In the preceding blog, we started our exploration of the interior and exterior challenges that our adolescent and young adult children inevitably face as they mature. During these years, our responsibility as primary influencers in their lives becomes a priority of the highest order, more significant than we could have ever imagined when they were younger. Why is that? As our children’s personalities mature, they discover they have free will, which, combined with hormonal and social factors, takes center stage.
Our parenting requires a fair amount of psychological understanding and a bit more latitude as their world expands. Therefore, we often find ourselves feeling inadequate, even fearful. We remain on the stage as primary actors, but it gets a bit crowded. Now is not the time to exit the stage out of fear, pretending they will just grow out of it or that the choices they make don’t matter much in the long run.
As parents, our relationship with God, our prayer and our attention to the counsel in Sacred Scripture are foundational. They equip us with the courage and strength needed to navigate the challenges of parenting. When our adolescents witness the integrity of our faith in the way we live, it prepares the soil of their hearts and minds for the philosophical truths of our Catholic faith. Our faith is not just a personal belief but a powerful tool in shaping our children’s worldview.
Courage is the strength of the soul that comes from leaning upon God; trust is the firm belief that God loves your children even more than you do and that he will come to their aid.
~Sebastian Walshe
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The Soil
[A parent set out to sow the philosophical truths of faith in God in their child’s heart]. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled, and the birds of the sky ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold.” After saying this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.
~St. Luke 8:5-8
This verse from the Gospel of Luke is a parable told by Jesus, illustrating the different ways people receive and respond to the Word of God. It serves as a metaphor for the various ways our children might respond to the philosophical truths of our faith.
Let’s consider that the soil in this parable lays the groundwork (pun intended) for enriching our children’s hearts with the elements necessary for a well-balanced existence. With a holy imagination, we can apply its truth to shaping our adolescents’ expanding environment while nurturing faith and virtue successfully.
What we discover is that amid our adolescents’ questions about their existence, some fascinating, even disturbing, explorations emerge that could be likened to the intrusion of the birds of the air, the rocks and the thorns. Experimentation with self-expression and alternative worldviews is natural and often necessary for their development, but they don’t necessarily take root.
Their developing psyche can make them somewhat thorny for a while, as they become acute detectors of phoniness and hypocrisy on the one hand, yet remain clueless about their own choices and behaviors on the other. We can witness in their lives what St. James describes in his epistle, “The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind” (1:6). It can be quite a ride for the entire family! And just when you are ready to send them back to the cabbage patch, the tide shifts!
Believe it or not, these years can transform into some of the best years of raising children, depending on how we respond. Consider educating yourself now so that when your adolescent begins to question and doubt the philosophical foundation of Catholicism, you are prepared to guide them through these years. (See resource box)
Propagation
A combination of physical, chemical and biological factors determines soil fertility; without a balance between them, it’s nearly impossible for plants to thrive. It’s a science that, in most cases, requires constant attention if one hopes to yield a bountiful harvest. If the delicious tomato that grows in that soil asks the farmer, “Why am I here and Why am I a tomato?” The farmer answers, “Because the seed you were created to be was a tomato, and you had fertile soil to exist in.” Tomatoes never ask existential questions, but our adolescents do. How will we answer them?
When God commanded us to acknowledge him as God above all gods and to love and serve him with our heart, mind and strength (Dt 6:4-5), he was laying down the formula for yielding an abundant life. He went on to tell us how faithful devotion (religion) to him is worked out in the life of the home, which is often referred to as the “domestic church,” a term that emphasizes the importance of the family in nurturing and passing on the faith.
Take to heart these words which I command you today. Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them on your arm as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.
~Deuteronomy 6:6-9
A religious belief system doesn’t simply rub off on children; it is absorbed through habitual reverence for God in the nitty gritty of daily life. By doing so, we integrate it into our children’s lives as the definition of their existence that forms the answer to the existential questions they will eventually have.
Religion
Man is by nature and vocation a religious being.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that we are, “by nature and vocation, a religious being. Coming from God, going toward God, man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God” (CCC 44). If our Catholic religion isn’t organic to our existence, if we don’t reverence God as the Alpha and Omega of our existence, we won’t be motivated to keep our bond with him, and the soil of our environment won’t be fertile. It’s simply not enough to take our children to Mass every week. Too many of us relegate worship of God to a box to be ticked, even an optional activity among the many lesser choices in life. Children then catch on that worshipping God is something you do rather than something you are. The effect of this is evidenced when they reach the age of reason.
Tom asks his parents, “Why are we Catholic? What’s the point of going to Mass? Why do I have to go to confession?” The parent is on the hot seat, and if they haven’t answered those questions for themselves, it’s even hotter! For instance, if the parent answers, “That’s just what we do,” or “Ask Father so-and-so about that,” Tom is less likely to turn to God to answer his existential questions because the primary voices in his life haven’t prioritized the integrity of belief with an evidential lifestyle.
When St. Paul reasoned with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens, he challenged their misguided religiosity toward multiple gods by teaching them about the one True God. He summed up the religious response of Christianity by saying, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:16-34). We can take his counsel, reverencing the Lord as the cause of our existence; we are providing the nutrients and structure of a well-ordered life, along with a strong self-identity that grows from that reverence and love for God.
Friends, just as a seed needs rich soil to thrive, our adolescents need a rich environment of beatitude (supreme blessedness) in our homes that nourishes their souls and psyches, enabling them to mature as human beings through these years of experimentation. When we actively guide our adolescents in establishing the philosophy of life contained in the Christian faith, we are forming the fertile soil to cultivate a stable self-identity.
Resources
YOUCAT (Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church) is a popular choice for catechesis. Available through Ignatius Press.
“Catholic Apologetics” is an online course from Seton Home Study that presents reasoned arguments to explain and justify the beliefs and moral code of the Catholic Church. You can find more information on signing up for the course at http://www.setonhome.org.
“Beginning Apologetics” and “Evidence for Catholic Moral Teaching” from Catholic Answers online courses. You can find more information at http://www.schoolofapologetics.com.
~I am a freelance writer. This post first appeared in a periodical.
The Maiden Warrior 