COME AND BE FORMED PLAYBILL

COME AND BE FORMED THE THREE Rs & THE LITURGY OF DOMESTIC CHURCH LIFE

Dr Gregory & Lisa Popcak CatholicCounselors.com

FOUNDATION “Until recently, the family was considered the terminal point, a field for applying...the Church’s pastoral decisions. This time has gone. The post Vatican II appreciation of the family as ‘domestic church,’ ‘theological locus,’ and ‘sacramental reality,’ now opens to it an undreamed-of perspective of participation in the salvific mission of the Church” - Marc Cardinal Ouellet Divine Likeness: The Trintarian Anthropology of the Family “It is not merely a question of resembling the Church, as a reality of grace, the community of the spouses is an organic part of the ecclesial community: it is the Church.”

- Paul Evdokimov “…it is not the imposition of religious rituals on the family that makes it sacred, but the presence of Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit in each member, and each person’s response to Christ in each interaction, that makes family holy. The religious rituals serve to support these interactions within family life. Families are not church only when they read scriptures, pray, study the faith, or help the needy. They are church in their (turning toward) love, and it is Christ’s love that constitutes the church of the home.”

- Philip M. Mamalakis “Early Christian Perspectives on the Church of the Home” in The Household of God and Local Households: Revisiting the Domestic Church, eds. Gerard Mannion and Thomas

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Is the Domestic Church Liturgical?

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FOUR TRAITS of LITURGY: Instituted. Not invented.

Conveys God’s grace and blessing.

Conveys transforming and healing grace.

Facilitates participation in the life of the Trinity.

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A LITURGY OF DOMESTIC CHURCH LIFE APPLICABLE FOR ALL FAMILIES? To speak meaningfully about “a domestic-church-based spirituality,� the principles of this spirituality must be applicable to every family in every circumstance, across the various macro and micro cultures in which families operate.

Content Model: Weak basis for an authentic and universal domestic-church-based spirituality.

A Content Model focuses on specific practices. These may not be applicable to all families across cultures, household structures or various demographic strata.

Process Model: Strong basis for an authentic domestic-church-based spirituality.

A Process Model focuses on universally applicable principles.

What do tradition and the social sciences teach us about the inner-lives of healthy, godly families?

Example: Every religious order takes vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but it is up to each order to determine what practices are employed in living out these vows in light of their unique mission and charism.

RESEARCH QUESTION: Are there certain universally applicable principles that would provide a common structure for a domestic church-based spirituality while nevertheless allowing individual families to discern the best practices for living out these principles in light of their particular context, mission and charism?

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THE THREE R’s OF DOMESTIC CHURCH LIFE WHAT “RITES” COMPRISE THE LITURGY OF THE FAMILY? The Rite of Relationship/Attachment - Ongoing formation in the common priesthood of baptism The Rite of Rituals of Connection - Ongoing formation in the prophetic mission of baptism The Rite of Reaching Out - Ongoing formation in the royal mission of baptism Taken together, the three rites that comprise the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life demonstrate how the family is, in fact, a “school of love and virtue” that serves as the primary and divinely ordained formation program for human integration and Christian discipleship.

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THE FIRST RITE: RELATIONSHIP/ATTACHMENT The first “R” facilitates the ongoing formation of the common priesthood of baptism.

The common priesthood, “…fosters holiness, precisely in the measure that he or she serves as a bridge between God and human beings.

The reconciliation of divinity and humanity produces in human beings a wholeness or integration, a coming together of the often warring elements within the self.”

- Bishop Robert Barron Through the practice of the sacrificial, mutually self-donative, life-giving love that is modeled by and flows from the heart of the Trinity, families facilitate the authentic human integration that is the raison d’être of the common priesthood.

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What can the social sciences tell us about what this love looks like in practice?

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ATTACHMENT STYLES

BUILDING A HEALTHY, HAPPY & HOLY HOME

LEVEL OF PARENTAL ATTENTION, EFFECTIVENESS & DISCIPLINE STYLE

HUMAN ATTACHMENT STYLE

- “Extravagant affection” - Prompt, generous, and consistent attention to needs.

- Loving-guidance approach to discipline/discipling (e.g., St Bosco’s Preventive System)

SECURE ATTACHMENT STYLE

- Child felt need to “earn” affection/affirmation or “prove” validity of needs - Inconsistent caregiving - Authoritarian or permissive discipline style

ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT STYLE

- Parents emotionally withdrawn. Almost exclusively focused on physical needs.

- Child left alone.

- “Independence” forced on child from early age.

AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE

IDENTIFIED BY:

- Interdependence/ Resilience - Comfort giving & receiving affection & intimacy.

- Capable of healthy boundaries.

- Neediness, insecurity, fear of abandonment - Poor boundary setting - Overly empathic Poor emotional regulation - Lone wolf even around others.

- Rigid and rule-bound - Hates to need others or be needed.

DIVINE ATTACHMENT STYLE

SECURE GOD ATTACHMENT STYLE

ANXIOUS GOD ATTACHMENT STYLE

AVOIDANT GOD ATTACHMENT STYLE

IDENTIFIED BY:

- Honest, basically trusting Divine relationship - Capable of admitting & wrongs without scrupulosity - Fearful of offending or alienating God - Reluctant to be honest in prayer - Often concerned that God has/will abandon them - Either no relationship with God or one based solely on rules - Primitive moral reasoning.

- Suspicious of other’s motivations.

SECURE ATTACHMENT: 8 BRAIN-BASED SKILLS 1. Body Regulation — the ability to keep the organs of the body and the autonomic nervous system (e.g, heart rate, respiration, body temperature) coordinated and balanced.

Body regulation is about emotional and physical health.

2. Attuned Communication — the ability to pick up on the meaning of subtle, non-verbal, physical cues that indicate another person’s emotional states and degree of well-being.

3. Emotional Balance — the ability to maintain optimal emotional functioning. That is, knowing how to be emotionally stimulated enough to be aware and engaged in one’s circumstances and relationships but not so emotionally stimulated that one is regularly flooded by feelings and carried away by them.

4. Response Flexibility — the ability to pause before acting on impulses and willfully change the direction of one’s actions if doing so suits one better than one’s first impulses.

5. Fear Modulation — the ability to consciously reduce one’s fear response. People with anxious attachment become easily flooded with anxiety where others might just experience nervousness or even excitement.

6. Insight — the ability to reflect on one’s life experiences in a way that links ones past, present, and future in a coherent, cohesive, compassionate manner.

7. Empathy — Essentially, empathy is the ability to have insight (as defined above) into other people.

8. Moral Reasoning — the ability to imagine, reason, and behave from the POV of the greater good.

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THE SECOND RITE: RITUALS OF CONNECTION The second “R” facilitates ongoing formation in the prophetic mission of baptism.

“Family rituals refer to specific, repeated practices that involve 2 or more family members. [They differ from simple routines in that] family rituals involve communication with symbolic meaning, establishing and perpetuating the understanding of what it means to be a member of the group.

The time commitment and continuity involved in the performance of rituals often transcends the “here and now” and can include repetition across generations. Family rituals may include celebrations (such as a graduation), traditions (such as annual birthday parties), and patterned interactions (such as a family meal).

- Spagnola, M. and Fiese, B. (2007).

Family Routines and Rituals: A Context for Development in the Lives of Young Children.

Infants and Young Children. 20, 4. Pp 284-289.

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FAMILIES NEED RITUALS: Pray — worship and family prayer Work — chores and charitable service Talk — meaningful meals and relating/ teaching conversations Play — family-based activities which facilitate authentic connection and joy

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THE THIRD RITE: REACHING OUT The third “R” facilitates ongoing formation in the royal mission of baptism.

“The People of God fulfills its royal dignity by a life in keeping with its vocation to serve with Christ” - CCC #786 “In the future, evangelism will depend largely on the domestic church.”

- St. John Paul, 1979 Address to Latin American Bishops, CELAM

FOUR CATEGORIES OF POSSIBLE PRACTICE Serving one another at home - “Corporal Works of Mommy (and Daddy)�

- Authentic reaching out must begin at home Thinking about others while being family at home - Collaborating together on meals and acts of service - Deciding as a family to engage in certain sacrifices Being Godly families in the world - Treating those inside and outside the family with dignity - Being openly prayerful Family service projects in parish or community - Must increase family intimacy and have full buy-in

MINISTERIAL AND COMMON PRIESTHOOD “The clergy alone is not Church, with lay spectators; and the laity alone is not Church, with hired ordained leaders. Therefore, ‘though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated: each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ.”

- David Fagerberg, Theologia Prima: What Is Liturgical Theology? (Mundelein, IL: Hillenbrand Books, 2004) 8–9; citing CCC §1546, 1547, and LG §10.

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