Household of Faith

It can be difficult to understand our faith is not an individual faith but a family faith. Living in America can make leaving individualism behind a bit difficult. We are trained from a young age to stand on our own, believe on our own, act on our own. This is obvious even in Protestant baptism, most times delayed until an individual can choose one their own to accept Christ. This is not the ancient custom of the Church.

Today is the commemoration of Saint Cornelius, the Roman Centurion who called for Saint Peter to be instructed in the faith. According to Acts 10, he was baptized with his entire household. A similar thing happened with Saint Lydia (Acts 16.15) who was baptized with her entire household.

This cannot be ignored. Neither Saint Cornelius nor Saint Lydia, both faithful to God’s teachings, felt their children needed to wait until they were ‘old enough’ to choose for themselves. Christ came to save them, and they didn’t want their children left out.

In today’s practice, infants are baptized as members of faithful families, but that does not negate the need for a household of faith. Just because an infant is baptized doesn’t mean their journey to heaven is complete. They still need to learn to live their faith and fully embrace the reality of being in communion with God.

The sad part of this story is that some children, too many really, choose to leave the Church. According to current statistics, 60-80% of teens will leave the Church before they become adults. These teens were baptized as infants but become adults outside the Church. Why?

In my direct experience people leave the Church because they do not find actions that meet expectations. In other words, their parents didn’t walk the walk. In some cases, even the leaders of their Church didn’t walk the walk. They didn’t grow up in a household of faith. For many, the household becomes a household of hypocrisy.

I am making quite a serious accusation. I’m saying that we adults are the reasons our children leave the Church. We are they hypocrites. We are the examples of failed expectations. Let’s be honest with ourselves. We baptized our children without a serious plan to help them remain faithful. For many of us, baptism was like a ‘magic potion’ that grants access to heaven. Sorry. No magic potion here.

So, what’s left? We need to look to the Saints of our Church, those who lived in hostile environments to the Church. We need to follow their example. Our ancestors prayed fervently as families for God not to abandon them, and He didn’t.

We need to stop being households of secularism and become households of faith if we want our children to remain inside the Church. And when we get it wrong, we need to be models of repentance for our children. It is good for our children to see us repent. Repentance is the difference between faith and hypocrisy.

If you want your children to remain faithful to Christ and His Church, YOU must remain faithful to Christ and His Church. YOU must pray fervently. You must follow the Way of life established by Christ and His Church. YOU must make your home a household of faith. We won’t always get it right, but at least we can give our children a fighting chance.