Our main job is to raise children to become saints

Dear parents,
I hope you are doing well and I hope that you enjoyed a bit of recreational time with your children and your spouse.  Our lives are so filled with obligations and stresses.  I know it requires a Herculean effort to raise your children.  Thank you for doing it.  I especially want to commend those of you are doing this two-person job all by yourself.  Wow.  I don’t know how you do it.
Parents, please understand that God selected you for this role and all of its tasks.  You may often feel that you are not up to the task; God disagrees.  He chose you.  He created a new human being and put that person into your care. Your primary job is to raise that child to become a saint. No pressure, right?
We understand the consequences of how we raise our children. Cut yourself some slack.  You take full responsibility for who you are and what you do.  You know that you are an adult and you don’t dismiss your shortcomings as the fault of those who raised you.  So don’t assume you have to take all of the responsibility for the choices your children will make when they are adults.  Raise your children to love God. Pray for your children.
My wife and I pray for our children.  They are mostly grown, but we still pray for them.  My wife once told me about an experience she had while she was praying for our children.  She was imploring the Lord on their behalf.  She was praying for them to be holy and that they would be saints one day.  The Lord spoke to her and said, “Bring them to me.”
There is a lot of good, practical parental advice out there, but the most important thing that we can do is to bring our children to Jesus.  This means bringing them to Mass, at least weekly, but daily if possible.  It means bring them to the parish for activities like vacation Bible school, youth group, altar serving training etc.  All of these connections with the Church help keep them tethered to the Lord.  Bring them to adoration, stations of the cross, confession and other spiritual opportunities. Send your children to a Catholic school so that they can be formed every day.  Make Jesus a part of their lives.  Then let Him save them.
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected] 
For more information concerning the events of this office, visit us at mobilefaithformation.org