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Introducing Joann Heaney-Hunter |
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 We are delighted to welcome Dr. Joann Heaney-Hunter as a contributor to the family section of our website. Joann's great passion is exploring our rich tradition that family is domestic church. What this means for real families and for those who minister to and with families acts as the cornerstone of her writing, teaching and theological reflection. Joann's first contribution to our website was entitled: "Finding God in all things" Ignatian Spirituality and the Domestic Church. It is a privilege to be able to share more of her reflections with families and those involved in family ministry in Ireland and beyond.
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To Reach the Parents - Start with the Babies |
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A recent Pew Forum Religious Landscape Survey noted that while 31% of Americans were raised in the Catholic Church, 24% describe themselves as Catholic today. The 2007 book, American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith, by William D’Antonio, James Davidson, Dean Hoge and Mary Gautier, reported that only about 20% of young adult Catholics (ages 18-39) attend church services regularly. |
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I must confess, I don't know all the details of how June is celebrated in Ireland, but in the United States, it is an unusually busy month which commemorates beginnings, transitions, and endings. In June, many weddings and graduations take place, we celebrate Father's Day, and we begin the summer season.
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Family - Blessed, Broken, and Shared |
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The centre of a sacramental life, the Eucharist, is rich with meaning; and a call to sharing and service. By saying "Amen" to the Eucharist, the body of Christ, we say "yes" to the One who calls us to live as he did. (Mk 8:34). The Eucharistic action of blessing, breaking, and sharing reminds us that we, like Christ, are called to be bread, blessed, broken and shared in the midst of the world.
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Come to the Water: Families celebrate the Easter Season |
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As my family prepared for the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night, we listened to musicians warming up, saw parish staff members arranging flowers in the front of the church and heard them give instructions to volunteers who would spread the light from the Paschal Candle and sprinkle the congregation with blessed Easter water, and watched families pouring into church in their Easter best with candles in their hands. As the Vigil began, the entire community was poised, ready to begin the celebration. The pastor blessed the fire, and the Paschal Candle was carried into the dark church. He intoned "Christ, be our light, shine in our hearts, shine through the darkness…" and the community responded joyfully and passionately. The sung prayer asking that the light of Christ fill our lives thundered through the church building and set the stage for all that was to come.
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Choosing to forgive and reconcile presents challenges and opportunities for families at all stages of life because families find themselves in so many situations where forgiveness and reconciliation are required! Father Ronald Rolheiser reminds us that in families, "we cannot NOT hurt each other." "The name of the game is forgiveness," he notes, because "when we forgive, when we live beyond our hurts and hypersensitivities, God can enter our lives in a way that approximates what happened at the resurrection. Forgiveness is the force that rolls back the stone."
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“Finding God in All Things” Ignatian Spirituality and the Domestic Church |
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For the last 25 years, "domestic church" has been a synonym for Christian family life. From John Paul II's Familiaris Consortio to recent works on marriage and family, domestic church has been used to describe families in their rich diversity as they make Christ present and serve as microcosms of the larger church community. The theology of domestic church emphasizes that God's presence is not limited to institutional structures or positions within an ecclesial framework; rather, it honours God's indwelling in the midst of ordinary family life. Moreover, it serves as a powerful reminder that the smallest ecclesial unit is not the parish, but the home.
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