BE it understood at the start that the Catholic family is in a very real sense a glorious adventure for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Parenthood, with its bringing of children into the world, is a holy thing. Saint Francis of Sales has so wonderfully expressed it: “The purpose of parenthood is to people the earth with adorers of God and to fill heaven with saints.” Could any vocation be of greater worth? 

The family must be very dear to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was He who restored the family to its original type. It was to be based on a relationship that is holy and permanent and at the same time monogamous. Our blessed Lord raised the contract from which the family springs to the dignity of a Sacrament and thereby elevated the family to the lofty level of the supernatural. 

It must break His heart as He beholds the modern world, under the pressure of so-called civilization, frustrating His holy purpose for the family. This frustration has reached such a stage in some places that family life has been actually destroyed. In many places the normal Catholic family is little more than an ideal. It is with the normal Catholic family that we are chiefly concerned in this article. 

Now Catholic Christians will make little progress in witnessing in this modern world to the true family ideal unless they recognize first and foremost that the family is holy and that it exists for a holy purpose. It is holy for the simple reason that it is privileged to hold as its chief function the cooperation with Almighty God in the procreating of children. These children are to be the children of God by adoption and citizens of His kingdom here on earth and in heaven above. It is perfectly natural to expect that the union of husband and wife which establishes this holy, family unit should be broken only by death itself. 

A fact that is too often ignored is that the end or purpose of the Christian family is salvation,—salvation of parents and salvation of children. The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is administered to the bride and groom that as husband and wife they may have the grace to keep in the way of salvation and to keep their children in the way of salvation. No one would doubt for a moment that grace is therefore a necessity and no mere passing luxury. Thus in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony the sanctifying grace already received by each spouse in Holy Baptism is increased immeasurably for the new duties of parenthood. After all, marriage is not a question of mere compatibility but it is a call for the “working out” of the salvation of husband, wife and children. 

It would be idle to expect marriage to end with salvation unless it begins and continues on the basis of love. This does not mean mere love of the senses or the sentimental love of a posed romance. No, it means reasonable love, sacrificial love, which is the driving power to compel each spouse to seek the welfare of the other and both spouses to seek the welfare of any children born to them. Marriage almost inevitably brings about a revelation of character that neither husband nor wife could visualize during courtship or honeymoon. Both are inclined to behave ideally during courtship and very probably during honeymoon. It is later when husband and wife especially need the grace to understand and appreciate and make allowances for qualities in each other hitherto not apparent and also the grace to raise children to become the saints with which earth and heaven must be peopled. The rearing of children involves many a trial, but so does the companionship of husband and wife as each reveals to the other qualities less noble than those which appeared on the surface during early acquaintanceship. 

All of which reminds us that the home is a school for both parents and children. It is a school in which the discipline which real love requires must be observed as holy discipline strengthened by the grace of God. In the home all characteristics, good or bad, stand out in bold relief. Without the courage and love to look at such bold relief, members of the family escape from the home as cowards or live in the home as battering rams or resembling an Achilles sulking in his tent.

 The family is the basic unit in society. Where family life is weak society is weak. Indeed the nation or the Church, for that matter, is as strong or weak as its family life is strong or weak. We might as well admit that for either the nation or the Church to flourish family life must flourish. Actually the family unit is the most important unit in society for the simple reason that within this unit only can the individual character be made strong and develop fully.This explains the fact that with very few exceptions you can judge the family life by the individuals that are the products of this family life. This too explains the fact that practically all educators and social workers agree that the family is the strongest influence in the development of the individual. This is why most discussions these modern days on the delinquency of children end up in discussions on the delinquency of parents. 

THERE are grave dangers in the modern world that presage the overthrow of the family as the basic unit in society. In some parts of the world the State is exalted at the expense of the family. Children become the property of the State, indeed the tools of the State. They are mere cogs in the State machine. Not only the children but the parents as well come under the direct control of the State. In much of the world divorce is made easy and indeed it is urged by those who have no patience with maladjustments in society, most of which are temporary. 

Adjustments to our blessed Lord and His holy will are completely left out of the reckoning. Then again, far too commonly is the belief upheld that families should be kept so small as to entail no sacrifice. The word luxury becomes necessity and children must not be added to the family if such additions will mean a more modest home, no mink coats, no annual new car, and no assurance of “keeping up with the Joneses.” The rapidly increasing number of women in industry is also responsible for the minimizing of family life. Only where there is real need should the presence of women in industry be justified if we are to have wives and mothers who alone can properly build the proper home life. 

In order that a well-rounded picture may be set forth of a normal Catholic family, even in this ultra-modern world, it might be well to examine the parts played by the members of the family,—the father, the mother and the children. The father, and no apology is offered for this statement, is the head of the house. This is what the Church has ever taught, going back to Saint Paul’s forceful affirmation of the father’s position in the household. A head is a postulate in any well-ordered unity of society—the state, the diocese, the parish, the business concern, the factory, the college, the school—name what you will. A head too is a postulate in any well-ordered family. There can be no peace without order and there can be no order without authority. Some person, not some document or agreement, must exercise that authority. The father is by nature superior in physical strength and ordinarily he is more stable emotionally. It is proper that he should exercise the authority in the household and authority there must be. It is fitting too that the father should be the head of the house since it rests upon him to supply sustenance and shelter for the family. As head it rests upon him to take the lead in providing guidance and a central influence in the family life. When the children argue with their mother and make excessive requests and she calmly says, “Ask your father,” his word (uttered after wise and private consultation with his wife) should come forth as the final authority. Children may not like this authoritative word but they will respect it. 

Now the father if he is really to be the head of the house must come home at night, to put it frankly, and love to be with his family. His responsibility must be shouldered and not exercised in absentia. He needs to know his children and they must be allowed to know him if he is to lead them. Too often a father comes home merely to bring his pay envelope wherewith to support the family. He needs to come home to bring loving and wise leadership. He should set for his children a wholesome example not merely as a good sport and generous provider but as a good soul, supremely interested in giving of his time and his very life for them

 To maintain that the father is to be the rightful head of the house does not mean that the mother is to be dominated by her husband and to render blind submission in all things, yielding to his every whim and fancy. His leadership brings responsibility and not license. Husband and wife enter into loving partnership. Trustfully they work out together a policy for the household. As lovers they sacrifice for each other. However, the policies are enunciated by the father with authority, since somehow, somewhere there must be an end to family disputes, other than bitterness and the hatred fanned by this bitterness. True, it occasionally happens that the mother in an emergency should take the lead for the sake of the children. Such an emergency occurs when a father is a brutal tyrant or what is sometimes just as bad,—a passive Mr. Milquetoast.

 The mother, God bless her, is normally the greatest influence in the home. She it is who has practically twenty-four hours of duty. This duty involves not merely the raising of strong and healthy children, but the providing of moral and religious training as well. It is the mother who gets closest to her children and sacrifices most for them. She does not rid herself of her children by always sending them away with an impatient “Go away, don’t bother me!” She ministers to their bodies, yes, but what is more important to their souls. The mother takes care to see to it that religion is a natural part of the life in the home. Her children are accustomed to seeing sacred symbols about the house—crucifixes, statues of Our Lady and the saints, holy pictures and holy water.

 Above all, the Catholic mother very early teaches her children to pray. She encourages them to talk to God quite naturally and in their own words. She helps her children in their prayers to clear the atmosphere of their sins by confessing them and telling God of their sorrow for them. She encourages her children to seek help from God not to sin again but to become saints like the Christian heroes of every age. She reminds them to pray for others, to express their love for Jesus and His blessed Mother, and to say “Thank you” to God for every blessing. When they are old enough, the mother takes her children to church to visit Jesus in the Tabernacle and to wander about His house. She further gives them a richer and richer setting to their religious life as she reads to them Bible stories, teaches them simple catechisms and talks to them quite naturally about God and His saints. 

Many a child’s religion is spoiled when he is put on exhibit when he prays. (This is why even in churches children’s corners, children’s altars and children’s ecclesiastical contraptions should be avoided). In the home how often a mother will say to her husband “Now you must go upstairs and hear the children’s prayers before they go to bed.” What is even worse a mother will too often perhaps invite house guests and friends and neighbors to see her children say their prayers. If the father or any visitor will pray naturally with the mother and the children, this is commendable, but children at prayer are not on exhibition any more than grown-ups at prayer are on exhibition. No one save God needs to hear the children’s prayers. After all they are addressed to Him. To repeat to others cute expressions used by children in their devotions borders very closely on the sacrilegious. No, pray with children, but in the name of God do not watch them at their prayers. 

NOW we come to the consideration of the children in the Catholic family. Let it be said first of all that each child is different from any other child and that no child reacts entirely according to any pattern set forth in any book on child training. You see every child is a unique individual,—a unique combination of conflicting elements. The first duty of any parent is to try to discover what is the motive of the child which lies behind any fairly important action. Such an action may spring from love or malice or weakness or ignorance or fear or imitation or what not. Discovering the basis for the action is important for only then can the parent intelligently “bring up” the child. If the basis be malice, the child should be punished; if it be love, the love of the child should be encouraged into reasonable channels; if it be fear, an effort should be made to dispel the fear; if it be ignorance, helpful instruction should be offered; if it be imitation, such should be guided into proper channels; if it be weakness, encouragement and helps to increasing strength should be offered. In other words, parents should strive with gentleness and yet with zeal to resolve the conflicts and to increase the virtues which they find in their children. 

Children in the home have their responsibility. They are to render to their parents implicit love and respect and obedience until they reach their majority or marry. Even then they will continue their loving attentions and even financial support when such support is actually needed. These things are the children’s return for the sacrifices that have been generously made by their parents in the years of upbringing. Children should always be encouraged to have their part in the life of the family, sharing in its responsibilities and duties. Each child in the home should have a job. Each child, even in the trying why stage, should be encouraged to ask questions and should have his questions answered. 

Children should be encouraged to take a part in the general family conversation, though they should never be licensed to monopolize this conversation or to out-shout anyone else trying to put in their two-cents worth. Egotism and self-love should always be frowned upon. 

Would to God that every Catholic family would think of the Holy Family of Nazareth—Jesus, Mary and Joseph,—as the model for family living. In that blessed family life, yes must have been the favorite word—yes to God and yes to each other. Simple courtesy must have shone forth from that holy home. Order and calm and regularity must have reigned there. To be sure there were three separate wills in that Holy Household, but three wills that must have grown strong as they were brought into harmony with the will of the Father in heaven. The conversations held in the model home of Nazareth must have been based on the principle “in honor preferring one another.” If every modern Christian home were but a faint reflection of the Holy Home in Nazareth the earth would be peopled with adorers of God and heaven would be filled with saints. 

THE highest way of saying yes to God is for the members of the family to worship as a family at the Holy Mass. Sunday by Sunday and on many weekdays the members of the family have their solemn duty and happy privilege of going together to Mass to worship their heavenly Father by offering Him their best prayers and their best virtues. Readily each individual will recognize that he has only imperfect prayers and imperfect virtues to offer. But, lo! he is privileged to offer even these by uniting them to the perfect offering of prayer and virtue which Jesus Christ as Head of the whole family of God sets forth when he re-presents Himself to the Father in the Sacrifice of the Mass on behalf of the imperfect members of His mystical body the Church. Then again, family worship at Mass will be humble worship for many other families will be there too and no one family is the family. The Smith family and the Cabot family and the Jones family and the Lowell family are equally loved by the Father of all who sent His Son into the world to redeem them all. Indeed, any family of this modern age will not be the self-sufficient and all-sufficient family for the Holy Mass is always being offered by those members of every Christian family who have gone on before after passing through the gate of death. Christ’s mystical body the Church, God’s avowed family, counts most of its members after their cleansing in the Church Triumphant in heaven and it is these members of the Church beyond the veil who are taking part in the family worship at the Holy Mass since Christ’s mystical body cannot be divided. It therefore happens that the whole body of the faithful, living and departed, offers each and every Mass. What is more the holy angels throng about every altar to complete the free will offering of worship of the human members of the family of God. Thus family worship at the Holy Mass lifts each and every family up into the greatness of the Incarnate Son of God and at the same time properly humbles each family since it unites any particular family with every other family from every Christian household and with every member of every Christian family who has left this world and entered into greater glory. 

“One family, we dwell in him, One Church, above, beneath.”—Charles Wesley