“God bless you and keep you,” my husband says, tracing the sign of the cross on our wiggly daughters’ foreheads. After our family finishes our night prayer in the living room, and the squabble discussion about whose turn it is to blow out the candle on the family altar is peaceably resolved, each of our girls receives her blessing. “God bless you and keep you,” I also pray for each of them, marking them with the sign of the cross as well. This pairs well with a bedtime hug.
This simple daily practice is one way that we try to live out our family’s vocation to be a domestic church. Through baptism and the sacrament of matrimony, Christian families live their daily life “in the Lord.” Just like the universal church, the Holy Spirit forms the Christian family into a communion of persons, a communion of life and love. Jesus is present in their midst and works in and through them.
And just as Jesus is priest, prophet and king, the family in the domestic church also exercises a ministry that is priestly (by praying and receiving sacraments together, and by offering up the joys and sacrifices of daily life), prophetic (by teaching and evangelization) and kingly (through acts of service and stewardship).
While it’s good to look for ways to build holy habits into the everyday routine, Lent and Easter offer some special opportunities to create family traditions that make practicing the priestly, prophetic and kingly offices of Christ together more intentional.
Here are a few for families with young children, teens and adult children.
Families with kids up to age 12
- Salt-dough crown of thorns: Make a braided salt-dough wreath centerpiece. (Salt dough = 4 cups flour + 1 cup salt + 1 cup or so of water.) Have the kids help you poke toothpick thorns all over it. Bake it or let it almost air dry. Take out the thorns while it cools or finishes drying, otherwise they’re impossible to wrench out later! Replace them. Now, everyone in the family gets to remove a thorn for every extra prayer, sacrifice or work of charity (like reading their little sister her Frozen storybook again). Try to remove all thorns by Easter. At Easter, fill in holes with pretty silk flowers, or spray paint the crown gold.
- Bean jar: See above, except kids place a bean into a mason jar for each good deed. At Easter, Mom and Dad replace the beans with jelly beans!
- Popcorn jar: See above, except each kernel of popcorn that goes into the jar gets popped after Lent, becoming the family’s meal or snack. Thanks to the DeBroek family of St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Everett for this idea.
- Flaming Stations of the Cross: Line up votives in a darkened room. Light them! Extinguish one for each station that you pray together.
- Take the family to confession and go out for ice cream afterward.
Families with teen through adult children
- Weekly soup supper: Host a family Friday soup supper and share with each other how you’re growing in your spiritual life each week. Read and reflect on the upcoming Sunday’s Gospel reading.
- If You’re Appy and You Know It Tap Your Phone: Challenge your children to explore a new Catholic app each week. Some starters: Laudate, iPieta and The Catholic Church App. Check recommendations at catholicapptitude.org.
- Faith-building through Facebook: Step 1: Connect with your kids on social media if you haven’t already.
Step 2: Once a week throughout Lent, send out a Facebook post or retweet a good reflection on Catholic spirituality, a homily from Pope Francis, a pithy YouTube video from Bishop Robert Barron or the like. Follow up and ask them about it afterward. What did they think? What questions are they facing now? Are they no longer practicing the faith? Find good content on websites like Catholic Answers (catholic.com) and catholicscomehome.org. - Invite your kids to meet you Saturday afternoon at church. Go to confession and/or attend the vigil Mass together. Take them out to dinner afterward.
Whether it’s a high-touch forehead blessing, or a high-tech Catholic app or media sharing, reaching out to your children with faith builds the domestic church — in Lent, and in everyday life.
Originally posted on Northwest Catholic – March 2016