Essential Step to Experience....

Photo Credit: Jacqueline Guilbeault

Before we met, my husband and I had each come to love God, and we made a commitment to following Jesus Christ. Upon marrying, we had idyllic dreams about what family life would be like. We were eager to have loving relationships and a "tribe" to journey with through life. We didn't want anything extravagant, but we did want a purposeful, meaningful life, happiness, and (most of all) to be together one day in heaven.

We didn't take long to learn that our dream was more complicated than we thought. We lived on a low income and were far from our extended family. While we were blessed in many ways and felt God's presence, we also experienced numerous hardships and often felt confused and discouraged. Family life was frequently chaotic, and my husband and I discovered we had many more faults than we had realized. As our kids grew, we perceived all too clearly that they were just as imperfect as we were!

Yet, when I reflect on the fruits of our family life all these years later, I am amazed! It is clear to me now that the most crucial factor that enabled us to reach our cherished goals for our Catholic family was how our home and lives were purposefully "set up" to support those goals. (Purposefully, not perfectly!)

If you want to better understand how to set up your family life for God's vision of "success," do not look to our culture. Together with your spouse, look to Jesus. Jesus said, "I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved…. I came so that [you] might have life and have it more abundantly" (Jn 10:9-10).

Jesus is the gate through which we pass to begin this journey toward heaven as a family. He is also the guardrail that will keep us from falling off the path! The most basic way he has given us to encounter him and be transformed by him is through the sacraments and prayer.

Three essential first steps to embracing God's awesome plan for your family

1. Take your family to church every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation. No excuses. If you have not been to confession recently, especially if you have any grave, unconfessed sin, refrain from Holy Communion, but still go. Keep going to Mass and ask for the grace to go to confession as soon as possible. Once you have made a good confession and can receive Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, you can start discerning how to set up your family life.
2. Start your own regular, daily time of personal prayer, even if the time of prayer is very short. As head of the home, commissioned and enabled by God and your spouse to lead your family to heaven, you need to orient yourself to God before you can orient your family to God. If you can only start with 10 minutes of prayer, that's okay. Don't know where to start? Prayerfully read a small portion of one of the gospels. Just stick with it and seek to deepen your relationship with the Holy Trinity.
3. Realize we are in a spiritual battle, and the evil one does not want you or your family to be happy and holy.He will try to convince you (probably subtly) that the first two points I described above won't lead to happiness or make any significant change in your life. Keep this in mind and ask Jesus to protect you from his lies.

If you have the same dreams for your family that my husband and I did, start with the basics and don't give up! Don't be afraid, but be ready to do things differently from what everyone else is doing. Use credible resources to help you learn and grow. Over time, your imperfect, messy, beautiful family will reap blessing upon blessing and experience the abundant life Jesus promises those who follow him.

Christine Hanus’ lifework is to glorify God at all costs and to encourage others to do the same. As a writer, she contributes regularly to several online Catholic organizations and is the author of Everyday Heroism: 28 Daily Reflections on the Little Way of Motherhood. Christine teaches in various forums, specializing in prayer and radical surrender to God. She and her husband, Patrick, have five children and a passel of small grandchildren.

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