Living Liturgically

This Easter Season is an exciting time for our young Catholic family of five: Cullen, LuLu, Allie (10), Claire (9), and Beau (7). We have survived many of the phases that accompany church life for new families. Bringing newborns and toddlers to Mass provided a steady diet of humbling attempts at living out our faith. Once, our then 3-year-old attempted to grab at the host as the priest placed it in Cullen’s hand, resulting in the Host flying off onto the lap of a nearby parishioner. We’ve had one of our potty-training successes proudly announced at full volume upon return from the bathroom. We’ve had injuries, blow out diapers, wardrobe malfunctions, escape attempts, vomit, and a hundred other mishaps while attending Mass as a family, yet still we kept coming back for more.

Our faith formation has always been a priority in our lives. We believe that the single most important thing in this life is reaching heaven. As a spouse and parent, our main goal is to help our family reach heaven. We remind ourselves that our attitude towards this sentiment is very important. As parents, teaching our kids about faith in Jesus is not an obligation but the greatest gift we can give them. We choose to send our children to Catholic school (St. Joseph Catholic Elementary) because we want the Catholic faith to be a part of their daily education.

Another huge part of our faith formation has been our involvement in Domestic Church. This Catholic organization for married couples has helped us practically live out our Catholic faith in today’s busy and modern world. It provides a framework of commitments we try to incorporate into our daily routine. While we are very far from perfecting all of these commitments, they give us tangible goals to strive towards. Furthermore, monthly meetings with other Catholic couples and a priest provides accountability and encouragement to learn best practices to be a Catholic family. Cullen is an active member of ACTS (Adoration, Community, Theology, and Service) which is a Catholic men’s group helping each other grow in their faith. Both of these awesome local Catholic organizations have also fostered a Catholic community outside of our church parish which we greatly cherish.

All of this faith formation is to help us develop a family lifestyle that will bring us closer in our relationship with Jesus. Attending weekly mass is always a must. We attempt to participate in confession as a family every few months. Ever since our children were born, we’ve read the children’s Bible with them every night. We pray together as a family every night. The beautiful result is that our children think reading the Bible and praying nightly is a “normal thing.”

Our family looks at the Easter Season as a celebration. The challenge with young children is not allowing distractions to keep us from the true reason for the Easter Season. Society pushes for the Easter Bunny, Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, and candy. We have taken part in, and enjoyed, these secular events just as most people do. As parents, we try to keep our children grounded in Jesus’ resurrection being the true focus of the Easter Season. We want our children to know that Jesus died and rose from the dead to redeem us. “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life (John 3:16)”. Heaven is the ultimate goal.

However, we also recognize that we are sinners. We let our children know that we are not perfect. We share with them that we as parents struggle every day with all the challenges that come with living in this modern world. We acknowledge that our children are going to struggle as well, and we want to teach them how to face their struggles. Jesus is the answer.
The message we want readers to take home from our story is this: Try. Each day, try. Sometimes you will fail, but try anyway. Jesus does not ask us to be perfect. He asks us to try. The way you try is by going to Mass, reading the Bible, praying, and making a sincere effort to live a life modeled after Jesus’ teachings. God willing, we will reach heaven with our family at our side.

Happy Easter,
The Buissons