What Should A Catholic Family Look Like?

 

Occasionally I get slightly self-conscious because although we are Catholic through and through, and our faith is the most important thing in our life, we don't always comes across as the most "Catholic" of families. We have been known to have family dance parties in the kitchen to top-40 pop songs from the radio. We don't pray the rosary consistently every night as a family (though my wife and I do make every effort to pray it daily on our own). My youngest wears urban hand-me-downs I got from a black family in Philly, and my daughter refuses to wear long dresses. My humor is sometimes off-color.

On the flipside, we home school, my oldest son serves the Latin Mass, we say grace before meals, and we have Catholic books, art and crucifixes throughout the house. We love the Lord, we love our faith, and we try to live it out where it matters. 

We are heading to our monthly poetry recitation after Mass this morning with our co-op, and I was joking around with my wife that I should recite Gregory Corso's beat poem Marriage (published in 1960), which begins: Should I get married? Should I be good? Even though I didn't live through that time period, the Beats were a huge influence in my life growing up--for better or worse. I wanted to write like Jack Kerouac, who threw syntax and conventional form out the window and banged out his epic novel On The Road in 1957 on a single scroll of typewriter paper. The Beats were critical of post-war American conformity, typified by jobs, marriages, and suburban domesticity, and I shared Kerouac's affinity that "the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!""

But Kerouac died un-enlightened, suffering a massive abdominal hemorrhage at the age of 47. The New York Times obit interviewed his wife the day after, who told reporters, "He had been drinking heavily for the past few days. He was a very lonely man."

"I'm not a beatnik. I'm a Catholic," Kerouac used to make a point of telling reporters. And he was. The late 1950's and 1960's were marked by an upheaval of conventional social mores, and Kerouac was no exception to being swept up in this wave of throwing off shackles--of syntax, of dogma, of sexual morality, of what was expected of a good American citizen.

And yet the irony is that as huge an influence as Kerouac and the Beats were on my teenage and young adult years, I saw the writing on the wall: no one was happier, no one was enlightened, and their sexual forays didn't bear fruit worthy of eating. When I met my wife and ultimately got married, I wasn't asking the question "Should I get married? Should I be good?" or feeling like I was succumbing to social convention based on the expectations of others. Rather, I said to myself, "I want to get married, because this is good."  And it truly has been.

I do from time to time get a case of the shoulds, mostly related to how we look "on the outside" as Catholics while other homeschool parents are living out the liturgical year with little crafts for their kids, and families are going to Catholic Family Land, etc. But as the saying goes, "comparison is the thief of joy." I certainly don't want to give scandal by doing anything contrary to the faith or in morals, and I think we're good there--because if we weren't, none of the externals matter. 

But is there a 'typology' or what a Catholic family should look like? I don't think so, and I'm not going to make some bullet point list of things you can do to look more Catholic as a family, either. To be honest, I think the bigger problem is that for many American families who are Catholic and may even go to Mass every Sunday, they are largely indistinguishable from the culture at large. 

So, what should a Catholic family look like to those on the outside? I think first and foremost, as we see in today's Epistle from 1 Peter, "Before all things have a constant mutual charity among yourselves; for charity covereth a multitude of sins. Using hospitality one toward another, without murmuring...that in all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ, our Lord." (1 Pt 4:7-11) Catholic families should have charity as their mark, and joy as the plate it is served on. 

I do remember that when I was in high school and before I was Catholic going to a friend's house and noticing a picture of the Sacred Heart on the wall. I thought to myself, "What's that?" but it always stuck with me…and I came into the Church a few years later.  So, Catholic art is a good thing, and can be an external mark as well that has the potential to lead others to curiosity, and perhaps ultimately, salvation through grace. Saying grace before meals in public, or praying the rosary on the train, can be good things if it does the same .

I do think some people get it in their heads that they have to "dress the part" or use churchy language all the time, or any other number of things in order to stake out their Catholic identity especially if one is trying to figure out "how to be Catholic" and what that looks like externally. That's all fine and good, but to the degree it comes from a spirit of comparison or even a kind of spiritual covetousness, it would be better to eschew those externals and focus on inner conversion, prayer, and charity and let the rest eventually take care of itself. We don't wash the outside of the cup first, but the inside (Mt 23:25). 

Writers try to find their voice by borrowing from other writers and trying on their style, as I did with Kerouac. But over time, my confidence in both my identity as a Catholic, a husband, and a writer grew, and I found I didn't need to try to sound like x, or write like y, or dress like z. I could just be myself, and be that well, as St. Francis de Sales was so fond of exhorting. 

 A true Catholic identity is more like a blush that subtly highlights rather than a bright red lipstick meant to draw attention to itself. So, to the extent you are loving the Lord, honoring him in worship, being charitable to your neighbor and the poor, and raising up your children to do the same, you're most likely on a good track.