This is the final article in the series.

By Father James H. Sexstone

Writing about “The Parish and the Family” in a short space is a bit like eating soup with a fork. You might manage to come up with a few vegetables and bits of meat, but inevitably you’ll miss most of the rice, a large portion of the noodles, and at least 99.9% of the broth. All you get is a taste and a tiny bit to chew on.

This year, 1980, has been designated as the Year of the Family. But concern with the importance, the values, the problems of Christian marriage and family life is hardly anything new in the challenge and heritage of our Catholic faith, as anyone who has been involved with groups such as the Christian Family Movement well knows. As a Protestant minister friend of mine recently remarked, “You know, that’s one of the things I’ve always admired about the Catholic Church – you take marriage and family seriously.”

The Second Vatican Council underscores the teaching and tradition of our Catholic faith on the importance of marriage and family life in the document GAUDIUM ET SPES. “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.” The Fathers of the Council wrote: “The well-being of the individual person, and of both human and Christian society, is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life … “The Christian family springs from marriage, which is an image and a sharing in the partnership of love between Christ and the Church … Christians, making full use of the times in which we live, and carefully distinguishing the everlasting from the changeable, should actively strive to promote the values of marriage and family.” (Gaudium et Spec, sections 47, 48 and 52).

On both the diocesan and parish level, the effort to support and enhance Christian marriage and family life can – and does – take many forms.

Pre-Cana sessions, Engaged Encounter, and other programs for those to be married are extremely important in establishing firm foundations. Adult discussion groups and religious enrichment programs help parents and others mature and grow in their faith and assist them with the religious formation of their children. Marriage Encounter weekends and support groups strengthen good marriages and enable them to become even better.

Church-affiliated agencies such as Atlanta’s Catholic Social Services and the Village of St. Joseph respond to the needs of families in crisis. Groups for divorced and separated Catholics seek to provide support and assistance with those dealing with the multiply traumas of the broken family. Outreach efforts strive to contact and re-integrate into the parish family those who have drifted or become alienated from the Church. Multi-family weekend retreats, such as those undertaken by some Ultreyas and smaller parishes, can be joyful and highly successful occasions for strengthening family ties and building Christian friendships with other families. Distribution of family-oriented booklets of activities and prayers for Advent and Lent are a great help in aiding families grow in faith, love, service and prayer. (Many parishes publish their own booklets but there are also a number of such programs commercially produced at a reasonable price, less in bulk rates. The annual “Rediscovering Lent” issue from Today’s Parish is one we’ve used before and plan to use again this year.)

The other side of the coin of the “Parish and the Family” is the importance of families becoming actively involved in the life, ministries, and activities of their parish. Families who “generously share their spiritual treasures with other families” (Gaudium et Spes, section 48) invariably find the joyful truth in the promise give by Jesus in Luke 6: “Give and it shall be given to you. Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over, will they pour into the fold of your garment. For the measure you measure with will be measured back to you.”

Every parish relies on and greatly benefits from the gifts of time, talent, interest and energy which individuals and families can share with others. Religious education programs would be nonexistent without the involvement of families and family members as catechists, aides, coordinators, youth group coordinators, youth group advisors, drivers and chaperones for activities, cake-bakers and punch-makers for First Communion or Confirmation celebrations, leaders for discussion or Bible-sharing groups. Parish worship calls for the service of many – lectors, ushers, altar servers, special ministers of Communion, musicians, singers, artists, planners, those who clean and set-up, take care of the sanctuary and sacristy, launder the linen, gather the flowers and replace broken zippers in albs.

Parish councils, committees and organizations function only because of the active and generous involvement of their members in working toward a shared vision or goal. When serious illness or the shattering experience of death or tragedy hits a family in the parish, the rally to personal support by other families (with meals, babysitting, transportation, blood donations, a shoulder to cry on or a patient ear to listen) is truly Christ’s love in action. In many parishes, ministry to the sick, the homebound and those in nursing homes depends on the concern and involvement of families. The call to extend the compassionate hand of Christ by helping resettle a refugee family can be a rich and rewarding experience for several families joined in shared effort as a sponsoring group.

In a current issue of the FOCUS ON HOPE series on “The Christian Family of the 80’s” which a group of our adults are currently using on Sunday mornings, Gary and Patricia Boelhower write the following: “This involvement always benefits both the parish and the family. When a family takes part in the ministry of the parish, they feel more at home, more a part of their community. Parents and children have the opportunity to meet other members of the parish, to know them by name; and, soon the Sunday Mass becomes a true celebration with friends.”

Nineteen eighty – the “Year of the Family. With your family, why not make it a Year of the Parish Family, also?