Jeanette Brimner tells of her experience of communicating her own faith to her children and the stories of their Church involvement.
At our first baby’s baptism, we were blissfully unaware what a challenge raising him Catholic would be. Even back in the seventies, the media were tempting us to abandon supposedly old-fashioned values, like chastity and integrity, stressing that material possessions and good looks were the key ingredients to acquiring fulfilment and happiness.
Communication of faith
Within five-and-a-half years, we had four children, four innocent souls relying on us to teach them about God’s infinite love, mercy and justice. Since I had once been a kindergarten teacher myself, I had learned many methods to instil the faith in my own children.
From the time they were infants, I sang to them about God’s love, sometimes composing the words along the way. I was fortunate enough to have a pleasing singing voice, which seemed to calm them down when they were fretful, and drew smiles when they were content. We regularly said grace before meals, and eventually all four learned to make the sign of the cross with their chubby little fingers.
Children’s imagination
We read them Bible stories from a colourful picture Bible my sister-in-law gave them as a gift, which familiarized them with the stories of Adam and Eve, Jonah and the Whale and Moses, as well as that of Jesus, of course.
During Advent we would bring out our new religious Advent Calendar, and each evening they would open the shutter to reveal that day’s special picture or symbol. We would then discuss it before lighting the Advent wreath on our dining-room table. And on Christmas day we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jesus around a special cake I had made for the occasion.
Christian principles
When the children were enrolled in the nearby Catholic school, we did not rely solely on the religious education they would receive there, but continued to give good example by attending Church every Sunday, and occasionally during the week, and helping them learn and practise Christian principles. For instance, we taught them to be courteous by holding the door for the person coming behind, by going to the store for elderly neighbours without expecting pay, and by answering the phone in a civil manner.
We encouraged them to write a ‘thank you’ note when a relative sent them a present. In this way, they learned to respect their elders. ‘Good manners are charity in disguise,’ was a statement Mum had taught me when I was young, and I hoped to pass on that attitude.
They also learned to be good citizens when we enrolled the boys in the scouts and Theresa in the girl guides. We allowed them to watch only suitable television programmes, and limited their watching so that they had plenty of time to play outside to develop the use of their imaginations.
Church involvement
Their First Communion and Confirmation were celebrated with great joy, for we knew they were important milestones in their spiritual growth. Our three sons became altar boys, and served not only on Sundays but also at the occasional funeral during the week as well. I suspect their main motive here was the opportunity of missing school, as well as the tasty treats they would receive from the Ladies’ Guild after the ceremony.
They also enjoyed the barbecues that were given by the priests to thank them for their hard work. I well remember my eldest boy informing me excitedly one afternoon, following a barbecue at the presbytery, ‘Father cooked them himself, and they tasted really good. Even better than yours!’
Teenage activities
When my daughter was thirteen, she attended a weekly youth group sponsored by the Church, and I accompanied her one weekend to a specially organized conference for youth.
It was a joyful experience, except for the first night, when our huge tent was flooded by a heavy downpour, and we crawled out of our sleeping bags in the early morning looking damp and bedraggled. However, the upbeat hymns we sang at morning Mass and the inspiring testimonies by some young people who had experienced a religious conversion soon banished the doldrums.
The teen years in our house were sometimes tumultuous. On any given day, one child might be cheery, another sulking about a bad mark in physics, another quite sure he had finally found the woman of his dreams, and the fourth, fed up with school, insisting that he would not go to college.
Those were the days I took long walks to sooth my nerves. Eventually, they all acquired parttime jobs, which helped them mature, while providing them with extra spending money. With the help of plenty of prayers for guidance, hope and a sense of humour, Jim and I managed to stay relatively sane during those year of challenge and rebellion.
Home-made Christians
Parents raising children today have many aids to bringing their children up as Christ-filled Catholics. A book called Growing in the Dark: Homemade Christians, written and illustrated by Nancy Marrocca and printed by St. Mary’s Press in Winona, Minnesota, shows how, with hope and sensitivity, you can cultivate your child’s faith as well as your own.
There are videos available that depict the Gospel stories in a way small children are able grasp, and there are many books available in Christian book shops that help parents to enable their children to grow more Christ-like, whatever age they may be or whatever stage of development they are going through, including the adolescent years.
Mercy and compassion
As a parent today, trust in God and realize you can’t be perfect. I sure wasn’t! I preached too much, was not. always consistent with dicipline, and my quick temper which I gradually learned to tame over the years – didn’t provide a good example.
If I was a new parent today, I would trust God more, laugh more often, be more patient and talk less. And I would keep the words of writer Michael Downey at hand, for they sum up what I would want to teach my children about God and their lives.
‘God is tender, gentle, forgiving, reconciling and joyful rather than harsh,’ he writes. ‘The meaning and fulfillment of human life is realized in the measure to which we live lives of love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness and
tenderness… qualities of the human heart that reveal the truth about God.’
This article first appeared in The Messenger (February 2005), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
