Lent: Family conversion
by Father Frank DeSiano, CSP
March 2, 2015
Father Frank DeSiano, CSPFather Frank DeSiano, CSP

It’s common to mention these days that families are quite diverse. The so-called nuclear family, which probably emerged big-time with the single-family suburban house, no longer commands the majority of families. Rather, households come in many forms: single-parent, extended family, roommate arrangements, people living alone and ever-new combinations.

If the business of Lent is conversion, then processes of conversion should be going on in our homes and households. After all, conversion happens better when it’s done together. That’s why we have something like Church – so we can reinforce and support each other on our common walk as disciples of Jesus. Isolated faith ultimately becomes weak and even non-existent. When we don’t share religious experience with others, faith becomes a head trip, and eventually a head trip people don’t feel they need.

Just think, for a moment, how many basic human qualities necessary for faith came from our family experience. Where do we learn about love, about supporting each other, about give-and-take, about sacrifice, about reconciliation, about shared pain and shared joy? The “emotional vocabulary” for this all comes from our family experience. Living with others, seeing ourselves bound to others, receiving help and helping others – this happens as a matter of course in the household.

Lent, then, can provide opportunities for our families to grow in conversion and experience themselves more clearly as disciples. I do not have romantic notions of rivers of piety flowing through families today. In fact, the most common theme I hear is that families can barely share one meal together in a week. So how are they supposed to pray? And yet what better “Lenten penance” can we help each other do than set aside some time during the week for special moments of prayer and sharing?

This need not be weird or outrageous. If a household can, for example, set aside just 15 minutes before its main meal, 10 minutes on two evenings before bedtime or a set time before or after Sunday Mass, they can dramatically increase their sense of personal and family faith. The Church gives us, after all, readings every Sunday. It’s no effort to go online and pull out a few phrases for the family to talk about, followed by silence, and then by petitions from each member. Children can be assigned fun things to do like ringing a bell, holding up a sacred picture or bringing a bowl of Holy Water around to each family member. Families can sing – or even hum – a song that reminds them of Jesus.

Even single people can use Lent to connect with other single people in prayer. Is there a small-group program going on in the parish? Or Stations of the Cross? Or friends I stay behind with after Mass for prayer? If Catholics invited each other to pray more regularly, we would feel much stronger in our faith – individually and as a Church.

Families are important to the Church not only because life emerges from family, but also because we learn the elements of faith in our households, and because shared faith with others is a powerful way to advance conversion in all our lives.

Father Frank DeSiano, CSP, is president of Paulist Evangelization Ministries.