Mary Nguyen Thi Thu Huong
To live out the spirit of Hanoi Archdiocesan Synod: Renewing the faith life, every Catholic family is considered a small house Church that needs renewal and change in faith practices.
However, the faith life of families is falling under the corrupting influence of the times, and needs the Church’s directions to get back on track.
The temptations of material wealth and fame are blindingly obvious. People plunge into work and earn as much money as possible to get enjoyment of life, boasting about their extravagant lifestyles on social media.
Many young couples choose to work around the clock in industrial zones and do long shifts, leaving their children in the care of their grandparents. We are put under the constant pressures of modern life, so we tend to neglect our own faith life and ignore our children’s faith education.
Many of us even have the gloomy thought of keeping religion in the heart, not needing to attend services at church. The prolonged Covid-19 pandemic has also driven many Christians into avoiding Masses and participation in pastoral activities in parishes.
To strengthen the faith of young couples, during marriage preparation courses, we should be given opportunities to share and voice our opinions about marriage issues facing us rather than have to hear long lectures. Teachers should create a friendly and relaxed atmosphere so that learners can do well
We understand little about Church teachings as we are apathetic in studying the faith. As a result, we are not interested in faith practice, as a Vietnamese saying goes: “vô tri, bất mộ” —if you know nothing about someone, you could not love them.
In the digital age, we are largely dependent on smartphones and the Internet, and are sometimes seduced into reading unwelcome news instead of useful information and religious knowledge.
Many parents pay much attention to their children’s studies and musical skills at school but disregard their catechism. Many are not confident about teaching children catechism and leave it to catechists. They take their children to churches and catechism classes on Sundays for peace of mind but they never ask what their children have learned and how they feel about God.
The faith practices of older generations are no longer suitable for the lifestyle of young people who rarely say morning and evening prayers and irregularly attend Eucharistic adoration, go to confession or receive the Eucharist as their parents and grandparents do.
Even worse, some young people live according to atheism, since they do not want to be bound by religious rules. Others, who marry spouses from different faiths, attend courses in marriage preparation just to please their families and have their wedding celebrations in churches.
To strengthen the faith of young couples, during marriage preparation courses, we should be given opportunities to share and voice our opinions about marriage issues facing us rather than have to hear long lectures. Teachers should create a friendly and relaxed atmosphere so that learners can do well.
We wish to attend retreats and seminars on marriage issues so that we have chances to reawaken our love, gain knowledge of catechism, human values and ways of educating children according to the spirit of the Good News.
As parents, we must be aware of our importance and influence in offering faith education to our children. It is said that children learn by imitating and following the behaviour of adults. Therefore, the effective way to teach children is to set an inspiring example of loving others, doing charity, praying, learning catechism and reading the Bible
The local Church should provide young couples with marriage and family counselling services as couples now only turn to parish priests or seek solutions to their problems on social media which is rampant with unreliable information.
We would like to say night prayers among young families in parishes to help us to connect with each other and strongly assist one another in our marriage and faith life.
We would like priests and religious to walk with and stick up for those who have broken marriages so that they can experience Christ’s mercy rather than condemnation. Priests and religious should reach out to and teach those who have mixed marriages about Catholic values, Christian obligations and how to live in harmony with their spouses’ religion.
As husbands and wives, we try our best to demonstrate our firm commitment to being faithful, loving and respecting one another as our relationship is symbolic of Christ’s love for the Church. St. Paul says: “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the Church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” [Ephesians 5:31-33].
As parents, we must be aware of our importance and influence in offering faith education to our children. It is said that children learn by imitating and following the behaviour of adults. Therefore, the effective way to teach children is to set an inspiring example of loving others, doing charity, praying, learning catechism and reading the Bible.
How can we show God’s love to our children when we do not love and forgive one another? Our words sometimes go in one ear and come out from the other, but our children will never forget tender loving care from their parents.
Lovingly tending to children is not only our duty but also our great honour to cooperate with God in taking care of the sprouts that God gives us.
Mary Nguyen Thi Thu Huong is from the Archdiocese of Hanoi. This article was summarized and translated by a UCAN reporter from a Vietnamese article published by tonggiaophanhanoi.org The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCAN.
