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Beginning At Home
THE CHALLENGE OF CHRISTIAN PARENTHOODby MARY PERKINSDiscussion Topics by Emerson and Arleen HynesArtist Virginia Broderick"Beginning at Home" is one item in the "Popular Liturgical Library," aseries of publications on the sacraments, sacramentals, holy Mass,liturgical year, Divine Office, family life, etc. The Liturgical Press,St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota.Nihil obstat: William G. Heidt, O.S.B., S.T.D., Censor deputatus.Imprimi potest: + Baldwin Dworschak, O.S.B., Abbot, St. John's Abbey.Imprimatur: + Peter W. Bartholome, D.D., Bishop of St. Cloud. February22, 1955.Copyright 1955 by The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville,Minnesota.DEDICATED TO THE HOLY FAMILY--JOSEPH, MARY, JESUS--IN WHOSE HOME THEDIVINE IDEAL OF FAMILY LIFE FOUND PERFECT FULFILLMENT.CONTENTS1. The Christian Pattern2. Our Neighbors3. "...You Did It Unto Me"4. Things5. Places6. Work7. Training for Life's Work and Play8. Vocations9. Redeeming the Time10. Sex Education
 
 11. Attaining Our IdealsStudy questions and discussion topics follow each chapter.1. THE CHRISTIAN PATTERNAlong what lines should we try to educate our children? How much ofmodern civilization should we try to bring them up to accept, how muchto reject, how much to reform? How best can we train them for whateverGod may want them to do for Him in the unknown world of the future?Before one is actually immersed in the task of parenthood, the answersto such questions seem fairly simple. "Bring up children alongtraditional Christian lines...." "Train them in Christianprinciples..." But when one is faced with the innumerable decisions ofdaily family life, it does not seem so easy always to determine the"traditional Christian lines" of child training, or to see what"Christian principles" could or should be applied in actual practice.How much, for example, should you let small boys follow the currentlocal fashions in clothes? in toy pistols? in candy and gum? If you letthem be as much like "everybody" as your means permit, short ofanything obviously sinful or leading to sin, will you be giving thechildren the best preparation for not being like "everybody" in thingsthat would be sinful? What is the line and where should you draw it?In other times, society as a whole guided parents in such "drawing oflines" and it also backed up their authority with its own. There was anaccepted way of going about the business of living, there were customsand conventions, there was a definite social pattern which was at leastremotely Christian. Parents could usually count on the help of thecommunity in which they lived in giving their children some Christianstandards of individual and social behavior.But today there are few "communities," in the old sense of the word.There are no true social patterns, there are few customs andconventions that will help us in the art of Christian living. We musttry to communicate to our children the Christian way of looking atlife, the Christian way of dealing with life.And we must do so while we are living in the midst of a society notexactly opposed to our "point of view" (as an agnostic would call it),but so confused in its own outlook that it confuses us, making it verydifficult for us to hold our own point of view clearly or to act inaccordance with it consistently. We have to incarnate a Christian wayof living in our homes in the midst of a society neither Christian nortruly pagan but secular, that is, disconnected from the influence ofGod or of "the gods," so far as that is possible.The Christian culture which we parents must fashion in our homes day byday, then, needs to be at once strong and supple, definite andadaptable. For it must train our children to live as Christians both athome and outside the home, both now and in their future lives.
 
 But how can we best go about such a task? If we tackle it like apicture puzzle, taking pieces of advice even from the mostauthoritative sources and trying to fit them together, we may find onlya puzzle as a result. Unless we ourselves have some blueprint, somemaster-plan by which to judge whether to adopt Father A's scheme offamily prayer, or Sister B's, whether to follow Psychologist X or theequally eminent and Catholic Psychiatrist Y in his ideas on childdiscipline, we shall let ourselves in for much bewilderment and littleChristian peace.But we do not have to look far to find such a master-plan. We have itright before our eyes in God's own plan for bringing up all Hischildren "in Christ." As we all know, God's method of education issacramental; He uses visible and tangible things to bring us to theknowledge and love of the invisible; He teaches us how to use our humanpowers of body and soul, how to use the visible creatures of Hisuniverse in His worship and in His service.He Himself is the great "Sacrament," the visible image of the invisibleGod, who has made Himself our way and our truth and our life. It is byliving a visible human life, by doing a man's work, by suffering anddying as men suffer and die, that He wrought the work of ourredemption. And it is in a visible Church, His Body, that He prolongsand fulfills His work through the centuries.In the life of the Church, Christ teaches us Divine truth through humanteachers, by means of human words, in images and stories taken from thevisible world and from ordinary human experience. He pours out on usHis own life and powers by means of the sacraments and sacramentals,conforming the force and pattern of our lives to His.These, again, are administered to us by other human beings; their gracereaches us under sacramental signs of visible things and audible,comprehensible words. And we are taught to respond to Him by prayer ofour human voices and imaginations and minds and wills to take our partin His work, by loving and serving Him with our human energy and skillas He dwells in our visible fellow human beings. And, finally, summingup our whole lives and the purpose of our lives, we take our part inthe visible sacramental sacrifice of the Mass.God's master-plan, then, is to be found in the work of Christ our LordHimself, God and Man, His work of redeeming mankind. And our educationof our children should surely proceed along these same lines if it isto be truly Christian education. We should make it as far as lies inour power a sacramental education, following and fitting into God's ownplan.We should try to teach the children the invisible truths of the faithby means of the visible things around us, by means of the visibleactions of daily life; we should try to give them the habit of seeingall created things as, in some way or other, signs of the power andwisdom and love of God. We should try to train the children to make thethoughts and words and actions of daily life true signs of their loveof God, able to be offered with our Lord's sacrifice in the Mass.Such a plan of education may seem very obvious and trite until we begin
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