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Page 2 • Faith Today
Faith Today • Page 3
By Katharine Bird
NC News Service
Two years ago James Kenny,
now 51, ran his first 26-mile
marathon. His coach and partner
for the marathon was Joe, his
oldest son. The elder Kenny, a
clinical psychologist, is in private
practice in Rensselaer, Ind.
“I could never have run the
marathon without Joe,” Kenny f
said, adding he would have quit
the grueling race at the 21-mile
mark.
Long before the marathon, his
son, an experienced runner and a
medical student, set up a training
program for his father to follow.
“I was never an athlete, but Joe
kept saying, ‘You can do it if you
want to,’” Kenny said.
Twice weekly his son called
him from Indianapolis “to make
sure I was doing all right,” Kenny
added.
The psychologist told that story
as an example of how children
can help parents develop an unex
plored talent.
Parents spend so much time en
couraging children to develop dif
ferent talents that it’s neat to turn
the tables sometimes. It’s a kind
of “quiet reciprocity,” Kenny
commented.
Rock music is another area
where youths can teach parents.
Parents can learn a lot if they are
willing to go beyond the
“salacious words to see where the
rock star is coming from,” Kenny
suggested.
When children see parents
respect their expertise in some
area, it helps them develop self-
confidence, Kenny said. Children
pick up a message that says if
“my parents listen to me I must
be OK.”
He and his wife Mary are the
parents of 12 children and the
authors of “Family Talk,” a col
umn syndicated weekly by Na
tional Catholic News Service.
Kenny is convinced that parents
lay the “basic foundations, the
basement and first-floor stuff” in
preparing children to face life
courageously. Parents “encourage
pre-talent skills,” he said.
A goal of parenting is to en
courage children to see themselves
in positive terms “as good and
beautiful persons,” Kenny said.
Then children will be able to
tackle the future with the feeling
they “can do anything.” The
family is in a unique position to
do this since “it’s there 24 hours
a day, seven days a week,” the
counselor added.
Kenny also talked about what
he considers some hazards parents
need to keep in mind.
All children have special
abilities, but often children in the
same family have quite different
talents, he observed. One child
might show talent in several
sports while another might not,
demonstrating talent instead in
another area.
The hazard is that children may
think they have to excel exactly
as a sibling does “to please
parents,” Kenny continued.
Parents can head this off by show
ing children that each is equally
valuable in their eyes.
If a child has a special gift “to
make instant friends with
anyone,” Kenny said, the parents
can get across to the child that
this is a handy personal trait to
have.
Kenny cautioned parents to
keep an eye on what’s happening
when children participate in com
petitive events. Too much of the
world has the overly competitive
attitude that it’s “dog eat dog and
my advancement is at your ex
pense,” he observed.
Kenny, for example, likes to see
children take part in several sports
“just for fun.” Sports should help
youths “develop the gifts God
gave them, to be full, well-
rounded persons.”
Kenny stressed how valuable it
is for children to have their
parents’ support at performances
or competitions. Seeing parents up
front at games, band drills or
plays encourages youths to do
their best and to keep improving,
the family life expert said.
(Ms. Bird is associate editor of
Faith Today.)
The family
By Dolores Leckey
NC News Service
A family I knew when I was a
young woman provided clues to
the way I hoped our own family
might grow. I’ve written
elsewhere about them — about a
man and woman who built a
house in the woods of Minnesota:
“They gave life to their children
there, and taught them many
things: psalms and poems and
stories of great men and women.
They taught their children respect
for the intellectual life, for the
spiritual life and for the life of
manual labor. The man is dead
now, and his grown children
abide all over the earth. They are
lawyers and writers, carpenters
and artists, politicians, business
persons and parents. They are car
ing citizens in a variety of com
munities.” (“Sacred Shelters,” by
Dolores Leckey, in “Living With
Apocalypse,” edited by Tilden Ed
wards; Harper and Row)
What did I see in that family?
First, an atmosphere. It valued
creativity and the exploration of
different kinds of work: the work
of the home and the world’s
work.
Sons joined their mother in
bread baking and the mother en
couraged her artist son to find a
corner of the house to serve as his
studio. Politics, literature, music
— all were present.
By Father John Castelot
NC News Service
As a miniature model of the
church, the Christian family pro
claims to contemporary society in
every age: “This is what the
church is like. This is how people,
transformed by Christ’s love, can
live together in peace and
harmony.”
Given the needs of human
society in various ages and
cultures, this proclamation is
given different emphases in dif
ferent circumstances. Keeping this
in mind helps us to understand
and appreciate some otherwise
puzzling passages in certain New
Testament letters.
For example, the author of
Titus says: “The older women...by
their good example must teach the
younger women to love their
husbands and children, to be sen
sible, chaste, busy at home, kind
ly, submissive to their husbands.
Thus the word of God will not
fall into disrepute” (2:3-5).
Most of this advice would meet
with ready acceptance today. But
references to being busy at home
on a mission
That was not all. The prayer of
the church, the great sweep of the
Psalms, wove in and out of the
tfdinary family routine.
And there was the parents’
prayer entrusting each child and
the whole family to God. This oc
casioned one of my earliest in
sights into ministry within the
family.
1 learned from these friends
how children can be a means by
which parents learn of trust — the
trust among family members and
ultimately trust in God.
There was an occasion when I
was distressed because family
finances precluded sending our
children to the new Montessori
School, the first in our area. I ex
pressed great worry about this to
my friend. She wisely asked if I
thought that God, who is so
good, had preordained only cer
tain ways for the development of
our families.
As I recall it, she said: “You
seed to trust that God will be
with you when it comes to doing
what is best for your children.”
Her attitude encouraged my
husband and me to undertake the
Montessori methods at home —
something we enjoyed as much as
the children did.
Now that our own children are
grown, I see how certain beliefs
influenced us all. Among these is
the conviction that the family is a
and submissive to their husbands
raise the hackles of many who see
t.he role of today’s woman in a
different light. What is behind
these words, which were written
to women around the end of the
first century?
Christians had grown in number
aSid were visible in society. But,
as mysterious members of a
religion forbidden by Roman law,
they had to meet in the privacy of
each other’s homes.
What is mysterious provokes
the imagination. So other people
imagined all sorts of things about
the Christian community.
Christians were accused of the
strangest kinds of behavior. Their
meetings were whispered about as
wild orgies, with wife-swapping
the order of the day. People who
hfcard garbled versions of the
Eucharist — about partaking of
the body of Christ — said the
Christians were cannibals.
Yet Christians had to live
shoulder to shoulder with people
who didn’t understand their
religion. They wanted to be ac
cepted and respected. They
wanted to attract others to Christ.
primary place for coming to see
that all are called by God to con
tribute to the world because of —
•Who we are, that is, compas
sionate, ethical, spiritually “tuned-
in” persons;
•and what we do, how we use
our talents.
I believe a key to the family’s
vocation is in the training and
support of the different members’
particular vocations. In a way,
each one is on a mission.
When I think of our own
children now — one in the
theater, another digging in an ar
cheological site, another teaching
history, another translating Rus
sian — I see them committed to
principles of peace, justice, har
monious living; committed, I
would say, to God’s kingdom.
The Christian family also is call
ed to care for some human need
in the wider community. This is
not to say that each family
member must work in a soup kit
chen or tutor refugees. For when
any family members minister to
others, they act on behalf of the
whole family as well.
Finally, the family is the natural
place for learning to move beyond
private goals for the good of all.
If the lesson is learned well, the
church and society are enriched.
(Mrs. Leckey is director of the
U.S. bishops’ Committee on the
Laity.)
Accordingly, Christians had to
do everything in their power to
project an image that would
counter false impressions and un
just accusations.
This led them to stress their
discipline, order, efficient subor
dination of roles. Circumstances
dictated this approach. The Chris
tian family was fulfilling its voca
tion as defender of the Christian
community.
Again, in First Timothy, we
read: A wife “will be saved
through childbearing” (2:15). Ob
viously, bearing a child does not
ensure automatic entrance to
heaven. But at the time this letter
was written, heretics were con
demning marriage and childbear
ing as evil (I Timothy 4:3).
Thus the Christians countered
that vicious teaching by stressing
and demonstrating the goodness
of both marriage and motherhood.
The Christian family has to
meet the challenge of the times —
in every age.
(Father Castelot teaches at St.
John’s Seminary, Plymouth, Mich.)
Rumors about the Christian family
FOOD...
A family’s life can reach into a
vast network of relationships:
•relationships of family
members with each other — hus
band and wife, parents and
grandparents, brother and sister;
•relationships of family
members with co-workers, other
families, teachers, parishioners,
classmates.
Are there opportunities to
carry out a family’s Christian
vocation within that network of
relationships?
Consider this story about how
a family’s vocation might take
shape at home:
Clinical psychologist James
Kenny was speaking with pride
about his wife Mary studying to
become a certified public ac
countant. It took some doing on
both their parts, especially dur
ing the two months of her in
ternship when she lived with
their oldest son in Indianapolis,
Ind., he said.
During that period, Kenny
took over the parenting of the
children still at home in
Rensselaer, Ind. The Kennys
have 12 children.
For Kenny, helping his wife
pursue her dream is part and
parcel of married life. While ac
counting might not interest him
much, he thinks couples need
“to be open to differences” and
willing to learn from each other.
Sometimes it pays to reflect on
the realities of your life now,
...for discussion
1. Do you regard your role
and your contributions as a fami
ly member — grandparent,
parent, spouse, child, etc. — as a
vocation? How and why is the
home a challenging forum for
Christian living?
2. Father Herbert Weber thinks
a home is a place where people
are accepted — welcomed — in
their imperfections. What does
he mean? Is this easier said than
done?
3. What are some ways a fami
ly can reach outside itself to
others? Do you see this as part
of a family’s Christian vocation?
4. How do parents, catechists
and teachers, scout leaders and
others help different children
develop their different talents
and abilities? How important is
this?
...for thought
suggests Jean Haldane, dean
emeritus of the Episcopal Lay
Academy in the Episcopal
Diocese of California. She spoke
during a 1984 consultation on
adult minstries at the Cardinal
Spellman Retreat Center in the
Bronx, N Y.
Lay people are in for a
“wonderful surprise” when they
see that their ordinary interac
tions with others can be part of
their Christian ministry, Ms.
Haldane observed.
She told of a woman who
came to a workshop apologizing
for her lack of experience in
ministry: “I’ve never had time
for ministry...I've never had time
to do Altar Guild, teach in the
church school, etc.”
But, Ms. Haldane continued,
by the workshop’s end the
woman exclaimed: “You mean,
looking after my mother for the
last 20 years is part of my
ministry?”
Where is the opportunity for
carrying out a Christian vocation
in a family’s daily life? Is it in
helping each member of a
children’s scout troop to develop
his or her special talents? Is it in
fostering interracial or inter
religious understanding in or
dinary life contexts? Is it in
meeting some special need or
fostering a special goal for one’s
immediate family?
Where do you think the fami
ly’s Christian vocation leads?
SECOND HELPINGS
“The most difficult thing that
Jesus asks of us is that we love
as he loved,’’ writes Franciscan
Sister Paula Ripple in “Called
to Be Friends.” Factors that
foster development in many
human relationships are ex
plored in the numerous short
chapters of this easy-to-read
book. Christianity, the author
states, is based on two great
commandments which stress
the need for God’s love as well
as for the love and friendship of
human companions. Some peo
ple, she suggests, have had
more assistance in seeing the
difference between these two
needs than their relationship.
Interestingly, she stresses
ways in which human relation
ships can even promote the in
dividual’s growth and self
understanding. She discusses
the skill of listening; unrealistic
expectations of others; the
meaning of commitment;
prayer; and other topics. (Ave
Maria Press, Notre Dame, Ind.
46556. $3.95.)