Thanks for your defense, Snuffington, but if I gave the mistaken impression that I was absolving myself of responsibility for the religious education of my children, then CatholicGuy was right to take exception to it.
Let me say, that the opposite is true. I accept full culpability for the fact that my 2 oldest children graduated from 12 years of Catholic school suffering from confusion about the faith and living lives that are objectively not in a state of grace.
It was clear that Plan A (Novus Ordo Mass, parochial school) had failed. I had to confront the fact that my efforts had not succeeded. And if I were simply to blame others and try to evade my own responsibility, then I would only compound my guilt. Just like in confession (and in fact specically in confession), I had to admit my guilt, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, and then make a firm purpose of amendment.
Here is the firm purpose of amendment that I undertook. Let me say that after 2 years of trying it, the results are dramatic. Our family life has undergone a radical transformation. The reality of grace is now present in our lives. My younger children now seem like different persons. They are truly committed to the Catholic faith with their whole hearts and souls.
1. Attend ONLY the Latin Mass. This is the foundation stone. You MUST receive the grace of the unbloody re-presentation of the sacrifice on Calvary in order to succeed in the rest of your spiritual life.
2. Traditional Catholic devotions. We started wearing Miraculous Medals and scapulars. We pray the family rosary every night. We thought about doing so during the time that we attended the Novus Ordo Mass, but it just seemed incongruous, like we were performing a show, rather than doing something normal and natural. That's because traditional devotions correspond with traditional liturgy.
3. Traditional Catholic literature. I ordered about $200 worth of books from TAN publishers, both children's books and adult books. Every night we read aloud before saying the rosary. For the children we've been reading the collection of lives of the saints by Mary Fabian Windeyatt, the Hilda Van Stockum books, and "Outlaws of Ravenhurst." But the same children also listen to theological works by the great saints including material from St. Margaret Mary ("Devotion to the Sacred Heart") and St. Alphonsus Ligouri ("Preparation for Death").
4. Homeschooling. We took the children out of parochial schools. For most of my adult life I had spent nearly all of my time and money paying for Catholic school tuition and driving my children to parochial schools. Now I see that I was insane. Parochial schools did have the advantage of allowing me to enjoy the virtue of poverty. But in terms of giving my children the Catholic faith, they were worse than useless.
5. Making salvation our #1 priority. Logically, this might seem like it ought to come first. But practically speaking, it has been a result of the other actions. I thought that God was my priority before, but I was fooling myself. Secular pursuits like school and extracurricular sports occupied all of our time. Now we put our family activities and prayer life first. Our focus in on eternity, not ambitions for this world.
Since we began our new lives as traditional Catholics, I have become a different person, and so have my wife and the children. The difference is night and day. First is the reality of grace, which is not present when sin is present. I have seen that this is not some abstract theory of the Church, but a simple description of reality, like the fact that gravity makes things fall down, not up.
I am still working to rectify my errors with my older children. We are making some progress, but I guess I can't expect to remedy the mistakes of a lifetime in a few short years. But now at least I have hope. Deo gratias.
1. Attend ONLY the Latin Mass. This is the foundation stone. You MUST receive the grace of the unbloody re-presentation of the sacrifice on Calvary in order to succeed in the rest of your spiritual life.Funny thing. You changed a lot of things, but the way you post seems to indicate that without the Latin Mass, none of the others are possible. Nothing could be further from the truth.2. Traditional Catholic devotions. We started wearing Miraculous Medals and scapulars. We pray the family rosary every night. We thought about doing so during the time that we attended the Novus Ordo Mass, but it just seemed incongruous, like we were performing a show, rather than doing something normal and natural. That's because traditional devotions correspond with traditional liturgy.
3. Traditional Catholic literature. I ordered about $200 worth of books from TAN publishers, both children's books and adult books. Every night we read aloud before saying the rosary. For the children we've been reading the collection of lives of the saints by Mary Fabian Windeyatt, the Hilda Van Stockum books, and "Outlaws of Ravenhurst." But the same children also listen to theological works by the great saints including material from St. Margaret Mary ("Devotion to the Sacred Heart") and St. Alphonsus Ligouri ("Preparation for Death").
4. Homeschooling. We took the children out of parochial schools. For most of my adult life I had spent nearly all of my time and money paying for Catholic school tuition and driving my children to parochial schools. Now I see that I was insane. Parochial schools did have the advantage of allowing me to enjoy the virtue of poverty. But in terms of giving my children the Catholic faith, they were worse than useless.
5. Making salvation our #1 priority. Logically, this might seem like it ought to come first. But practically speaking, it has been a result of the other actions. I thought that God was my priority before, but I was fooling myself. Secular pursuits like school and extracurricular sports occupied all of our time. Now we put our family activities and prayer life first. Our focus in on eternity, not ambitions for this world.
We do all of these things, except the first –attend ONLY the Latin Mass. We mainly attend the Novus Ordo. Yet, you say this doesn’t fit with these other things, all of which we do. You said:
We started wearing Miraculous Medals and scapulars. We pray the family rosary every night. We thought about doing so during the time that we attended the Novus Ordo Mass, but it just seemed incongruous, like we were performing a show, rather than doing something normal and natural. That's because traditional devotions correspond with traditional liturgy.This seems just foolishness to me. I wear the scapular, my wife wears both the scapular and the miraculous medal. We pray the family rosary each night, at times embarrassing our guests, but hey, its our house. We attend the Novus Ordo, yet none of this seems in the least bit incongruous to us.
I don’t mean this as a criticism, because I’ve been in the same place, but I think you had greater problems than were you attended Mass. Traditional devotions correspond with Catholicism, not with some Rite of the Mass.
As to the other things, you got off way to cheaply with a mere $200 in books. I’ll have to talk to my wife. ;-)
We home school, though we are just beginning as our oldest just turned five. Salvation is the #1 priority. I don’t see a difference based on which Rite we attend, I see a difference based on where we place our priorities, on God or on the world. I see plenty of people attending the Tridentine who have the same problems you had while you were attending the Novus Ordo.
A couple SSPX adherent friends of my wife’s had the exact same issue you had, except they were straight Society types. Society church, society school for the kids, etc.. Their two oldest boys rejected it all. The family has since changed its priorities, and the difference in the younger kids is remarkable.
Your exclusive focus on the Rite misses the forest for a particularly large and beautiful tree. Delight in the tree, but don’t miss the larger forest, its glorious as well.
Dominus Vobiscum
patent +AMDG