2024 Evangelization Supplement
Parents place trust in God’s help in passing faith on to children
The Verhiley family poses on May 5 at St. Jude Church in Indianapolis. They are, from left, in the front row, Damian, Louis, Rocco and John Paul. In the back row, James, Meagan, Erin, Patrick and Teresa Clare. (Submitted photo)
By Sean Gallagher
“You have asked to have your child baptized. In doing so, you are accepting the responsibility of training him/her in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring him/her up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor.
“Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?”
These words are part of the Church’s Rite of Baptism for One Child and reflect the Church’s belief that the family is a privileged place of evangelization.
Parents who bring children to the Church for baptism listen to this frank description of the duty they’re taking on to pass the faith on to their children and respond to the question.
Two archdiocesan families who spoke recently with The Criterion have had this question put to them 10 times in the baptism of their children.
In the intervening 11 years since the oldest of the children was baptized, they’ve learned a lot about what it means to train their children in the practice of the faith and how to keep God’s commandments. In the process, they’ve found that they’ve grown in their own faith as well.
An invitation to trust God
Andy and Rachel Miller, members of St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis, are the parents of Tobias, 10, Blaise, 8, and Silas, 5. Patrick and Meagan Verhiley, members of St. Jude Parish in Indianapolis, are the parents of Erin, 11, John Paul, 10, Rocco, 8, Louis, 7, Damian, 4, James, 2, and Teresa Clare, 2 months.
Looking back on the question from the Rite of Baptism, Andy and Rachel felt from the start that it was not so much a heavy burden placed on their shoulders as it was an invitation to place their trust in God.
“I knew very clearly that my duty was to not think I had it all figured out,” Andy said. “My duty was to ask God every day to reveal to me how to love and train his children that he entrusted me to care for.”
“Teaching the faith to children constantly changes and evolves with many variables,” Rachel added. “A conversation or model in one situation may not work under different circumstances. Ultimately, I entrust my kids first to Jesus and allow him, as the ultimate teacher, to bear fruit.”
Both families make the practice of the faith an integral part of their daily lives. They pray together at home in the morning, at meals and at bedtime, at their parish churches and at adoration chapels.
They also help their children see the blessings and challenges of daily family life from the perspective of their faith.
“With five boys between the ages of 2 and 9, you can imagine we practice forgiveness quite a bit,” Patrick said. “As the children have gotten older, we have talked a lot about the importance of relationships with others, especially with those who are difficult to get along with or those different from ourselves.
“We explain to the older kids that to be Catholic means treating everyone with respect and trying to see the good within them.”
‘To love and nurture kids in their faith’
While Andy takes seriously his duty to form his sons in the faith, he has been impressed by the witness of Gospel values they have given to him.
Once Tobias helped reconcile his two younger brothers when there was a dispute between them. Another time, Blaise on his own visited a neighbor whose husband had died to see how she was doing—Blaise was 5 at the time. And once, when Andy was going to take a splinter out of Silas’ foot, his son asked him to pray the Hail Mary with him first.
“I can’t make these things up,” Andy said. “The love, patience, understanding, care, affection, tenderness and curiosity of these children blow me away.”
For her part, Rachel has learned that caring for her own faith is vital to passing it on to her children.
“In order to love and nurture the kids in their faith, I need to model and do the spiritual work myself,” she said. “For me, this means time away from the home in the form of annual retreats.”
Patrick spoke of the value of his children’s youthful enthusiasm for the faith.
“When the children ask questions, it reveals a certain curiosity about them that we may not have anymore,” he said. “Sometimes there are routines that we have created, and their excitement for it sometimes reminds us to stick to the routines even when we may not want to do it. Their enthusiasm for aspects of the faith is contagious.”
‘We rely on his graces to guide us’
That youthful enthusiasm can also be a challenge to the parents.
“Our children oftentimes make us better people because they have a way of holding us accountable to the things in life that are most important,” Meagan said. “For me, my faith has most come alive … as a parent than ever before.”
This continual nurturing of their own faith and their children’s faith will remain an important task for both sets of parents in the years to come as their young children enter their teenage years.
“The older we get, the more we realize that it takes a village,” Patrick said. “We are surrounded by amazing priests, parish and school staff, teachers, coaches and friends who help guide us and assist us in raising our kids in the faith.”
“It’s truly humbling to admit how fast the years seem to be going,” Rachel said. “Each season brings new excitement and also new difficulties. The choices that we make today are already shaping those next seasons.
“My hope is that creating an environment of trust in simple conversations now will remain open and grow as more complex conversations arise. Through it all, it helps to remember that our kids are entrusted to God, and we rely on his graces to guide us through.”
Living ‘a Christ-like life’
Both sets of parents see their parish communities as integral in carrying out their task of evangelizing their children. They also view their families as real embodiments of the domestic Church.
Patrick in particular looks to a description of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers. … All who believed were together and had all things in common” (Acts 2:42, 44).
“We seek to experience the generosity of God and also to practice being generous with each other in our actions and our words,” Patrick said. “We are our own little community. We pray together, eat meals together, we recognize we each have certain gifts and that we use those gifts for the betterment of the whole.”
Both sets of parents also recognize that the ideals of the life of the Church can be hard to live out at times.
“The Church is a wonderful idea operated by sinful and broken people who I believe are all trying their best, just like we are in our family,” said Andy. “We have ideals, but we are not perfect.”
Each day in the life of the family is one more opportunity, though, for each member to work with the help of God’s grace to live out those ideals better than they did the day before.
“In our domestic Church, we first seek to live a Christ-like life with each other,” Rachel said. “It becomes a practice field where we are constantly learning to love more and growing in faith. At times, the work bears fruit and we are able to name the graces more easily than others.”
“All of this is a process and a challenge to practice,” Meagan noted. “It’s a daily conversion and we have to recommit each day. It’s hard to have a prayer life, to be Christ-like, to give our time and talents. There are times when it is easy, and times that are really challenging.” †
