and it’s a big one, is that most of us don’t actually know how to pray. This is on two levels. On the surface level, everyone knows how to pray. You simply talk to God. No barriers, just communicate. St. Therese of Lisieux described it this way, “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.” 

If you were comparing prayer to working out, this level is like the ability to go to the gym. Nearly everyone can go to the gym and do some stretches and enjoy some movement.

“For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”

— St. Therese of Lisieux

On a deeper level, most of us don’t know how to pray regularly, daily and thus building spiritual momentum with God. This is in some ways, much harder.  Going back to the gym metaphor, this is like going to the gym daily- much harder.

This is the level that most of us struggle with. And back to the title of this post, this is the level that is critical for each of us to evaluate.  If we don’t do this, we might never be able to get to the deeper levels of intimacy with God.

What’s your story when it comes to prayer? 

Have you had one positive experience of praying? Where were you? What did it feel like? What was the after-effect?  When you think of that time of prayer, does it put a smile on your face?

On the flip side, have you had a “bad” experience of prayer? What was that like? Why did that frustrate you? How do you think that that particular experience of prayer has stayed with you?

I’ve been teaching people to pray for years. I find this step in the spiritual journey to be vitally important. Unless we pause and take stock of our prayer with God, we won’t grow closer to God. This is harder than it seems as many of us have had a desert-like journey when it comes to prayer. 

• Many of us feel like we don’t know how to pray.

• Many of us have never felt the presence of God.

• Many of us have never heard the voice of God.

• Many of us have never savored the healing touch of God.

And as a result, we stop praying. 

My message during Advent (and beyond): try prayer again. Try to get alone, away from the noise, and have a heart to heart with God. Try journaling (again) for the first time. Try going into a church and praying before the Blessed Sacrament when no one else is around. If you try, you will. If you don’t try, you won’t.

Then, do it tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. Before you know it, you will be having a quality prayer time with the Lord each day. This is where the good stuff happens. This is where God transforms us. This is where we become humble and put God first.

Simple right? I think so. Try it today. I think you’ll be glad you did.