A Letter of Encouragement from Fr. Dion

Dear Parents,

         When I learned as a child the Our Father and Hail Mary prayers, along with “grace” at every evening meal, it occurred to me only later as an adult that I was being taught that our lives were based on a belief in God and in his Church.  We were being schooled by parents whose Catholic Faith was at the very core of their lives, and our regular attendance at Sunday Mass was a practice that was taken seriously. We attended Catholic school as part of that religious conviction.

         My parents acted with a desire to do well with the children they had, which at 11 was a lot, with mother reminding us once in a while that we were gifts from God. In that sense my parents acted in very practical ways to enshrine the Catholic faith as our routine of daily life, as in morning and evening prayers, family rosary in May and October, and participating in all the pious activities that were part and parcel of school and parish life.

         I believe that when parents appreciate their children as gifts from God, they will act with a greater determination to raise them in the faith of the Church. Then the question of Sunday Mass is not really a question of why, but rather, why not? We baptized our babies and so we’re just fulfilling the promises we made at that time, ie to be responsible in raising them in the religion of their baptism.

         Attending Sunday Mass is a training ground for our children to understand and grow in their spiritual life. It is the weekly classroom for teaching Godly values and is the place where we receive from God the grace to live in a manner pleasing to Jesus and guided by his Church. It is the school where the principal is the Lord, and we need to be in attendance to receive his divine instructions.

Bless you moms and dads in your God-given vocation as Catholic parents.

Fr. Dion