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So,
because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold,
I will spit you out of My mouth. |
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—Revelation
3:16 |
Catholic Psychotherapy |
Spiritual Counsels |
Books |
About CSF
Things
Don’t Just “Happen” |
Drawn Away from God’s Will |
Trust in God |
What Your Children See |
How You Lose Credibility |
Exposing the Fraud |
What You Can Do Now
 HEN children fall away from the Church,
people will often say something like this: “Children have free will,
and this sort of thing happens. It’s not your fault. Just pray for
them.”
Well, an answer like that misses
the point entirely. Things don’t just “happen.” Everything
we do with our free will has an
unconscious
motivation, and if we are to live genuine Christian lives we have to discipline
ourselves through sacrifice, obedience, and prayer
so that unconscious motivation does not draw
our wills away from God’s will.
Drawn Away from
God’s Will
Christian parents have a prime
duty to raise children to love and to fear God. And one of the parents’
prime obligations is to teach their children to do God’s will and to
protect their children from being drawn away from God’s will.
In the times of the early Church,
Christian families tended to live in Christian communities, and, because
of general lack of mass communication, these communities tended to be relatively
insulated from the pagan influence surrounding them. Therefore, children
lived well-protected within the communities. Still, Christians had to be
vigilant; their faith became their real protection
from the hostile world around them, and children learned by their parents’
example to put their trust in a living faith.
But, over the years, as societies
became more and more Christian, and as Christianity became more and more
incorporated into secular politics, individual Christians tended to let their
guard down. No longer threatened by a hostile non-Christian environment,
their faith tended to become less emotionally intense and more intellectual.
In essence, faith was gradually taken for granted. Faith began losing its
identity as a personal battle against
evil, and it started to become a mere social
identity—a requirement, as it were—for social status and
acceptance.
Now, in recent years, because
previous generations have allowed their Christian faith to become lukewarm
and hypocritical, anti-Christian ideology has had ample space to grow. The
secular world, with all its weapons of
entertainment, has been attacking the Church
as an angry reaction to the social effects of Christian values having taken
on secular political power. Children are being assaulted and brainwashed
by anti-Christian—and especially anti-Catholic—television, movies,
magazines, advertising, social media, music, video games, and sports, along
with education itself.
When so much of the world today
is based in such evil—that is, opposition to
God’s will—Catholic children need to be protected from this evil.
They need to be given a living faith that teaches them clearly, yet
compassionately, what evil is. They need to
be given a living faith that protects them from being drawn away to their
destruction in an evil world. Children need to learn true, heartfelt trust
in God.
Trust in
God
Full trust in God is composed
of two separate but interrelated components: trust in God’s justice,
and trust in God’s providence.
1. |
Trust in
God’s Justice. We have all encountered
individuals who commit offenses and seem to “get away with it.”
Although the irritation that we feel is justified, we can also be drawn into
the desire to take matters into our own hands and get revenge. If we remember,
however, that every crime—every sin—every
offense against love—that a person commits is
an offense against God that will be accounted for during his or her judgment
at death, then we can understand that no one can evade God’s perfect justice.
All sins will be paid for. If the sins are not repented, they will be paid for in
hell, but if the sins are repented they will be paid for in
Purgatory, thus demonstrating that
mercy is a fundamental part of God’s justice. To trust
in God’s justice, then, is to set aside our anger for the injuries inflicted on
us and to let God administer His own justice according to His will. |
2. |
Trust in
God’s Providence. Some individuals
have the mistaken belief that “trust in God” means to sit around
doing nothing in the expectation that God will do everything for us. But
this false belief is based in an avoidance of our taking full
responsibility for living holy
lives that bear spiritual fruits.
To trust in God’s providence, therefore, does not mean that we do nothing;
it means that we believe that, in answer to our
prayers, God will guide, protect, and encourage
us as we take responsibility for developing and using our talents to serve
God. |
With a fully-developed trust
in God, children will be protected from everything that can assault their
faith. To develop this trust in God, however, children need the example of
parents who themselves trust in God. But if their parents’ lives do
not reflect trust in God, the children will see the fraud and will end up
trusting in nothing but their own power of manipulation.
What Your Children
See
So, let’s be honest here
now. What unconscious motivation has led your children to “fall away”
from the Church? Well, maybe you see yourself as a “devout”
Catholic because you attend Mass daily. Maybe you
even go out of your way to attend a traditional Latin Mass. Maybe you pray
the Rosary daily.
But what do your children
see?
Do they see a both parents
with a living faith engaged in an all-out
battle with the evil of the world? Do they see both
parents living in constant contemplative love for God and awareness of His
presence? If they did, they would look to their parents’ faith and, like
Peter looking to Christ (John 6:68), would say, “Where else can we go?
This is the real thing.”
No, your children don’t
see living faith. Your children don’t see protection from
evil. Your children don’t see genuine,
fruitful devotion. Your children don’t
see genuine love for God. Instead, they see your
external acts of devotion as meaningless because they see all the
other things you do, or your husband or wife does, that contradict
the true faith. Thus you lose credibility—and when the parents lose
credibility, the children will become frustrated angry
teenagers who turn to the secular social world around them for
identity and acceptance. They will have
more concern for gaining their friends’ approval than for loving God.
How You Lose
Credibility
Do you or your spouse raise your
voice or argue with your children? Do you or your spouse manipulate your children
with guilt or tell them that they will go to hell if they don’t do what you want
them to do? Ding! You lose credibility.
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Do not provoke your
children to anger, but bring them up with the training and instruction of
the Lord.
—Ephesians 6:4 |
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Do you or your spouse instruct your
children with a focus on duty and rationality, using intellectual defensiveness
to maintain your authority, all the while lacking emotional awareness and patient
sensitivity to the personal experiences of your children? Ding! You lose
credibility.
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Put on heartfelt
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
—Colossians 3:12 |
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Do you or your spouse sulk in silence or
sarcastic criticism when others mistreat you? Ding! You lose credibility.
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Consider it all joy,
my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing
of your faith produces perseverance.
—James 1:3 |
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When you or your spouse are driving,
do you swear or honk at other drivers? Ding! You lose credibility.
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Finally, all of you,
be of one mind, sympathetic, loving toward one another, compassionate, humble.
Do not return evil for evil, or insult for insult; but, on the contrary,
a blessing. . . .
—1 Peter 3:8-9a |
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To be fashionable, do you or
your spouse wear immodest clothing that invites others to lust
for your body? Ding! You lose credibility.
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Your body is a temple
of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and . . . you are
not your own.
—1 Corinthians 6:19-20 |
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Do you or your spouse gossip
about friends or coworkers? Ding! You lose credibility.
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Do nothing out of
selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important
than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but everyone
for those of others.
—Philippians 2:3-4 |
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Are you or your spouse
overweight? Do you or your spouse eat junk food
throughout the day? Does ice cream call for you or your spouse late at night?
Do you or your spouse secretly look with lust at muffins come midmorning?
Ding! You lose credibility.
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For many, as I have
often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies
of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach;
their glory is their “shame.” Their minds are occupied
with earthly things.
—Philippians 3:18-19 |
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Are you or your spouse a
smoker, enslaved to nicotine? Do you use marijuana,
which is for atheists (those who reject the idea of God) and Satanists (those who
reject God)? Are you a heavy drinker or an alcoholic? Ding! You lose
credibility.
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For freedom Christ
set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
—Galatians 5:1 |
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Do you or your spouse crave
eroticism? Do you or your spouse keep a secret cache
of pornography on your computer or in your closet? Ding! You lose
credibility.
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They exchanged the
truth of God for a lie and revered and worshipped the creature rather than
the Creator, Who is blessed forever.
—Romans 1:25 |
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Do you or your spouse overlook
sins, in the belief that the ends justify the means,
as in saying, “Sure, there’s foul language and sexual scenes
in this movie, but it has a good message.” Ding! You lose
credibility.
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So I declare and
testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the
Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds;
darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their
ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous and
have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind
of impurity to excess.
—Ephesians 4:17-19 |
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Do you or your spouse ever skip
the blessing before eating because
you’re in a hurry or because people might look at you with scorn or contempt?
Ding! You lose credibility.
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. . . for although
they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead,
they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were
darkened.
—Romans 1:21 |
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Do you or your spouse ever say,
“Let’s skip Mass today. There’s just
too much to do today.” Or do you or your spouse arrive at Mass
late (after the priest begins with the sign of the cross) or leave
early (before the dismissal)? Ding! You lose credibility.
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Make no mistake:
God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the
one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one
who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.
—Galatians 6:7-8 |
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When you or your spouse hear
of some person in the news who has done something despicable, do you say,
“Scum like that should be wiped off the face of the earth!” Ding!
You lose credibility.
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For the judgment
is merciless to one who has not shown mercy.
—James 2:13 |
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Do you or your spouse ever shout
and cheer for a sports team? Ding! You lose
credibility.
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But may I never boast
except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has
been crucified to me, and I to the world.
—Galatians 6:14 |
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Do you or your spouse worry about
things to the point of anxiety or insomnia? Ding!
You lose credibility.
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Do not worry about
tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.
—Matthew 6:34 |
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Do you or your spouse file
complaints, participate in protests, or start lawsuits?
Ding! You lose credibility.
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When he was insulted,
he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he
handed himself over to the one who judges justly.
—1 Peter 2:23 |
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Do you or your spouse come home from
work in a dark funk, warning everyone to “Get out of my way! Leave me alone!”
saying, “What a horrible day!” Ding! You lose credibility.
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For as
Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our
encouragement also overflow.
—2 Corinthians 1:5 |
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Have you or your spouse allowed
atheistic, anti-Catholic public
“education,” social media, television,
movies, magazines, rock music, and video games to highjack the moral
development of your children? Ding! YOU HAVE LOST
CREDIBILITY.
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Whoever causes one
of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him
to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths
of the sea.
—Matthew 18:6 |
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Now, this list could go on and
on. And it does. And it’s not pretty. Many persons who call themselves
“devout” are, even as you read this, tripping over several of these
things. And if they aren’t doing it now, they did it in the past, when
their children were younger.
Exposing the
Fraud
That’s why the children
didn’t see devotion when they were younger and don’t see it now.
They see hypocrisy and, to their eyes, empty,
superstitious rituals. Though they might
claim to be angry with the Church, they are unconsciously
angry with their parents for living a
fraud instead of a true Christian
lifestyle that bears tangible
spiritual fruits. And their anger is directed
to one purpose: to expose the fraud.
Therefore,
the children’s unconscious motivation is to show the world, through
their own wretched behavior, that their parents are lacking in
compassion and true
love. |
What You Can
Do Now
So what can you do, now that
you have lost your children’s faith? Is there no hope?
Well, there is always hope, as
long as you are not afraid.
So, first, admit your mistakes,
and the mistakes of your husband or wife, honestly and openly. Tell your
children that you were wrong. Tell Christ that you were wrong. With a sorrowful
heart, repent and confess your
errors.
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Only one thing,
though, has any chance of reaching past your children’s apathy and
resistance: your tears of contrition. Weep. Weep for the damage you
have done to your children. Weep for their souls. Weep for your mistakes.
Let your tears speak from your heart. |
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Then begin to live the
Faith as it is supposed
to be lived. Live the suffering, self-sacrificial
love that Christ taught and that the Catholic mystics
have experienced through the ages, so that it fills you from the inside and
envelops you from the outside, becoming the entire reason for your life.
Let this love manifest for both you and your spouse as a
chaste life of
sacrifice, obedience, and prayer—from your
heart, not intellectually—every moment of every day. Live it with
patience and
humility, seeking God’s blessing for everything
you do, giving thanks for all you receive, and bearing all trials with absolute
trust in God. And, with emotional honesty and
tears of contrition, demonstrate that faith to your children.
It’s relentless hard work
for both parents—a true spiritual battle. But
when your faith becomes your life then maybe—even though it may
take 10 years or 20 years, or more—your children will take you
seriously.
Then, maybe, once your children
take you seriously, they will see that their anger
can be healed.
Then, maybe, they will want the
Good Shepherd to find them. What greater hope
is there than that?
Recommended
Reading
A treasure of a resource for psychological and spiritual healing. Information
gathered from my websites (including this webpage) is now available at your fingertips
in book form.
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Falling Families, Fallen Children
by Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D.
Do our children see a mother and a father both living in contemplative love for
God with a constant awareness of His presence and engaged in an all-out battle
with the evil of the world? More often than not our children don’t see living
faith. They don’t see protection from evil. They don’t see genuine, fruitful
devotion. They don’t see genuine love for God. Instead, they see our external
acts of devotion as meaningless because they see all the other things we do that
contradict the true faith. Thus we lose credibility—and when parents lose credibility,
children become cynical and angry and turn to the social world around them for
identity and acceptance. They are children who have more concern for social approval
than for loving God. They are fallen children. Let’s bring them back.
Ordering
Information |
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Fear
A Catholic Explanation of a Universal Problem
by Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D.
Fear. One small word, and yet so much hangs on it. Fear keeps alcoholics drinking,
addicts addicted, and wretched sinners stuck in sin like quicksand. In fearing the
darkness of the human psyche you never get to feel the true joy of real light. Because,
after all, the light of truth illuminates the dark and shows the darkness for what it
is. So there you are, in full irony: in your fear of the dark, you end up
fearing love itself.
Still, despite the fear, there is hope. The shards of broken love can be repaired.
Ordering
Information |
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When your children choose
lifestyles