Seton Magazine Catholic Homeschool Articles, Advice & Resources
Summary
Three experienced Seton moms share insights about teaching children how to shape the culture with Catholic values.Set the World on Fire…
How you teach your children to shape culture with Catholic values is a topic I could write a book about.
I chose my confirmation saint, St. Catherine of Siena, because of her quote, “Be who God made you to be, and you will set the world on fire.” Chances are, if you are reading this, you have made the GIANT first step in raising kids with Catholic values and enabling them to change the culture.
You are homeschooling them and teaching them the one true Faith. Keep going. Steep them in the Faith. Have saint quotes and pictures and holy water and rosaries and crucifixes in every room. Go to weekly Mass. Monthly confession. Daily prayer. Live the Beatitudes.
Love and serve and pray for your family, your husband, your wife and your children. By name, every day. Steep them in the good, the true, the beautiful. Great art, great music, great books should be in your home.
Discuss these things around the dinner table. Get outside together. Serve together. Get involved in your parish and your community. Pray for your priest by name. Smile at the mailman. Hold the door for the next person in line. Pay for the bill for your neighbor who is struggling. Defend truth with light and joy.
So many Catholics today either do not know the truth or live it out like “sour-faced saints,” as St. Teresa of Avila, another one of my favorites, famously said. We are the Church Militant, and we are called to be happy warriors, and in this way, we will set the world on fire.
Kristen Brown, Virginia
Give a Gentle Witness Every Day…
Saying grace before meals is such a seemingly small act. However, though I grew up a cradle Catholic, it wasn’t until I became a parent that I started praying before meals.
Then, as my children grew, we carried our prayers into the public square. We openly prayed before meals in restaurants, at picnics, and while dining with friends. We didn’t make a spectacle of ourselves. We just made the Sign of the Cross individually and said our prayers together softly. We gave a gentle, visual witness to our Faith.
We adopted the practice of publicly praying grace precisely because the witness of others inspired us. When we moved to a Southern state nearly three decades ago, we found ourselves surrounded by many Christian witnesses. I used to say that the first question people asked when I lived in the northern parts was where do you work, but the first question Southerners asked was where do you go to church?
Whether owing to my upbringing or my Northern cultural influences, I tended to keep my faith practices hidden before I was exposed to the Southern way. So, I was shaped by others, which led me to recognize our opportunities as a Catholic family to shape others.
It doesn’t take big actions or loud proclamations to shape the culture. Giving a gentle witness every day, in ordinary places, has the power to affect change, one person, one family at a time.
Tara Brelinsky, North Carolina
Respect All Human Life…
Homeschooling has allowed us to teach our children values by living in a Catholic culture in our home and community. My husband and I made sure that our children respect all human life from conception to natural death.
We celebrated when new babies were born into our families, parish, and homeschool community. We had the opportunity to take care of our elderly parents and even had one of our parents move in with us when they were no longer able to care for themselves.
It was a true gift to our children to be with their grandparents at the last stages of their lives. We visited nursing homes and prayed the Rosary with the elderly. In addition, we participated in the National March for Life with our children.
We studied the lives of the saints to learn how to live out Catholic values and virtues. Our children wrote a paragraph daily about the saint of the day, which helped them understand how the saints lived out their Catholic faith, often heroically.
There are many resources available online and in books that can help families incorporate the various traditions and foods associated with feast days. Celebrating our Catholic Faith in the family is a gift with eternal rewards!
Vicky Coughlin, California
