The message explores ways families can come to love Jesus more by getting to know Him better, through prayer, studying Scripture, practising forgiveness and regular participation in the Eucharist. It encourages families to help their children acquire virtues of “gratitude, humility, detachment, obedience, sincerity, optimism and a spirit of service.”
“They will learn from experience that they need to rely on God’s grace to ensure that their choices and decisions are consistent with their faith,” it says.
The message acknowledges the call to new evangelization faces a “major challenge” in our “de-Christianized, secular and relativistic” society. It also dispels a narrow view of vocations as restricted to the ordained priesthood or consecrated religious life.
COLF outlines other vocations as well, such as a call to marriage or to apostolic celibacy for single men and women outside of religious congregations.
“While some lay people are called to a ministry by their bishop for a particular mission in the Church, all laity receive from Christ Himself, at the time of their baptism and confirmation, a call to the apostolate,” the message says. “Today, faced with the growing secularization of society, the lay apostolate is becoming increasingly urgent.”
Lay people are on the “frontlines of the spiritual battle” that contends for souls in a world “searching for meaning,” it says. Some of them will give themselves totally to helping with the conversion and spiritual progress of others, it says, noting that some will join a society of apostolic life or a personal prelature as a result.
The message offers parents opportunities for deeper reflection on how they might better pass along the Catholic faith to their children that could be the basis for a workshop on the issue.
Copies of the 12-page brochure can be downloaded or printed copies may be ordered via COLF’s web site at www.colf.ca.
COLF’s latest message focuses on family’s role in shaping vocations
By Deborah Gyapong, Canadian Catholic NewsOTTAWA - Only a few days after Pope Benedict XVI asked forgiveness for the failure of “cradle Catholics who have failed to pass the faith onto others," the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) released a message designed to help families do a better job.
In its latest message entitled "Love is Calling Your Children," COLF calls on Catholic families to recognize the role they play in helping their children find their vocations and suggests resources to aid them in this task.
“It is within the family — very gradually and in the course of daily life — that children and adolescents learn to know God and to trust Him,” COLF says. “That is where they meet Jesus and welcome Him as a friend.
“As they spend time with Him, they will come to understand that the big challenge for a child of God and a disciple of the King of the Universe is not only to avoid evil, but to do, with Him at their side, all the good they are called to do. Rest assured: Christ will call every single one of our children to a very personal vocation. “Their answer will depend to a great extent on the openness of heart acquired in the family,” it said.
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