To grow in faith children need more than going to Catholic schools. They also need the faith and prayer lives of their families, Medjugorje seer Ivan Dragicevic told an audience on November 4. But a largely un-catechized generation of parents is part of the problem, attendees agreed with him.
Parents are mistaken if they believe a Catholic school will suffice in ensuring the religionu formation of their children, says Medjugorje visionary Ivan Dragicevic
Parents need to do more than just send their kids to Catholic schools, to inspire and foster faith in the lives of their children, Medjugorje visionary Ivan Dragicevic told an American audience on Sunday evening.
“Many people today think when they sent their children off to a Catholic school, they say, ‘well, the school will teach them because they’re going to a Catholic school” Ivan explained at the Betania II Marian Community in Medway, Massachusetts.
Ivan during an apparition in Villa d’Adige, Italy, in September this year. Photo: Daniel Miot, guardacon.me
But Catholic schools are not enough, the visionary said. What is also necessary is fostering healthy relationships between parents and children, and the prayerful example of their families. In this, the seer sees another problem:
“Family is the foundation of a healthy world and a healthy society. Without healthy families there is no healthy society, and prayer has expired in our families today. That is why we live in the kind of world we live in today, because God is no longer present in our families” Ivan said.
Childrens’ outcome of Catholic school also depends on the prayer life in their families
Citing a message from the Virgin Mary, he went on to say that the faith of families affects the Church, explaining that Mary calls families to renew the Church by becoming “a living Church” through the example of prayer and living the Gospel.
“And she says: My dear children, if you are strong, the Church will be strong. If you are weak, the Church will be weak. My dear children, you are the lungs of my Church. And that is why I am inviting you, calling you. Let each of your families be a living Church, a living Church where there is prayer, where the words of Christ are lived,” the seer explained.
“We must bring prayer back into our families, because there cannot be a living Church without living families. That is why it is so important to pray in our families, to pray together with your children, to speak with your children, to develop a healthy, cognitive relationship.”
Joan Crowley, a teacher from New Jersey attending Ivan’s talk, sees the problem in her daily experiences with her students. Parents are not teaching their children to pray, she said.
Ivan during his apparition in Monteforte, Italy, in September this year
“I teach a fifth-grade CCD class – and the children, I asked [them], how many know the Rosary – hardly anybody, and some of them maybe knew a little of it, so I ended up teaching them a whole decade and what the mysteries were, and giving them a Rosary, telling them about Fatima, showing them a film” she said.
“The problem I find today is that the parents are not catechized, so they cannot share it with their children like you were shared with because they don’t know it themselves. It is like that lost generation, and they don’t go to Mass” Crowley said.
Iraqi Catholic refugee children attend a Catechism class at a Christian school on the outskirts of Beirut in November 2010. Ivan is scheduled to visit Lebanon next week for four apparitions of the Virgin Mary, from November 15-18
Mona Grbic, a Catholic mother who attended Ivan’s talk, agreed with the visionary that parents need to do more than send their kids to Catholic schools.
“What the parents do today is they send them to catechism. And the parents, they don’t even come to church, they just bring the kids to catechism and then leave, then pick them up, and that is it. They don’t take them to Mass. They don’t know the roots – that’s what it is” she emphasized.