18. Teach Your Children The Faith Yourself - And Make Sure They Know It

18. Teach Your Children The Faith Yourself — And Make Sure They Know It

Make it a formal curriculum in your house with daily or weekly lessons. Spend some time on it. Don’t rely on the school, priest, or parish to do this for you, because they won’t—or at least they won’t do it well.

I taught in more than one parish and witnessed the religion programs first hand. They were a joke and mostly staffed by well-meaning volunteers who, quite frankly, were not good teachers. The kids played around instead of learning. Sometimes they were led by people hostile to major parts of the Faith. (Ouch. Who would have thought the Devil teaches in Church?)

Don’t worry, you don’t need any kind of degree or formal training to teach Catholicism yourself; you just need basic competency and seriousness about your kids’ learning. It’s easier than you think.

Go to these sites to get curriculum and materials that you can use (all sites are unrelated to us unless specified otherwise).

setonbooks.com – Great for religious instruction books for kids Kindergarten-9^th Grade.
theologicalforum.org – Great for teenagers, especially the “Understanding the Scriptures” books in the children’s section.
catholiciqtest.com – This is our sister-site and is a fun way to help you get an overall picture of how much your family really knows about Catholicism.
heaveniqtest.com – This is also our sister-site and focuses specifically on the things Jesus taught regarding what a person must do to go to Heaven. If you only had time to learn certain things regarding religion, you would want to learn these things.
biblechristiansociety.com – Great for learning both how to defend Catholicism against the attacks of non-Catholics and explaining Catholicism to others.

It’s important to stress that learning the fundamentals of Catholicism well is much more important than learning theology, which is speculative and often leads to heresy. Learning basic Christianity (well) is also more important than studying the lives of saints or various Church teachings over the centuries. It can be helpful to look at these other things later, but it’s absolutely critical to be well-educated in the basics of the Faith first.

Here are the important things your children need to learn (well):

“What is a Christian?” – A Christian is somebody whose first priority in life is doing God’s will.

“What is the goal of life?” – The goal of life is to get to Heaven and take as many other people with you as possible.

“What is morality?” – Jesus’ summary is the best one: “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…and…love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39) Getting more specific, the Ten Commandments should be learned and memorized. Most Catholics cannot name all ten and don’t know the meaning of at least three of them – partly because they have never seen them as written. Here they are in their entirety from Deuteronomy chapter 5:

I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain. For the LORD will not leave unpunished him who takes his name in vain.
Remember to keep holy the sabbath day. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD, your God. No work may be done then either by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female slave, or your beast, or by the alien who lives with you. In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
You shall not desire your neighbor’s house or field, nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass, nor anything that belongs to him.

“What do I have to do to get to Heaven?” – In addition to practicing morality, Jesus emphasized that we have to help other people around us, especially the poor. Here is a parable from Jesus which explains it in more detail:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46)

Again, go to our site (www.heaveniqtest.com) for what Jesus said a person must do to go to Heaven. You will find it very informative and interesting.

“Do Catholics worship Mary?” – No. And they shouldn’t, either: It’s OK to pray to a saint in Heaven (like Mary) to ask for their intercession with God, sort of like it’s OK to ask your fellow Christian for their prayers of intercession on your behalf. That being said, Mary and the saints, while blessed by God and worthy of honor, are not co-Gods, co-Saviors, lesser divinities, or anything of the sort. (See Commandment #1 above.)

“Where did the Bible come from?” – The Bible came from ancient Jews/Catholics and was assembled in its final form in the 4^th Century by the Catholic Church, who preserved it from antiquity until the present time. The Protestants got their Bible from us but took out all (or part) of seven books they didn’t agree with. See “Where we got the Bible” by the Rev. Henry G. Graham for a short history on that subject. (tanbooks.com)

“What is the history of the Catholic Church?” – Two thousand years of history is something that cannot be summarized into a single page and requires time to study. It’s important, though, to at least have a general understanding of what people in the Church did from the time of Christ to the present. I recommend “Christ the King, Lord of History,” by Anne Carroll (setonbooks.com) for a highschool-level summary. I also recommend any book by Diane Moczar about specific historical events such as the Crusades, etc. I also like “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization,” by Thomas Woods (www.ignatius.com). Lastly, it is important to study the heresies because, like history, forgetting them means you might be doomed to repeat them.

Just hearing the Catholic side of history puts to bed most myths used against the Catholic Church by our enemies.

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Isaiah

1 year ago

Thank you! Coming from a now mostly lapsed and poorly formed family, I can testify first hand to how important this is. I went to Catholic elementary, middle & high schools; yet the catechism in the last two schools generally lacked clarity and depth (as much as possible for teens to grasp), so it failed to build upon the unusually solid elementary foundation I received. Even when access to the Sacred Liturgy & sacraments are readily available at schools, parents should still make it their business to educate their kids, since they ordinarily pay more attention to their parents’ input & example on issues of faith & morality, than any presentation or teacher.

Like you said, there are definitely individuals in our schools and parishes who are hostile towards aspects of the faith which they claim to profess, and are more willing to express their stern disapproval & ignorance than honestly & humbly wrestle with their doubts (this would include, say, the use of prayer *and* apologetics resources to better understand a given Church teaching). So parents ought to be on guard. I’m still in the process of deeply learning and living the faith as an adult Catholic, but if God wills it, I hope that I eventually marry someone with a firm conviction to do this for our kids.

Anita

1 month ago

Hallo there, My daughter asked my spiritual father a priester two years ago; Why the four gospels are separated and not together? Oh so many question so I started two years ago to study the Bible by myself and to put in many video’s for her. Maybe later she will understand but now the so callled christian catholic schools do not do so much for the faith as I would like. Thank you for this advices all seems to be written for mothers as me. God bless you