SHARING OUR FAITH > INTRO
Suffer the Little Children |
As the Catholic Bishops of the United States pointed out in 1950 in their memorable formal statement, "The Child: Citizen of Two Worlds," the first requirement of good Catholic family life is that the children must know God. However, as the Bishops emphasized, "there is a vast difference between 'knowing about God' and 'knowing God.' The difference is made by personal experience. It is not enough that the child be given the necessary truths about God. They ought to be given in such a way that he will assimilate them and make them a part of himself. God must become as real to him as his own father and mother. God must not remain an abstraction.
Sharing our
faith is a mission that we received at the moment of our Confirmation.
We can and have to witness by our actions and example, but we also
have to witness by what we say.
In order to evangelize,
we need to know the basics. The Bible and
the Catechism are the basic tools for
evangelization.
The Bible, can be described as the "Basic Instructions
Before Leaving Earth".
Furthermore, as Catholics, we have the advantaged to be equipped with a BA (Born again in the Holy Spirit) and an MA (a Ma in heaven).
When dealing with people who are not understanding, we should just keep our eyes on Jesus.
Matthew
If you suffer with Him, you will reign with Him.
Sharing our faith in our family life is mostly based on prayer. By prayer, we receive the Holy Spirit, and with the Holy Spirit, we can witness by our example.
We can show the love of God in the small things we do every day.
We should not be afraid to talk about God with our children. We are living in a very influential world that tends to pinpoint the catholic church on a few controversial subjects. The media takes advantage of every situation to draw certain things out of their context, making it all very confusing, certainly for those who have not an active relationship with God as they will not understand.
We can look up
in the catechism to see what the Church tells us about it and have
an open discussion with our children about it.
Sources:
Life On the Rock, EWTN: Interview with Jeff Cavins and Jesse Romero
on November 4, 1999.
The
Catholic Family Handbook, by Reverend George A. Kelly
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