Families on Holy Ground - Support for Young Families

Every year the weeks leading up to the start of a new school year are typically characterized by a mad rush of back to school shopping, the reluctant abandonment of the free spiritedness that summer brings, and a general rising of tensions as the scramble to get organized and establish routines becomes ever more pressing. This year everything is that much more stressful and uncertain!

In an effort to support families in this transition, Evango is sharing a free “5 Day Catholic Parenting Challenge” to give families the tools they need to thrive in this climate and not to merely feel like they’re surviving from day to day.

The challenge includes five simple routines that families can easily incorporate into their daily schedule, laying the foundation for stronger and closer relationships with God and with one another. 

Day 1: Thanksgiving Prayer / Day 2: Blessing Your Child / Day 3: Gifts God Gave Them / Day 4: Be a Better Parent / Day 5: Special Time
Subscribe to the “The 5 Day Catholic Parenting Challenge” today!

Black Lives Matter: What’s a Parent to Do? offers excellent advice to parents from Dr. Janet Smith on how to approach the important subject of racism and the God given dignity of every human being.

In Part Three of the Apostolic Exhortation of Saint John Paul Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) is listed 4 tasks of the family

Family, Become What You Are

Hence the family has the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love, and this is a living reflection of and a real sharing in God’s love for humanity and the love of Christ the Lord for the Church His bride. Every particular task of the family is an expressive and concrete actuation of that fundamental mission. We must therefore go deeper into the unique riches of the family’s mission and probe its contents, which are both manifold and unified.

Thus, with love as its point of departure and making constant reference to it, the recent Synod emphasized four general tasks for the family:

1) forming a community of persons;

2) serving life;

3) participating in the development of society;

4) sharing in the life and mission of the Church

2015 NRVC/CARA study on the Role of the Family in Nurturing Vocations

Executive Summary

This report presents findings from a major study of the influence of families on the discernment of a vocation to religious life and priesthood. The goal of the research is to provide information that will help families promote vocations to religious life and priesthood.

CARA surveyed 2,174 men and women religious and 4,140 diocesan priests and seminarians who entered since 2000. The survey also asked respondents to provide contact information for a family member. CARA then contacted 1,587 identified family members with an invitation to complete a similar survey.

CARA received completed responses from 1,279 men and women religious and 1,352 diocesan priests and seminarians for a response rate of 59 percent and 33 percent, respectively, and 892 family members, for a response rate of 58 percent. Another 15 family members participated in one of two focus groups, held in Washington, D.C. and in Chicago, IL, in May 2015.

Major findings

START WITH A STRONG CATHOLIC FOUNDATION

• Family members of seminarians, priests, and religious are usually Catholic themselves and are more likely than Catholics in general to have attended a Catholic school. They are more likely than other Catholic adults to say that their Catholic faith is the most important part of their daily life. One in five had a priest or a religious already in their extended family.

• These family members report a more engaged prayer life than do other Catholic parents or other Catholic adults in general. Nearly nine in ten pray daily, compared to just over half of U.S. Catholic adults and just over a third of Catholic parents. They also feel more strongly than Catholic adults in general that it is important that younger generations of the family grow up Catholic.

BUILD A CULTURE OF VOCATION IN FAMILIES

• Religious faith was at least “somewhat” important to these families at the time their family members was considering a vocation. Six in ten say the family was attending Mass together weekly and a quarter say the family typically prayed at home together daily, apart from prayers at meals.

• Family members were engaged in their faith in public ways. Eight in ten were active in parish life, two in three say the family participated in Eucharistic Adoration, and three in five say the family prayed the rosary together.

• Families typically ate dinner together daily and two in three report that the family gathered together at least once a week for a game or movie night, family discussion, or family prayer.

• More than half report that Catholic media, such as books, movies, and TV shows, were important religious activities in the family.  About the same proportion say that volunteer or charitable service in the community were important to the family.

SUPPORT AND PROMOTE VOCATIONS IN FAMILIES

• More than half of responding family members say they have encouraged a family member to consider a vocation to priesthood or religious life. Most often, it is parents or grandparents who encourage vocational discernment.

• Family members recommend acceptance, encouragement, and support for those considering a vocation. They suggest that families should uphold priesthood and religious life as options for young people when they are exploring and considering their future.

All Embrace We See You - We Hear You - You Are Not Alone. All Embrace is for families who have lost a baby from miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death within the first few months after birth.

ava's grace offering spiritual, emotional and practical support to families who suffer miscarriage, stillbirth or infant loss.

Morning Light Ministries is a Catholic ministry for bereaved mothers and bereaved fathers who have experienced the death of their baby through ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death up to one year old. This Catholic ministry also welcomes bereaved parents of other Christian denominations, bereaved parents of other faiths and bereaved parents of no religious affiliation who are struggling with the very notion of faith.

Nursery of Heaven: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss In the Lives of the Saints and Today’s Parents Paperback – October 15, 2019 PRINT The Nursery of Heaven

Red Bird Ministries Red Bird Ministries serves ordinary families who have been given an extraordinary cross to carry.

The Emmaus Ministry for Grieving Parents: A Catholic Ministry in the Franciscan Tradition, All Are Welcome!