Kevin and Bridget Murphy pray with their nine children (from the Catholic Messenger, Davenport, Iowa)
– Fr Leonard E Dollentas
An eleven-year-old boy was failing in math. His parents tried the best tutors in town to teach him but to no avail. Finally, they decided to enroll him in a Catholic school.
After his first day in the Catholic school, an immediate change was evident. His parents observed him to be focused on the lessons in math. He would never waste time anymore with any electronic gadgets. Instead, he would toil away in his room with math books. He would emerge to grab something to eat and would go back to work at his studies until bedtime. This pattern of behavior continued until it was time for the first quarter report card. The boy walked in with his unopened report card, laid it on the dinner table and went straight to his room.
Cautiously, his mother opened it and, to her amazement, she saw a large black ‘A’ (excellent) under the subject of Math. Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son’s room, delighted at his remarkable progress. “I never thought the nuns at the Catholic school were the best Math teachers,” the father remarked. “No,” said the son, “on the first day when I walked into the school, I saw a guy there nailed to the ‘plus’ sign (the crucifix) on the wall, and I knew they meant business.”
Many parents choose Catholic schools for their children because of their academic excellence, emphasis on personal responsibility and the development of good study skills. It is not a surprise, therefore, that even today Catholic and non-Catholic parents continue to trust the Catholic school education, its reverence for the faith, values and a higher sense of purpose.
PARENTS AND THE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
Parents provide foundational values in the early development of their children. The same can be applied in the faith development of their children. Since parents are indeed the “first heralds” of the faith (CCC 1999, §2225) Parents are given the task of educating their children, and this cannot be fulfilled by merely sending their children to Catholic schools to achieve this “grave obligation” of education (Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, 1929/1930, par. 34).
To help parents fulfill such obligation, many Catholic schools require partnership with parents in forming their children in the Catholic faith. This partnership gives parents a chance to understand the mission, beliefs, and practices of their faith, and the faith of their children being nurtured in the Catholic schools. The Code of Canon Law specified that this is also a canonical requirement: “it is incumbent upon parents to cooperate closely with the school teachers to whom they entrust their children to be educated.” (Canon 796)
Thus, the Catholic school becomes a second home where the faith and values first modeled by the parents are reinforced through religious education and catechesis.
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY
Sadly, a vast number of parents today are merely consumers of Catholic education, who believed that their task is to send their children to school and fetch them after class, every day. Often, they do not share the same vision of Catholic identity and ministry that the Catholic school community holds. Habitually, parents have little regard for the “religious element” of Catholic schools. They show more interest in academic, athletic, or performing arts. This reveals a parental assumption that one’s duty to educate is complete after sending children to Catholic schools. Typically, parents attend the opening parent-school meeting but do not attend special meetings to address issues that would help them as part of the whole enterprise of Catholic education.
An important approach that may enhance parent involvement in the school is to secure a deeper parental investment in school, a sense of “ownership.” They should be guided to the realization that collaboration enhances the best results in education. Most Catholic school administrators feel that this could be achieved through the growth of strong parent organizations. Parents utilize their specific talents, respond to specific needs in the school community, and strengthen the parent-school rapport when they are given opportunities to adopt responsible leadership roles in the life of the school.
PARENTS AND THE SUNDAY MASS
Children learn their earliest lessons in the context of family life, and parents need to give the best example. Their day-to-day actions reflect a Christian lifestyle. If they neglect their faith, most likely their children would do the same.
Sunday Mass is a primary link between Catholic school faith formation and religious education in the home. However, the truth is far from the ideal: parents do not attend Mass. Some simply drop their children at the door of the church with the instruction of sending them a phone message after the Mass so they may bring them home. In such case, the mission of the schools has become the role of surrogate spiritual parents because the parents are spiritually deficient. The tolerance of this repeated cycle leads to the shrinking of the faith of the school children. Undoubtedly, when they grow they will manifest the same deficiency in faith.
When parents and their children participate in the Sunday Mass, they actualize and reinforce the lessons learned in Catholic schools and in the home. In so doing, they are harmonizing the important connection between home, parish, and the school.
Indeed, there is a great need to design an approach on how to help parents understand the importance of their being active Catholics. This is essential for their commitment to raise their children in the Catholic school environment.
PARISH WORSHIP AND ACTIVITIES, PATHS TO CONNECT WITH PARENTS
There are unique ways in which the parish community could help parents rekindle their Catholic life, and fulfill their parental role in Catholic education. They can be involved in the liturgical and ministerial life of the parish.
When parents are involved, they not only renew their individual faith development but also serve as models of faith to their children in the community setting. I can imagine school administrators arching their eyebrows sky-high, reading this part of the article. True, parents don’t even have time to attend school meetings! How much more inviting them to be involved in the liturgical life of the parish!
In our Sunday catechism class (the English-speaking community of the Cathedral) we have a monthly Sunday mass. We require the parents to be present in the Mass, together with the children attending the catechism. We assigned parents, some of whom are not even Catholics, to do the offertory. They are so excited that one mother told me her husband was too nervous but excited about bringing the wine towards the altar during the Mass.
Other examples of such liturgical parental participation could include participating in a church choir, serving as a Eucharistic minister, lector, or Mass usher. Examples of ministerial parental participation might include work with the social action committee of the parish, civic and community activities, political and grassroots efforts on behalf of the poor, interparish and diocesan events, and community service projects. This can be accomplished, with good time management efforts, on the part of the parents.
(Fr Leonard E Dollentas is a Filipino diocesan priest and a missionary in the Diocese of Macao. He holds a doctorate in education and has held academic and school administrative positions in the Philippines before coming to Macau. He teaches at the University of St Joseph-Macao, School of Education)
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