Parent Formation

Prayer and Relationship with Christ

Formation

Accompaniment

Advocacy

Every child is a gift, created to be nurtured in the love of family life. This ministry provides information on age-appropriate behavior, normal development and family dynamics, teaching skills of non-violent discipline, communication, and conflict resolution in family relationships. The Office of Family Life supports parents in their God-given vocation by creating networks to connect with other Catholic mothers and fathers. We provide opportunities to stop, take some moments to be blessed, and draw closer to God.

Select a topic to be taken to that section of the webpage:

Parenting Programs

The Home / Domestic Church

The Ulma Family

additional Resources

Parenting Programs

Becoming a parent is a vocation, a calling from God. When God calls us to raise our children, He gives us grace to do so, and praying about what we do with our children will activate that grace. Since God put us in charge, we parents are the ones who teach children the lessons of life – how to be loved, and how to love others. This takes discipline, and we need to be the ones who teach children how to live in harmony with God, with themselves, and in relation to others. Parents grow spiritually as they grapple with the ins and outs of what to do in each situation. Educating parents in skilled ways to communicate respect, dignity and inherent value to their children is one of the pressing needs of our contemporary church.

The Domestic (HOME) Church Life

The Liturgy of Domestic Church Life is an initiative sponsored by the USCCB and developed by Dr. Gregory and Lisa Popcak, of the Peyton Family Institute. Our traditional model of offering programs to families in our parishes do not work if families are not experiencing Christ at home. How do we develop a family centered around Christ and his personhood, mercy and holiness?

The Rite of Relationship / Attachment

1. Schedule family time first
2. Practice extravagant affection and encouragement
3. Practice prompt, generous, consistent  and cheerful attention to each other’s needs
4. practice discipleship discipline

Rite of Rituals of Connection – create intentional, daily time to:

1. Work together
2. Play together
3. Talk together
4. Pray together

Rite of Reaching Out

1. Serve each other generously
2. Think of others while being a family
3. Be a Christian family in the world
4. Serving the parish/community as a family

The Ulma Family

The Holy Father’s decision to beatify Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children serves as a reminder for all families that the call to holiness is not exclusive to individuals but a call for families who even within all the daily and sometimes difficult demands of family life can attain. The Ulma family’s beatification reiterates the great value of family life for they exemplified the love of Christ through their valiant act of mercy and remained steadfast to the commandment given by our Lord Jesus Christ, “love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The family of nine suffered martyrdom by that of Nazis, who discovered that they had given shelter to eight guests that were Jewish. The beatification of the Ulma family marks a historic precedent in the life of the Church as the family’s unborn child, who was born at the time of his mother’s death, and later died was also beatified. The Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life commented, saying the couple “lived their ‘domestic church’ with the sacrament of marriage at the center: openness to life of others in need and of their children.” The polish family’s heroic act of charity towards the Jewish people they housed should encourage other families to live a life of generosity and care and protection of human life from the moment of conception until natural death. Click here to learn more about the Ulma Family Relics and Exhibit coming to the Archdiocese of New York.

Prayer for the Intercession of the Ulma Family

Almighty and eternal God,
we thank You for the testimony of the heroic love
of the spouses Józef and Wiktoria with their children,
who gave their lives to save persecuted Jews.

May their prayers and example
support families in Christian life
and help everyone to follow the true path of holiness.

Lord, if it is in accordance with Your will,
kindly grant me the grace … for which I am asking You
through their intercession
and count them among the Blessed.
Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Our Father…, Hail Mary…, Glory Be…

Source

Official image of the Ulma family by Oleg Chizhovsky

Additional Links

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES