Teaching Your Children to Know, Love and Serve God

We love this book. Find the new edition here

Welcome to the first weekly prompt from my new project, The Ave Mama Mission! Here you will find a new challenge, prompt, activity or more for you and your family to participate in to hopefully grow in your prayer life, vocation as a mother and walk to eternity.

Let’s jump straight in? Who is God? Why did God make us? What must we do to gain the happiness of Heaven? What is God like? These are some basic questions that we use from the St. Joseph’s Baltimore Catechism in our home. I really cherish this book because it is broken down into sections that build upon one another and from my understanding, this book has been treasured within many homes and churches for years.

One of the questions that I love is “What must we do to gain the happiness of Heaven?” At first this question may appear complex to some people or straightforward to others. Imagine just off hand asking your child what do they think they need to do in order to live eternally with the Lord. Imagine asking a devout Christian this same question or even asking a wayward Christian this very same question. In each scenario here, the answer will likely vary in length, detail and meaning.

There’s many correct ways to answer this question, but I love the basic wording from the St. Joseph’s Baltimore Catechism. What must we do to gain the happiness of Heaven? We must know, love and serve God on this earth.

So how can we as parents, move forward into the week with this idea and teaching? Well for starters, as parents we can apply this to our OWN lives and not just the lives of our children. What are we doing in our spare time, our daily routines and weekly habits, to know, love and serve God? Is our schedule allowing us time to sit with Him and His word (know Him), pray with Him (love Him) and give some of ourselves for His good or the good of others (serve Him)? Once we have sat with these questions, we need to ask ourselves what are we doing to model this to our children?

The Ave Mama Mission

So how to apply this very important topic this week with our children:

  • Discuss it with your children - ask them what do they believe they need to do to gain the happiness of Heaven (you may get some truly precious and priceless answers)

  • Help them simplify their answer with the idea that we gain this happiness by loving, knowing and serving God

  • Ask them what do they think EACH one means and if they can give examples of it

  • Create a poster or chart of each category in a column (KNOW, LOVE, SERVE) and have them either write down things that apply to each category OR have them write down things they do throughout the week that apply to each category

  • Make this a family challenge! Each day ask your children and spouse to write something they did that day to know, love and/or serve our Lord

I think we will all be surprised by how much we may unknowingly be doing in some categories and how we may need to improve in other categories. As mothers, we are continually serving the Lord through our holy work as mothers, wives and homemakers. Sometimes we may need the reminder and the “fill my cup up” to actually sit and get to know the Lord. Our work is often times done in “service” to others as we make our family a healthy breakfast, bake the new neighbors cookies and volunteer at our children’s schools. Now, we as mothers have to step back and make sure that we are also getting to know our Lord even more. By growing closer to Him, we will certainly see the fruits of it passed down to our children.

I’m sending you many blessings and love for this week ahead on our first Ave Mama Mission.

Love,

Sasha


Catholic Homeschooling, Jesus, The Ave Mama MissionSasha SavoyJesus, Catholic, Catholic HomeschoolComment