I am no expert. The list is long and I have only done a few things on it. And generally I have done the easy things rather than the hard. So I will be encouraging myself with this series, and perhaps that will spill over and help others as well.
By Christendom, I mean that state of life where as Catholic families, we are living in the kingdom of Christ. Or more truly- more fully in the kingdom of Christ. My emphasis in moving towards this ideal is focused on keeping things generational, meaning this is something we pass on to others, and in particular to our children, and in even more particular fathers to their children, so that the next generation does better than we have done. So many generations before us have failed in this way! So this must be our top priority.
So all other considerations must serve this primary one: dynasty. Generational faithfulness. This begins with a rejection of the world, the flesh and the Devil in all its modern pomps (Secular humanism, Protestantism, relativism) and with a submission to the faith of the apostles, and it ends with us in our grave and handing on... something... to the next generation. I want to ask myself: "what can I do to ensure future generations have the best chance possible of doing better than I have?" I don't want to merely pass on the faith to my children and encourage friends to keep the faith yet all the while we are living in an environment that is toxic to the faith. That is crazy. That is not taking life seriously. Instead our cultural environment must also be a reflection of faith. So this will entail Distributism, agrarianism, and anything else that moves the family closer to a lifestyle where we can more easily live the faith and pass it on to the next generation. So this includes considerations such as:
What I do for a living.
What my children do for school.
Where I live.
Who I associate with.
How I handle money.
What I do for "entertainment".
How does my marriage function, Etc.
In these and many more areas, we can choose to go with the flow of our culture, or we can take up our cross and follow Jesus by examining why our culture does things that way and truly questioning whether we have become worldly in that area. Sadly, by simply doing the opposite of the culture, we will oftentimes be on the right path. This is only a rule of thumb though, and we should always attempt to have a reason why we do things. And many of these areas require deep examination of conscience to realize that we are on a dangerous path away from Christendom. Although perhaps not overtly losing faith, or overtly or formally sinning in these areas, we can be choked by the brambles of our godless culture to the point we are of no threat to our Enemy.
So I hope I can give some encouragement where I have succeeded, and I hope you can encourage me where I am failing. Please feel free to comment with items from your own list, whether small or big. I will be listing items in no particular order of importance or difficulty, but just generally as they occurred in my own experience.
So on to the posts!
Next up....
Baby Step to Christendom #1:
Stop Yo Pimpin' Bro!
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| The Modern Christian Man |
Awesome David! I'm excited about reading these posts and corresponding on them.
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