Allen Hebert

Family Vacations

We just returned from a 25 day combination work and family vacation to California (click here for the pictures and commentary from the trip). I feel that it is only appropriate to share some reflections on the benefits of family vacations in general and this one in particular.

There are a few questions about family vacations that I have pondered recently:
1) Why take them?
2) What do you do on them?
3) How long should you go for?
4) How often should you take them?
5) How do you ensure you will have a good time?

Why Take a Family Vacation?

In my humble opinion, families need to take vacations to get away from all the commitments that they have in everyday life (school, work, sports, church, etc). While these commitments can be good things to be involved in, sometimes the hectic schedules we keep can hold us hostage and prevent us from smelling the flowers. A family vacation (done right) can be a time for all family members to give up their routines and commitments and give their time to their parents, children and siblings. To make this happen, I have found that it takes a bit of preparation before the trip even starts. Finding the right time is a key component in the planning process. Try to find a time when the usual activity subsides (in between sports seasons, during a slow time at work, in between programs at Church etc) and when you won’t have any big commitments upon your return. If you can’t find any such time, then you are probably doing too much and you need to learn how to discern in which activities you and your family members should be involved.

Deciding what to do on your family trip
This is entirely up to the family (or maybe just the parents). But it should be a family decision, otherwise you risk having uninterested 
(and maybe cranky) family members on the trip. As a parent, consider setting the basic parameters (we are going on a trip in this general area for this length of time), then list out the possible activities and let the family have some input in one or more of the activities or destinations. This sense of ownership will go a long way to everyone having a good time on the vacation.

How long should you go for?
This decision may not be entirely up to you. Some may have work commitments that prevent a trip for longer than a week, but I am a firm believer in a longer trip is a better trip. For one, if you only go for a long weekend (2 work days and 2 days on the weekend), then you will spend 1-2 days forgetting about all the things you left behind and then 1-2 days thinking about all the work you will have waiting for you upon your return. I have found that work will wait for you if you are gone for a week or less. Depending on the employer and your particular work backup person, you may need to take two weeks off in order for the work to be taken care of while you are out. With the advent of smart phones, you have the ability to be in the office, monitoring emails and phone calls, but there is the temptation to respond to them. Don’t give in to this temptation, only use the technology during downtimes on the vacation to delete or file emails so that you don’t have too much catching up to do when you get back. Try to view this tool as a means to avoid worrying too much about what you left behind. If this is too much of a temptation for you, then leave the work phone at home.

Even the primary breadwinner of the family needs to get away from work, the rest of the family has given up much to be away from home, and there are eyes watching to see if the parents are making the same sacrifice. So if you are the primary provider for the family, make sure that you have done everything you can to leave work behind, make sure your work backup has everything they need, that your customers (internal and external) are aware that you are going to be out of town on vacation, address any potential issues that may arise while you are out of town, develop a plan of action in case a work emergency comes up and make sure your co-workers are aware of any of these possible issues. In other words, prepare your work for you to be on vacation, so that you and your family can take a well deserved break.

How often should you take them?

I think that a yearly family vacation is a great idea, but if you can’t take one every year, then I would suggest every two years. Remember that as your children grow up their memory gets better. That great vacation you took when your kids were 2 and 4 may not be remembered by them when they are 4 and 6. I know I don’t remember all the family vacations that we took growing up, but I do remember that we took them, and as I got older, for some reason we stopped (I think it was because I went into high school). I would propose that you consider taking family vacations even when your teenagers don’t seem interested in being with family on a vacation. It may be more of a sacrifice for them, but no more than the sacrifice of the parents. And if the vacation is longer than a week (preferably two weeks), the teenager may even forget about all the fun they are missing out on back home and enjoy seeing something new or reconnecting and visiting with their parents and siblings. If they don’t ever get into the vacation, then you may want to consider spending even more time with that teenager upon your return home.

How do you ensure you will have a good time?

Preparation, and don’t try to do too much. Decide on what your goal for the vacation is and do what you need to achieve that goal. Make sure the goal is appropriate to your family. For example, if you have children ranging from 15 to 2 years, you may not be able to take a family hike down to the river at the Grand Canyon, you may have to be content with a small hike that the whole family can participate in and maybe a half day hike for the older kids and one parent.

Decide if you want to see things or experience them, every family is different, some like to see all they can see and others like to experience one or two places and do everything that place has to offer. Some families do a little of both, figure out what works best for your family given the personalities and ages of its members.

In closing

Nothing worth doing is completely easy, even family vacations. The family is the core of society, if the family is dysfunctional, the society is not far behind in its dysfunction. The best gift you can give the world is a healthy family, and it is also the best gift you can give to your children. For it is in the family that the children learn how to form relationships (good or bad). You as the parents have the opportunity to show them how to treat each other with respect and love. Vacations are a part of being a family, when each member shows how much he or she loves the other members of the family by giving up their time and activities to spend time and do activities with one another, with the ones they know the best and should love the most.

Why do we have so many kids?

This past week as I have been preparing for an upcoming three week family vacation to California, I have been reminded that most people do not understand why we, or anyone for that matter, would have as many kids as we do. As part of the process of procuring a place to park our RV while on the road, I have needed to inform each potential RV camping location (about 11 total) of the number of children and adults in our party. When I tell them we have two adults and eight children, the responses range from, “What?” (with heavy emphasis) to “Are you kidding me?” Fairly consistently the responses have been of complete and utter disbelief that such a family exists or that we are completely crazy.

During the course of living my normal daily life, I have received many comments on the size of my family and some are less than charitable. The following comments have been received at work, at the grocery store, and even at Church:
- Do you know what causes that?
- With one wife?
- Any twins, triplets?
- Are you done yet?
- Are you Catholic or Mormon?
- You don’t have cable do you.
- I have two and I am worn out, I don’t know how you do it (this could be considered a compliment).
- We stopped at two, and I had a vasectomy, is that allowed for you in your faith? Is there some sort of exception to the rules of the Catholic Church?

Now this is not to say that all comments have been negative, some people do feel that we have been blessed beyond compare and wish they were able to have more children, but these positive comments are in the <15% range.

I believe that most of the people who are shocked by our choice. do not have any idea why anyone would have more than two or three children at most. After all being open to having a large family does go against current social thinking. In my experience, it appears that society believes that more kids equals less money, less time, and less freedom for yourself and your spouse. And the thinking ends there. I don’t believe that too many people get past the seemingly negative side of the issue. They simply can’t see children in the way God sees them. The Psalmist writes that God’s ways are different than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, in fact as high as heaven is above the earth.

So with that little introduction, I will venture to share why my wife and I have found that life is better when we are open to the blessing of children. Neither my wife nor I came from a large family, I have one brother and my wife has one brother and a sister who is ten years younger than her. So essentially my wife and I grew up with only one sibling, so we are treading on unfamiliar territory. In our Grandparents or Great grandparents generations, you will find 11, 8 or 4 children to be common in those families, and usually a high number of miscarriages to go along with it. Many people reason that those previous generations didn’t have many options (no good birth control) or the children were really being raised to be slaves on the farm in order for the family to make ends meet (I don’t think they technically called them slaves, but you get my point). I beg to differ on this analysis, I believe that past generations viewed children as a gift from God, something that they could bring to the world to make it a better place. Children were like arrows in the hands of a warrior, they brought value to the parents and the rest of the family. Our society has many others things that bring value to the parents and the rest of the family now (a big house, boats, golf, vacations, etc). I believe that these passing things are being chosen over the gift of more children.

When my wife was a little girl she always wanted a large family (10 children to be exact, so we are only two away from that dream). I, on the other hand, never even thought about children, other than I wanted to get married and have some one day. When we got married, I always said that we would take it one child at a time and see what happens. This was my way of not answering the question, but reserving the right to say no once the work associated with the children got too much for me and my selfish personality.

As I have grown in my faith, I have realized that I am way too selfish, I believe this selfishness may be the root cause of the pervasive view that two is enough for most couples. I view our children with the dignity they deserve, as little people that God gave us to nurture and educate, rather than as a means to fulfill some selfish need that I may have. Sure, my children bring me joy, but that is a bonus, and not the primary reason that we have them. They bring plenty of sacrifice and inconvenience to me and my family as well. But each child is unique, and beautiful in their own way and they bring many gifts to our family and the community.

We have attended a few funerals in the past couple of years and the thought of my own mortality and the frequent comment that you can’t take it with you (in reference to the worldly possessions that we acquire over the course of our lives) put a certain thought in my head concerning one thing that we can take with us. Our children have an immortal soul and thus when we die, we have the possibility of taking them with us. That is one reason why I consider my responsibility to pass on the faith to my children as so important, because the opposite is also true, we may not get to take them with us if they choose a life apart from God. This reality is fairly sobering, but also reassuring at the same time. It causes me to focus on the big picture. The big picture is that we were created to know, love and serve God in this life and to be happy with him for eternity in Heaven. What a great deal! If I get to heaven (which I firmly intend to do), then I will be perfectly happy and hopefully will have my whole family with me as well and they will be perfectly happy as well. And you know what, we will be perfectly happy without all those things that the world tells us will bring us happiness (video games, boats, a big house, less kids, more money, a divorce, more time for me, etc).

In the end, our reason for being open to God’s plan to welcome children into our family, is that my wife and I try to keep our eyes fixed on the goal of our lives, which is to be a man or woman after God’s own heart (Just like King David). In Genesis, God’s first commandment is to be fruitful and multiply, so he must love children quite a bit and thus we do too. And maybe, just maybe, God’s plan for our lives is better than the wisdom of this world.

Passing on the Faith - The Steps

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog entry talking about passing on the faith to your children, I made some observations, asked some questions, and didn’t share my thoughts on how to accomplish this divine task. I also wrote an article about my qualifications and indeed the qualification o anyone who would venture to pass on the faith to their children my previous blog entry.

I will share what I think are the best ways to ensure that your children have the best chance to have a life long relationship with Jesus Christ. Just as the 10 commandments are in order starting with the most important, so are these recommendations. I would also point out that no one method or activity will do the trick, but a combination of all of them creates a truly Catholic culture in your family which should provide your children with the tools they need to fight the culture who says that God is not necessary anymore.

Step #1 - Live the Faith Yourself
Writing this blog entry once again in an airplane, I am reminded of the instructions that are given prior to takeoff on every flight I have been on in recent memory, “In the unlikely event of a loss in cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will drop down in front of you, it will not inflate, but will provide oxygen. If you are seated next to a child or a person who requires assistant, put your mask on first, then assist them with theirs”

There are a couple of really good nuggets of truth in this all too familiar instruction. First of all, if you are to be an effective help to a child or a spiritually immature person in the faith, you must have taken care of yourself first. How can we give what we ourselves do not possess? What if we are on the verge of spiritual death, how can we possibly be of assistance to our children or anyone else? The oxygen of the spiritual life is Jesus Christ. The summit and source of the christian life is Jesus substantially and completely present in the holy Eucharist. We can also encounter Jesus in the Scriptures and in the other documents of the Church.

If Jesus is the oxygen that we need to live our lives to the fullest, then we should do whatever we can to get more of him. For me that takes the form of acts of piety, study of God, and acts of Charity. Acts of piety could be attending daily mass, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, praying the Rosary, spending time in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at your local or nearby parish, be sure to pray for your spouse and your children. Study of God is getting to know Him better. How can we become more like Jesus if we don’t know him? It is one thing to say that we believe in Him, but if we don’t know Him, then what are we believing in? The best way to get to know him better is through reading holy scripture, the writing of the Church Fathers (most of whom knew the Apostles personally), reading the authoritative documents of the Church (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Papal Encyclicals), watching EWTN or listening to Relevant Radio. The third and one of the most important things you can do is to put that faith your have nurtured through acts of piety and study to work for the Kingdom through acts of Charity. There are many activities that can be taken up, some of them don’t require you leaving your home. The are summed up in the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. In case you don’t know them (like me), here they are:

The chief spiritual works of mercy are seven: To admonish the sinner, to instruct the ignorant, to counsel the doubtful, to comfort the sorrowful, to bear wrongs patiently, to forgive all injuries, and to pray for the living and the dead.

The chief corporal works of mercy are seven: To feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to ransom the captive, to harbor the harborless, to visit the sick, and to bury the dead.

Memorize them as part of your study activities and then you will know what you can do as part of your charitable activities. This first step is not a prerequisite, think of it a co-requisite to raising your children in the faith. You will never fully accomplish this task, if you ever think you have fully accomplished it, then you need to spend more time studying the virtue of humility.

The reason this is the first step is that children are very intelligent and perceptive, if they hear you telling them to embrace their faith and to learn their prayers, and to live virtuous lives, but they don’t see that same attitude in you, you are doomed to failure. They need to know that the faith is something that adults have also. Children will follow the example of their parents more than their words or commands.

Step #2 - Raise your Children in a Catholic Culture
This is so important. Your children start out surrounded by love and affection, then they get older and their world gets a little bigger with each passing year. I am guessing that the main reason the Catechism says that the parents are the first heralds of the Gospel to their children is due in part to the fact that when children are very young, there are around their parents 24x7. But what about when they get to school age and they start to have teachers and other children that they begin to interact with? When they are young you control their entire environment as they get older you control less. So do a good job at home, make it authentically Catholic. Some suggestions are to pray as a family, on second thought, this is a requirement (a family that prays together, stays together). Others are to fully participate in the life of your local Catholic community which may include your local parish, lay organizations (such as Regnum Christi, and The Congregation of St. John), make friends with other Catholic families (this way your kids won’t think you are the only ones who live this way), attend Catholic Conferences together, only allow music and other media that is holy and supportive of a Catholic worldview (you should know what a Catholic worldview is after you have been doing your study for a while or you can start with Famaliaris Consortio by Pope John Paul II). And in today’s sexualized culture, teach your children modesty in dress, it will save you and them much heartaches in the future.

Creating a Catholic Culture starts in your home, consider dedicating a space in your home as sacred, it can include a cross, a bible, an altar, a kneeler, or just some pillows on the floor. Treat that part of your home differently than the others, for example, don’t let your sons play race car or shoot-em up games on the altar. Your goal here is to make your home a refuge from the outside world, a shelter from the storm that is our culture of death. They should find peace and calm and experience the love of Christ when they are at home. Believe me, it will not happen overnight and this utopia will not be present at all times, but this should be your goal. If you achieve it an are able to maintain it, send me an email :^), I am always looking for more ideas on how to get it right.

Step #3 - Teach your Children the Faith
You, as the parents, are the primary educators of the faith for your children. Not your pastor, not the RE teacher, not the next door neighbor or their children, not even the Pope (if you are blessed enough to have a private audience with him). As I mentioned in my previous blog on qualifications, you as Catholic parents are the most qualified for this job, it is what completes your vocation as parents.

The culture is trying to educate your children and teach them what life is all about and what will bring them ultimate happiness. I have found that the culture’s picture of this is vastly different that that of God’s vision. You have probably been told that you should not shelter your children too much lest they will rebel when they get out of your house. Well I think that is an excuse to avoid having to deal with some tough issues in child rearing.

I often think of the following training program when explaining this part of the process to my friends. The US Treasury service is in charge of identifying counterfeit currency and getting it out of circulation. Their training method is to study in great detail the real bills, get to know every feature of the bill being studied, every security feature that is built into it to make it hard to duplicate. Once they have come to a complete understanding and knowledge of the bill, they are then given counterfeit bills to see if they can pick out the real ones and identify the frauds. They usually have no problems, because they know the real thing so well. The same thing hold true to the faith. If we teach our children what God’s vision of the world is, they will recognize the multitude of counterfeits that the world presents as truth. Why would I want to show my child all the things that are untrue and tell them to avoid those things for this or that reason, when I can show them Jesus and explain His truth, then they can hold that knowledge of Truth up to the counterfeits and see them for what they are. The counterfeits in the spiritual life have taken on many forms and change from age to age, but the Truth stays the same and it is easier to teach the Truth than teach against a moving target.

Teaching critical thinking is key here so that they can take the knowledge of the Truth that you have taught them and apply it to various situations. These are what many call teachable moments. As a parent, you will get plenty of them, use them to walk through the process of applying the Truth that you know to see if the activity being observed is from God or from somewhere else. Things like divorce and a lack of being open to children are prevalent in society, they confront you in your extended family, in your communities (Catholic and non-Catholic), you should be prepared to teach your children about how a belief in God’s Truth is the path to true happiness.

Conclusion
If you haven’t noticed, this method is difficult to implement, but with God all things are possible and he wouldn’t tell us that he had a place prepared for us if there wasn’t a way for us and our children to get there. So take heart, pray and ask Jesus to lead you in this task. Start on this adventure today, life is short and the older your children get the more difficult it will be to teach them to love Jesus and their faith. Find other Catholic families in your area and build strong relationships with them, you and your children will draw strength from those relationships and together you will able to lead your children to Heaven.

Thy Kingdom Come

Related Articles
- Passing on the Faith - The Landscape
- Passing on the Faith - The Qualifications

Passing on the Faith - The Qualifications

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog entry talking about passing on the faith to your children, I made some observations, asked some questions, and didn’t share my thoughts on how to accomplish this divine task.

Some of you may be asking how I can be so bold as to even offer suggestions on how to pass on the faith to your children, after all I am not a priest or a bishop, a consecrated religious, I do not have multiple degrees in child psychology or theology, I have not read the entire bible (I have tried many times, but it is soooo long) nor have I read all the references to child rearing or passing on the faith contained in the Church’s encyclicals, magisterial documents, the writings of the Church Fathers, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or the Code of Canon law. I do not claim to be that well read, but I do read parts of these documents as much as I am able given the vocation that God has given to me (Marriage and family life).

So what exactly are my qualifications (and yours as well)? I have received the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, which imparted a special grace to my wife and I to carry out our sacrament which includes the openness to the blessing of children and the education of those children in the faith. So you see, my wife and I have a divine grace which will guide us to successful completion of our task. I bet you are wondering why all Catholic parents aren’t successful if we all have this grace from the sacrament of Holy Matrimony? Here is my guess, at the reception of each sacrament, the grace is available to us to the degree that we are open to receive it. Remember, God respects our free will and will not force anything upon us that we are not willing to receive. To that point, if at the time of receiving the sacrament, we are blocked from those graces by the stain of sin in our lives, then we may not receive the fullness of the grace that God wishes to pour out upon us. And since this grace that is dispensed through the sacrament of Matrimony is not given all at once, we continue to receive it our entire married life. So if we as a married couple of as individuals continue to put sin before our relationship with God, then the grace will continue to be blocked. I personally believe that those sins we commit together as a couple (avoiding church on Sundays, lack of family prayer time, and most concretely - contraception), have the ability to cut off the grace that God wishes to give us. Since we are all sinners and will be so until the day we die, frequent examination of conscience coupled with sacramental confession will keep the grace flowing that we need to accomplish the sacred task of passing on the faith.

Once you have detached yourself from sin, then all the acts of piety, study of the Word of God and other spiritual writings, and acts of charity will have a much fuller effect on your ability to receive the grace God wishes to bestow on you and your family.

Next blog entry will deal with specific actions to pass on the faith to your children. Stay tuned.

Thy Kingdom Come!

- Passing on the Faith - The Landscape
- Passing on the Faith - The Steps

Passing on the Faith - The Landscape

We attended a funeral yesterday, and it caused me to ponder the eternal question that every parent must at one time or another ask themselves, “Have I done everything I can to pass on my faith to my children?” A combination of the location of the funeral and those in attendance brought this question to my mind. I being the father of eight children (4 girls, 4 boys) must consider the possibility that at least one may not accept the faith that my wife and I know and love.

The circumstances are like this; the location of the funeral brought back the memory of one of the first funerals I attended with my wife commemorating the death of her mother’s maternal grandmother. At that funeral at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Moulton, TX, the daughters of Grandma Pilat gathered to bid their mother farewell. Only one daughter was not at the funeral, well she was, but not in bodily form. My wife’s grandmother (Grandma Pilat’s daughter) had passed away many years prior to her mother. In her absence, my mother-in-law assisted her aunts with the funeral arrangements. During the course of the weekend’s activities, a discussion of dividing up her few belonging came up. Most of these belongings were religious in nature, she was a very devoted Catholic, and my mother-in-law’s aunts decided that since my mother-in-law was the most religious in the group, that she should take most of the items and put them to good use.

From all the stories I have been told, Grandma Pilat was a good holy woman who loved her Catholic faith and did her best to pass it on to her children. My wife’s grandmother and grandfather too were good Catholics and desired to pass on their faith to their children and so on down to me and my wife. So far so good, my children are being taught the faith as well and seem to be picking it up well.

It doesn’t appear to be going so well with Grandma Pilat’s other children. At her funeral, we felt like the only Catholics, I think there may have been a couple of other folks, maybe even some of her grandchildren may have identified themselves as Catholic, maybe they even knew the rosary and participated in praying it the night before the funeral mass. But there weren’t many. At the rosary last night for the recently deceased, the situation appeared to be much worse. The main planners for this funeral were my mother-in-law and the christian (non-Catholic) granddaughter of the deceased.

From my point of view, the methods and activities used to pass on the Catholic faith were not sufficient to combat the culture in which the Children grew up. What may have worked just fine in Grandma Pilat’s generation, somehow did not work for her children. The community in which Grandma Pilat raised her children was a small Catholic Czech town, all the young boys and girls that her children would interact with were probably Catholic or at the very least, were cultural Catholics.

There was a certain amount of peer pressure not to depart from the Catholic faith. It was expected that your children would remain Catholic, what other options were there?

More to come....
- Passing on the Faith - The Qualifications
- Passing on the Faith - The Steps