In an effort to help families become vibrant communities of life and love, our office seeks to provide programs, training and resources for parish family life efforts that enrich married couples, educate, support and strengthen families, and provide healing and comfort to those in need.
Family Prayer
Family prayer should be the rhythm to which the heart of family life beats. As Catholic families and parents, we are encouraged to be the “first heralds of the faith” to our children. This begins with prayer and creating a home environment that keeps prayer as a priority.
Below are some helpful resources to help your family become a family of prayer.
- Praying as a Family by the Nashville Dominicans
- How to pray the Rosary
- Family prayers at Catholic Online
- “How to Pray as a Family:” an excerpt from Lord, Teach us to Pray by Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.
Family Enrichment
Every family needs to be encouraged, enriched and strengthened. These enrichment resources are meant for families to re-engage or go deeper into their faith as a family.
Family Evangelization
Families are uniquely qualified and situated to proclaim the Gospel to those around them. While this task may seem daunting, the Lord—through the Church and her sacraments—provides married couples and families with the grace necessary to be evangelizers in our local communities. Visit our Evangelization website to learn more on how to become an evangelizing family and how to become a family-centered parish.
Family Faith Formation
Family Faith Formation is a partnership between parents and the parish. It recognizes and empowers parents to be the primary educators of faith in their family.
For more information, go to our webpage on Family Faith Formation.
Family Managing Media
The technological wave has crashed down upon us, and as Catholic families we are often left with many unanswered questions. How do we manage media in our home? What apps are ok for our children? What age should my child have a cell phone?
As families struggle to keep up with this technological wave, researchers are coming to find there are often deleterious effects of media consumption in our households. Therefore, it is important for us as parents and caretakers to be good stewards of the media that enters our home. Below are some helpful resources and information to help empower you to make wise and prudent decisions for your family’s media consumption.
Family Healing
There is no such thing as a perfect family. Even the Holy Family had challenges and crosses to bear. For us, unfortunately, sin, hurt, and personal brokenness also find their way into our families, causing difficulty and dysfunction. It is important for families to rely on God’s grace and to work to heal the brokenness in their relationships so that they may become healthy, holy, and nurturing places of love.
To the right are resources to help heal wounded areas in our families.
- Domestic Violence
- Pornography
- Families Against Violence Advocacy Network – Resources for peace in the home and society
- Grief and Loss
- Carried with Love (Miscarriage/stillbirth/infant loss)
- Divorce
- Addiction and Substance Abuse
Family Planning
Love and life go together, and husband and wife say “yes” to this sacred call and mission of fruitful love from the beginning of their marriage. This is why, in the vocation of marriage, the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children are inextricably linked.
Within this understanding of God’s beautiful plan for marriage, Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the general term used for married couples to discern, on a continual basis, God’s will for them to be fruitful and multiply. Learn more about the methods of NFP and why this aspect of life- giving love is so important.
Family Tradition
Passing on our Catholic faith is an essential aspect of every Catholic family. As our faith teaches us, parents, “by word and example, are the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children” (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, no. 11). As we may see in our own lives, the Catholic traditions and customs handed on by our parents and grandparents have a lasting impact on our memory and our lives of faith. Simple activities that are tied to liturgical moments or seasons, or to moments of grace, can have a long and lasting impact on us as believers. In a way, these traditions become a part of us, built into our DNA, and become very hard to erase. At a time when more and more young people are disconnecting from the faith, it becomes ever more important to practice the traditions of our family and faith to help strengthen the bonds that root us in our faith in Jesus Christ.
