How Does Your Family Carry Out the Mission of Living the Gospel?

Teaching the Faith…

How does my family live out Col 3:17? To answer that question, I went back one verse to 3:16, “Teach each other, and advise each other, in all wisdom.”

Our family is a family of Parish Faith Formation teachers. My husband has taught for 22 years, and I have taught for four years. Our eldest son is a priest, so his whole life is dedicated to teaching the faith. Our next son is a substitute teacher for Faith Formation.

Our third son taught Faith Formation last year. Our fourth son teaches a monthly altar server training class. Our daughter teaches Faith Formation this year and has been an assistant in past years.

Our fifth and sixth sons are assistants in the Faith Formation classes this year and altar boys for daily Mass and Sundays. God has given our family so much. Teaching the youth of our parish is our way of living out St. Paul’s instruction found in Col. 3:17.

Susan Brock, Virginia

Through Deeds of Service…

You can discern a person’s devotion by the way they speak: their topics, vocabulary, and references. Therefore, our family consciously incorporates our faith into every aspect of our lives (in words, in deeds, and on bumper stickers).

We serve the Lord Jesus through deeds of service like providing our neighbor with childcare, donating to a worthy charity, and volunteering wherever needed. We serve Him by picking up after one another without grumbling (we’re working on that one), checking in on loved ones, and extending hospitality to friends.

We keep His Name on our lips by praying aloud together, whether in private or public and by talking about the tenets of faith in relation to everyday circumstances. We offer God thanksgiving by telling others how He provides, sustains, and blesses our family.

We aren’t doing or saying anything extraordinary to carry out the mission of the Gospel. Instead, we are infusing the mission into our movements and speech so that our day-to-day lives explain our reason for hope to anyone looking or listening.

Tara Brelinsky, North Carolina

Do Some Good Wherever You Are…

“Do not let a day pass without doing some good in it.” – St. Phillip Neri

This has become my life motto. I knew from an early age I wanted a life of service. I was an old-fashioned candy striper in high school, and after graduating from Christendom College, I moved out to south central Los Angeles to volunteer with the Vincentian Service Corps.

I lived and worked among the poorest in the nation, teaching first grade at a Catholic school. It was life-changing. When I started my own family, my husband and I deliberately cultivated a service mindset in our children. They are required to do service hours every month the way some children are required to practice music or sports.

For it is in serving that we learn to love. They have done yard work for widows, made blessing bags for the homeless, gone to work camp, served at the homeless shelter, and much more.

These service hours not only serve as a chance to practice the corporal works of mercy, but they bind our family together and give my children a chance to know what a blessing it is to serve someone. If this feels like too much for you, start small. Smile at the checkout cashier. Compliment your neighbor on her flowers. Tell that stranger in the post office you like their hat.

Do some good wherever you are.

Kristin Brown, Virginia