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The Southern Cross, Page 8
Faith AMv®!!
Thursday, November 16, 2000
How faith serves as a
“resource” for all of life
ITU
All contents copyright©2000 by CNS
By Mary Jo Pedersen
Catholic News Service
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E
I at your peas,” “Look both
ways before you cross the street,
“Don’t start smoking or you may
never be able to stop.” The litany of
parent lessons is endless. What par
ent hasn’t recited a daily string of dos
and don’ts to his or her child?
Parents are compelled to teach
their children because it can be a dan
gerous world out there, and children
are vulnerable and impressionable.
'hildren who know Jesus
Christ and his standards for
abundant life are less likely to
f aU into false idol worship. The
courage to make difficult
choices in life comes from ...
faith in the power of God’s
Spirit to sustain you in the
tough times.”
Our children are bombarded by forces
that can be harmful both physically
and spiritually.
Parents want the best for their
children. But a parent’s definition of
“best” and society’s notion of what is
best may be very different.
The popular media would have us
believe that the very best thing is to
be rich or to drive a particular
model of car or to have lots of
friends, which you can acquire by
smoking cigarettes and drinking a
particular beer.
We’re led to believe that security in
life is all about your choice of an in
vestment company; that only pretty/
handsome (and preferably skinny)
people have happy lives. The cultural
FOODFORTHOUGHT
altar is filled with false idols compet
ing for our devotion: power, popular
ity, wealth, status, beauty.
■ ■ ■
I’ve never met a healthy parent
who didn’t want his or her child to be
healthy and whole, safe from the dan
gers of the world — and happy too.
The desire for their children’s security
and happiness flows in parents’ veins.
This longing for the child’s good is a
But it is easy to lose track of what
“having abundant life” means and to
light our vigil light at the wrong altar.
That is why it is so important for
parents to include religious faith in
their litany of lessons.
Christian faith points the way to
real human happiness and fullness of
life. Christian faith tells us who we
are and what life is all about. And it is
not about money, status, power and
ness. Yet the Search Institute’s study
of youth ages 16-18 shows that 35
percent of youth said they rarely if
ever talked about faith or God with
their mothers, and 56 percent rarely
or ever talked with their fathers about
faith or religious matters.
In his practical and inspiring new
book called Raising Faith-Filled Kids
(Loyola Press, Chicago), author Tom
McGrath provides parents with prac
CNS photo by Bill Wittman
holy longing inherited from the divine
Creator. In this sense, it is much like
God’s longing for all creatures. “I have
come that they may have life and have
it abundantly” (John 10:10).
I suppose that everyone believes something. Even if a person believes
that “belief is bad, ” he believes it, and it lends some kind of direction to
his life.
Sometimes it is easy to tell that people have a strong belief. Perhaps
they are members of a certain movement, for example, and their
investment of time and energy in its “cause” is plain for all to see.
The fact that beliefs can shape our actions could constitute a good
reason for making an effort to identify what we really do believe — in
order to account for our actions, to evaluate them.
There probably isn’t much to concern us if our actions are guided by a
belief that authentic love of God and neighbor, along with generosity and
an understanding heart ought to characterize us.
But there are subtle beliefs of all kinds: belief that it is important
always to own “the best” products; belief that people who disagree with us
are ill willed or slow witted; belief that teen-agers or the elderly are, by
definition, difficult people; belief that it is unreasonable to be asked to
sacrifice anything.
The point is that what we believe tends to shape our actions, since
presumably people act upon their beliefs. Furthermore, unexamined
beliefs can subtly influence our thinking and our behavior toward others.
Do we know why we do what we do? Do we know what we believe?
40 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!
“things.” Those are false idols.
Extensive studies show that youth
who practice their religious faith are
less likely to become involved in risky
behaviors.
The model for “living abundantly”
is Jesus. He loved and gave his life to
others in very ordinary ways.
Children who know Jesus Christ
and his standards for abundant life
are less likely to fall into false idol
worship. The courage to make diffi
cult choices in life comes from deep
convictions and faith in the power of
God’s Spirit to sustain you in the
tough times.
Faith in God and participation in a
religious community are two of the
positive building blocks of develop
ment which surfaced in research
done by the Search Institute in its
study of more than 100,000 youth in
America (Passing On the Faith, by
Merton P. Strommen and Richard A
Hardel, St. Mary’s Press, Winona,
Minn.).
Almost every major study of
healthy families has shown that a
shared religious core is an essential
element of building healthy children
and families.
Passing on the faith at home is
essential both for wholeness and holi
tical ideas for nurturing faith in chil
dren, from tots to teens.
Most parents who say they don’t
know enough about their religion to
teach their children are unaware of
how much teaching is going on by
example right in their own living
rooms. Even a parent’s simple offer to
pray for a child when there is a test at
school or a challenge ahead is a lesson
in faith. An action as simple as re
turning money when a clerk gives
back too much change is an effective
lesson in honesty.
Finding a good religious-forma
tion program in a local parish and
getting a child there every week is
also essential.
Sharing a living faith with children
is one way of protecting them from
negative forces that surround them.
Maybe that’s why we call God’s word
the “good news.”
(Pedersen is coordinator of the
Leadership in Family Life Training
Program for the Archdiocese of
Omaha, Neb., and a co-author with
Fathers Thomas A. Greisen and
Ronald Wasikowski of “More Than
Meets the Eye, Finding God in the
Creases and Folds of Family Life,”
St. Mary’s Press, Wineno, Minn.)