Writing Projects Part Deux

Wisconsin wants to know what goes into a liturgy book. Since you asked...

The Book, which was 10 years in the making, was born out of my work back in the day with the infant baptism program at church. We conducted retreats with the families before the big day wherein we stressed, among other things, the role of parents as the first teachers of faith to their children. There was only one real problem. Most parents aren't theologians. In fact, a lot of parents hadn't darkened the door of a church since their wedding day. So my particular piece of the program evolved to include a discussion of what it meant to teach faith to their children. And the bottom line is that you don't teach it so much as live it. Great. Wht does that mean?

One of the documents that came out of the Second Vatican Council refers to the family as "the church of the home". So I started thinking about what that means, how parents with any amount of faith impart what they believe to their children. And, being Catholic, I looked to the tradition of the Church to guide me. Catholics are liturgical people. And liturgy literally means "the work of the people". Further, I had a very strong conviction that teaching faith to our children is not something we can just leave up to the Church, however tempting that might be. Participating in Sunday worship, enrolling the kids in religious ed. is all well and good but if it's going to have any staying power, they need to see us living it.

So family liturgy starts with "what we always do". Within this context we aren't just talking about specifically God related stuff. Family liturgy is also comprised of all the little stuff, pizza and a movie on Fridays, getting to pick the menu for your birthday dinner, whether you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas. What we do says something about what we value. Actually, it says quite a lot about what we value.

All this stuff was noodling around in my head when I ran across an out-of-print book by Maria von Trapp (yes, those von Trapps. The hills are alive with the sound of music). This book described the cycle of the church year and outlined what their family did. Some of it was pretty great but they also had their own personal priest. Those days are long gone. So I thought about adapting the idea for our time by sharing how our family (and those around us) keep the feasts and fasts of the Church throughout the year. So I did. Bet y'all just can't wait for the book signing now.