I was reading headlines on my phones news app and one headline caught my eye and made me go through a range of emotions likened to someone going through the stages of grief. What was this headline? ’17 Celebs Who Won’t Leave Their Kids’ an Inheritance’. That’s the reason for your emotional turmoil?
Well it’s more than just that. I could care less what the likes of Bill Gates, George Lucas, Jackie Chan, Ashton Kutcher, Gordon Ramsey, Kevin O’Leary, or Marie Osmond do with their money. Quite frankly, I probably will never know what it’s like to make a million dollars let alone BILLIONS, like in the case of Bill Gates and George Lucas. I had the sudden realization that there is a large portion of our Catholic Christian community that have this same philosophy with their faith. They are consciously or unconsciously spending their faith up and not passing anything down to their children. What I mean by “spending their faith up” is that we are busy doing the churchy or ministry stuff up but not teaching the faith to our children.
Brushing it off by saying:
- “My kids will see my faith through how I live it” – Which is good, don’t get me wrong, but if you are not guiding and sharing what you’re doing, they will come to their own conclusion of why you’re doing what you’re doing. Read Scripture, Early Church Fathers, talk about the saints, and most importantly let them know about your love for Jesus and His Church.
- “I will just have them around me when we go do the ministry stuff” – again, they don’t need to JUST see it. You have to shape their minds and that will help to form a good understanding of the Good Works you are doing and possibly help them to have a servants heart
- “They are so young and immature, they won’t understand it if I do tell them” – You’re not giving kids enough credit. They are very receptive and open to truthful realities. On the flip side, if you’re not forming them and teaching them, someone else will. If it were really the case that they won’t understand it, would Jesus say, “Let the children come to me”? Listen to Jesus, and bring the kids to Him by good counsel and faith formation
We hear it all the time when we as Catholics get asked, “Why do you do that in the Church?” the same tort response of, “It’s what we’ve always done.” This line alone has turned so many people away from our rich and beautiful faith. Our souls long for truth and has great disdain for deception and/or ignorance.
We have to be better and do better as parents. I hope to be able to provide great wealth for my wife and young son, but the reality is I most likely will not be able to procure wealth in amounts as a tech giant like Bill Gates or sell a franchise like George Lucas’ Star Wars but I know I can pass down Generational Spiritual Wealth to my kids.
Ensuring they know that they are loved by God and that Jesus was sent to save them. Teaching them what Jesus taught his disciples and they in turn handing down the faith like Paul says to the Thessalonians “stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter” – 2 Thess 2:15. You see it isn’t just about reading the scriptures but it’s also about LISTENING to our fathers (of our faith).
These “celebrities” are wealthy in the worldy and monetary sense and get to decide what they want to do with their “wealth”, but that type of wealth will fade away or be destroyed by the return of the King of Kings. So whether they decide to give it to the poor or give it to their children is their prerogative.
We Christians, have a wealth that will not fade with time or be destroyed. Our wealth is an everlasting, never ending treasure that we will get to enjoy eternity in heaven with our Lord and Savior. So, fathers love your family enough to get them into heaven. That is your purpose and mission in this life. The prototypical man, Adam, was given the command to ‘Abad’ and ‘Shamar’. Abad means “To Serve”, “To Work”, and/or “To Worship”. Shamar means “To Keep”. If we are to fulfill God’s duty as mean we need to serve our family, working to keep our worship to God. Gentlemen, our families need us to lead them Heaven not have them drag us with them. They need us to step up and be real men of faith.
Disciples At The Ready 