Latest / The Catholic Current / Learning from the Mass (Rebecca Hopersberger) 7/7/26

Transcript

Learning from the Mass (Rebecca Hopersberger) 7/7/26 · The Catholic Current

0:00
This is The Catholic Current with Fr. Robert McTague
0:07
I can't help but recall the story of the paralyzed man, he's on the pallet, and his friends
0:12
can't get him to the front door, so they tear a hole in the roof and they lower him down.
0:16
And the first thing our Lord says is, your sins are forgiven.
0:22
There's a man who can't walk, and the first thing on his mind is sin.
0:26
What might a reasonable man infer from that?
0:29
That our most serious problem is our sin.
0:34
Praise be Jesus Christ, this is Fr. Robert McTague of The Society of Jesus, your daily
0:37
host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world, and the world to Christ.
0:41
You're listening to us from the station of The Cross Studios, your local radio station,
0:45
and the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity
0:49
and charity.
0:51
As always, let's start with prayer.
0:53
Name the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
0:55
Almighty God, through the intercession of St. Ignatius Loyola, we ask that you pour
0:58
forth your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit of discernment that might hear your voice
1:02
and obey your command.
1:03
In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
1:06
Well, friends, you know that I describe myself as a recovering academic.
1:11
I spent most of my adult life on college campuses, first as a student, later as a professor,
1:17
and I take teaching very, very seriously.
1:20
And you do have to say the right words the right way with the right intent.
1:24
You also have to lead by example.
1:28
And there's a quip I've seen as bumper stickers and memes along the lines of, I couldn't hear
1:34
your words.
1:35
They were overshouted by your example.
1:38
I was thinking about that, and I happened upon an essay published a few months ago in
1:41
Crisis Magazine that says something similar about teaching our children about the importance
1:47
of the mass.
1:48
So we have the author here now.
1:50
She is a wife and mother, and she was a public school teacher for 25 years, and now she works
1:57
in Catholic classical education.
1:59
Rebecca Hoppersberger, welcome to The Catholic Current.
2:02
Hello, Father.
2:03
Thank you for having me.
2:04
Rebecca, here's my take on things.
2:09
Parents have a very profound obligation as the first teachers of the faith to their children,
2:14
and pastors have a profound obligation to support parents in that good work.
2:20
And we might say and do all the right things, but then that gets undercut by the way other
2:28
people behave.
2:29
Now, long-time listeners to the show know where I'm going with this, that we tell our
2:32
children that the Eucharist is a source and summit of our lives and the most important
2:36
thing ever, but they don't believe it because they still give Father sweat-stained, smelly
2:40
polyester vestments from the 1970s to wear.
2:44
I have a sense that your essay was written with the same insights.
2:48
Can you tell us about that, please?
2:50
Sure.
2:51
Well, as you mentioned in my introduction, I was a public school teacher for 25 years.
2:56
And if you'll allow me to start there, I can illustrate very well just what has happened
3:02
in public education in that lunatics are running the asylum in terms of behaviors.
3:12
And in a classroom, if you really want to have an effective classroom, then you have
3:17
to model what it is that you want in terms of behaviors.
3:23
And if the teacher says one thing, but doesn't enforce the behaviors of the students in the
3:29
classroom in which she's asking to be done, then none of the other kids take you seriously.
3:37
And as this relates to the mass, I mean, it's really very problematic that we have behaviors
3:42
in mass that go unaddressed and a rule that's not enforced isn't actually a rule.
3:49
So we're seeing all kinds of behaviors at mass.
3:51
Our kids are seeing this and we're telling them one thing, but they're seeing something
3:55
else when they do go to mass.
3:58
It reminds me of a friend of mine who worked at a Catholic high school some years ago.
4:03
And the head of the vocations office came and he was, suffice to say, he was a very
4:08
unpleasant person and he was rude and he was chain-smoking indoors and unkempt, et cetera.
4:17
And he said, what do you need from me to help promote vocations at your school?
4:21
And she replied, credible and attractive role models.
4:24
And I said, oh my goodness, someone should send her a fruit basket or some flowers as
4:29
a result.
4:30
So, and I have mentioned from the pulpit, as I said, people who are doing their best
4:35
to teach reverence to their children and that mass is important, et cetera, et cetera.
4:40
And it becomes undone by, if you will, a culture of casualness that we see, you know, mom and
4:49
dad get the kids in their Sunday best, get them there early, get them recollected, expect
4:55
high degrees of behavior.
4:56
And then people kind of casually wander in and wander out.
5:02
You're a teacher and you're a parent.
5:05
What does that do to the lessons you're trying to hand on to your kids?
5:09
Well, I mean, it puts the parents in a particularly bad position, right?
5:14
Because you're also, if you're raising your children well, you're raising them to respect
5:17
authority and to respect other adults.
5:21
And when they see other adults conducting themselves in a shameful manner, that kind
5:24
of puts you in a position of having to correct somebody else that's maybe not your duty to
5:29
correct or to find some way to charitably explain to your children that this is actually,
5:34
you know, that person really needs to do better, that their conduct is unfitting for, you know,
5:40
what is unfitting for the mass.
5:42
And you know, we see this a lot in education too.
5:45
I mean, you know, speaking to role models, I mean, for the diocesan Catholic schools
5:51
or, you know, Catholic schools in general that go to mass once a week or once a month
5:56
shamefully and then you have the faculty that don't attend mass because they want to grade
6:01
or do something else because that's their time off.
6:04
You know, that sends a message to the kids greater than anything else that they could
6:09
hear in a homily because the people that they're closest to are setting an example that this,
6:14
you say this in theology class when I go to class that this is the most important thing,
6:20
but you just, you know, picked your cross over coming to mass and, you know, holy sacrifice
6:27
at the mass.
6:28
You've chosen to grade instead of come here.
6:29
So is it really the most important thing or do I get to have some discernment in this
6:33
about what's really important for me?
6:35
Right.
6:36
I think that, you know, I've often heard parents complain.
6:38
My parents complain this about me that, you know, children don't really listen, but in
6:42
a certain sense they do.
6:44
They certainly listen to our behavior.
6:47
Case in point, at a parish mass and after mass you stand outside and greet people.
6:52
One of the first people to greet me was a gentleman with his young son.
6:57
He wanted me to congratulate his young son because he had just received his first communion.
7:03
Very excited, very proud, and then, you know, son and dad went off to the parking lot and
7:06
as they left I said, wait a minute, dad took his kid out of church early.
7:11
He didn't even wait for the hymn to end, which is something I pleaded at at every mass
7:16
at most parishes.
7:18
And so while it was a big deal that he received his first communion, by his father's behavior
7:26
that boy is having that good work undone because dad is communicating that it's okay to give
7:34
this our minimal time, attention, and devotion because we have other important things to
7:39
do.
7:40
How does that look from a child's eyes?
7:42
Well, I mean, they just don't believe what you're selling, right?
7:48
So children first and foremost learn by observation.
7:53
Generally a kid learns to speak around the age of two, but there's been a lot of input
7:57
before they acquire the ability to communicate with you and language becomes, that exchange
8:02
becomes a means of learning.
8:05
So they've watched and there's a lot that they've learned from that.
8:09
And so how you structure your lives, and I tell this to my students in catechism class
8:17
and that if you're planning everything around sports or your activity or whatever it is,
8:24
and the parents, they worship on the altar of activity right now in general, in our culture,
8:30
your kids are never gonna learn that they're not gonna believe you when you say this is
8:35
the most important thing.
8:37
So when you're traveling, and one of our three sons played high level hockey.
8:42
So we traveled a lot for hockey.
8:46
And when we finally started taking our faith seriously, that meant we were the family that
8:50
was attending mass, in between games when we were out of the city, we'd find the Catholic
8:55
church that we would go to.
8:57
And that had such a massive formative effect on our son to the point of by the time he
9:03
was a senior in high school, he gave up playing hockey for a year to do Catholic missionary
9:07
work.
9:08
Wow.
9:09
And then the Lord blessed him and allowed him to still live out sort of his hockey dream.
9:15
But it's not that before that, we didn't tell him that it was important.
9:20
It wasn't until we started living it that he believed us, that it was true.
9:25
Right, right.
9:26
I mean, we do have to lead by example.
9:30
There are reasons, for example, why athletic goods stores and gymnasiums don't have me
9:37
as their spokesman.
9:38
There's a very significant reason for that.
9:40
I could say very true things about sports equipment and athletics, and the importance
9:45
of having a profound personal discipline.
9:48
I mean, I have a very dear friend who's been going to the gym six days a week for decades.
9:55
God bless her.
9:56
I'm not that guy.
9:58
So I'm not credible.
10:00
So one of the things that we learn in classical rhetoric is not only we have to tell the truth,
10:05
we have to move people to right action.
10:07
And the most reliable way of doing that is to show that we're living the message ourselves.
10:14
And if we give an indication that we're saying one thing and doing another, and nobody calls
10:23
shenanigans on that, a child's natural skepticism is going to kick in.
10:30
I, myself, remember being 12.
10:33
And worse still, I remember being 15, which is basically 12 plus hormones.
10:39
And my goodness, when there was nonsense, when things didn't match up, when one of these
10:46
things was not like the other, I knew it, my friends knew it, and we drew very significant
10:51
conclusions that I still remember almost 50 years later.
10:55
Friends, when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation about learning from
10:59
the mass.
11:00
My guest today is Rebecca Hoppersberger, a mom and a Catholic educator.
11:04
Remember, a rallying cry here at The Catholic Current is Christus Mundo, Mundus Christo,
11:09
bringing Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
11:11
We do it because our Lord says so, for the greater glory of God, the love of our neighbor
11:15
and the salvation of our own soul.
11:17
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our RDOS
11:23
podcast.
11:24
Everything you need to take us to your family and friends, we give to you together.
11:27
Let's take it around the world.
11:28
We can do it with you, we cannot do it without you.
11:31
Let's do this good work together.
11:33
Back in just two minutes, please do stay with us.
11:54
You're listening to The Catholic Current with Father Robert McTague from the Station
12:05
of the Cross Catholic Media Network.
12:07
Stay connected with the show and our guests and topics by following the show on Twitter
12:12
and Gab.
12:13
Just search for The Catholic Current.
12:20
Praise be Jesus Christ.
12:21
This is Father Robert McTague of the Society of Jesus.
12:24
Your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the
12:27
world to Christ.
12:28
You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios, your local radio station
12:31
and the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity
12:35
and charity.
12:36
Hey friends, did you know iCatholic Mobile supports only Catholic causes?
12:40
iCatholic Mobile offers unlimited 5G data, text and talk.
12:44
And iCatholic Mobile gives a portion of every dollar earned to the Station of the Cross
12:48
Catholic Media Network.
12:50
By subscribing to iCatholic Mobile, you help fund programs that defend our Catholic faith.
12:55
My guest today is Rebecca Hopersberger.
12:56
She's speaking as a Catholic educator, a veteran public school teacher, and a mom as well.
13:02
We're talking about learning from the Mass.
13:05
Rebecca, we can agree that kids learn especially by example.
13:11
And it's not enough to say the right words about our Lord and the sacraments that reverence
13:17
at Mass and so on.
13:19
We have to actually live that out.
13:22
And there can be counter signs.
13:24
And I want to talk about, you know, other people leading by bad example, and I'll talk
13:28
about that later.
13:29
But, you know, you're a mom, you've raised kids.
13:33
I haven't.
13:34
I try to support parents as best I can.
13:37
I know there are a lot of listeners here who say, you know, I've got young kids, I've got
13:40
grandkids.
13:41
What are best practices and what are the things to be avoided?
13:46
In regards particularly to Mass or getting kids ready for Mass and just the faith is
13:52
important.
13:53
How do you begin to communicate that?
13:54
Yeah, well, I mean, I think the first really important thing is to be very serious about
14:00
your Mass obligation and structure your family's life around meeting your Mass obligation.
14:06
I mean, kids right now are generally pretty overscheduled.
14:11
And just even when sitting down and talking about the family schedule, just making certain
14:16
that prayers and Mass obligation sort of trump everything in terms of planning and moving
14:21
pieces around.
14:23
And then, of course, obviously, teach your kids about the Mass and prepare them for Mass.
14:27
I can't say enough about getting dressed up for Mass.
14:30
When something's important, if we were going to go meet the Queen or the King of England,
14:35
how would we dress?
14:36
Would we dress in pajama pants or shorts or flip flops?
14:40
And yet here we are meeting, seeing the King of the universe, and we're dressing ourselves
14:46
as if, you know, we just rolled out of bed.
14:48
So those types of things that signal that something is really important goes a really
14:54
long way in forming your kids to pay attention and really prioritize their faith.
15:01
I started teaching Sunday school back when I was 15 or 16 years old and my very first
15:06
Sunday doing that, I was teaching third grade and this little girl came up to me eight years
15:11
old and said, oh, I'm really looking forward to being confirmed, which I thought was an
15:16
interesting thing for an eight year old to say.
15:19
And I said, really?
15:20
Why is that?
15:21
And she said, because then mommy says I don't have to go to church anymore.
15:23
And she walked into the classroom.
15:27
So for better, for worse, for a child, everything starts in the home.
15:35
There was a time, rightly or wrongly, where people believe, well, you know, you just have
15:40
to shove the kid out the door at Sunday school, and then 20 years later, he's going to get
15:46
ready to have a good Catholic marriage and produce a lot of grandkids.
15:49
A lot of people took that bet and ended up very, very disappointed.
15:55
We can see the errors in that.
15:57
So it starts in the home.
16:00
Is it fair to say that if you want to be effective in your Catholic parenting, you have to start
16:04
by being effective in your marriage?
16:07
You can't do this if only one spouse is committed.
16:10
It's harder that way.
16:11
Isn't it?
16:12
Oh, absolutely.
16:13
And, you know, you have to, you have to be on board.
16:17
Both of you have to be on the same page.
16:18
And, you know, my husband's a convert.
16:21
And we became, took our faith seriously.
16:24
We're only five years into that, and I'm 51 years old.
16:28
So that's a really long time.
16:29
And the early days of my kids looked radically different.
16:33
But then my husband converted, and we took our faith seriously, and we took our divine
16:38
mandate to help get our kids into heaven really seriously.
16:42
And things changed fundamentally.
16:44
And I would say to parents, it's not too late.
16:48
Don't ever think that it's too late because you miss those critical form.
16:52
You know, there is a lot of formation that's really crucial in the younger years.
16:57
But if you miss that and it doesn't work out, you don't give up.
17:02
Right.
17:03
You can completely retool your life to guide your kids in the right direction.
17:11
And I would say that we're called to make that course correction once we realize, once
17:16
we now know what we didn't know before.
17:18
Right.
17:19
I mean, everybody has to start from somewhere.
17:23
What matters is where you end up.
17:26
And you know, if you start on the right square from day one, that's great.
17:32
If not, you still have to try.
17:34
I want to lean into some of the obligations of the parents.
17:39
I went to a baptism a few years ago, and a bunch of families there with a bunch of kids
17:44
baptized.
17:45
And it was a very happy occasion, of course.
17:47
But the pastor there gave a really great sermon, and he told the parents, he says, you know,
17:52
God is going to ask you in your judgment, did you do your utmost to raise your kid to
17:57
be a faithful Catholic?
17:59
If you think you can have a good answer to that question without a serious regular habit
18:04
of sacramental confession, you're kidding yourself.
18:08
You're going to fail.
18:09
And most of the parents seemed very surprised.
18:11
Apparently, they hadn't thought about that or hadn't heard that before.
18:15
I have friends who are raising teens, which is its own particular type of heroism.
18:21
And one mom said, I realize I can't survive without my weekly holy hour.
18:26
I'd end up in jail, or my kid would run away from home.
18:30
So can we talk a little bit about the spiritual regimen of parents before they start teaching
18:37
their children?
18:38
Yeah.
18:39
I mean, I would say the first thing and the thing that changed our life most profoundly
18:42
is praying the rosary every day.
18:44
Pray the rosary every day and pray it with your kids.
18:48
And you know, the blessed mother will, I mean, the blessed mother will help you and your
18:55
spouse to guide your family towards our Lord.
18:58
I mean, that was, it's, you know, it's her magnificat.
19:02
So I would say, and then in other types of routines, for example, grace before meals,
19:08
believe it or not, a lot of people aren't doing that regularly.
19:12
And you can say grace in the car getting McDonald's on the way to soccer practice.
19:17
You can do it.
19:18
And you can actually like, you know, you can pray the rosary in the car with your kids.
19:23
So I would say some sort of everyday daily prayer in addition to your meeting your obligations
19:29
for mass.
19:32
And then of course too, you should be reading to your children.
19:38
And I would recommend, you know, reading good Catholic stories, but also just reading parts
19:42
of the Bible and talking to them about it because they can't have a relationship with
19:48
our Lord.
19:49
We can't have a relationship with our Lord without knowing who he is.
19:53
He's revealed himself to us, right?
19:56
And so those things, but just, I mean, it's even just the rosary, if you just pray the
20:02
rosary every day with your kids, no matter what, even if it's like, you know, it's been
20:07
a long day and everybody finally got home and they're all in the room together, that
20:13
in and of itself will change everything.
20:16
Right.
20:17
I have some friends and their kids are teens now, but from practically day one was family
20:25
reading time and prayer together.
20:28
And I want to talk about that more in the next segment, but here's the thing.
20:33
They would lead the kids through kind of an Ignatian examine.
20:37
What do you want to thank God for today?
20:40
What do you need help with today?
20:43
And who do you know who needs help from God?
20:46
So gratitude, you know, and praise, petition, and then intercession.
20:52
And now these kids, you know, some of them have graduated from high school and so on,
20:56
but they can't sleep at night unless they have that family prayer time together.
21:01
It's so deeply ingrained in them.
21:06
And I think that's absolutely indispensable.
21:10
And all the data that I've seen show that fathers really need to take the lead on this.
21:16
And one of the best predictors of kids remaining in the faith is dad leading by good example.
21:24
So that's important as well.
21:27
We've got about three minutes left in this segment.
21:29
Let's take up something practical.
21:31
Someone might be listening and says, hey, you guys, you know, father, you don't have
21:34
kids and Rebecca, your kids are older now, but you know what a mess it is to try to get
21:39
young kids through one decade of the rosary.
21:42
How would you answer that?
21:44
Well, I mean, everything that kids do when they're starting out is difficult and challenging.
21:50
But even if you get one decade in, you don't get the whole decade in, then they're at least
21:55
learning they have to have the structure for which all of this relies on.
22:00
You know, another thing I would say that's really helpful that we do with our family,
22:05
and granted my kids got older, but we offer each decade of the rosary for an intention.
22:11
And when my kids got older and they would lead the decade, then whoever's in our house,
22:18
whoever's leading the decade offers the intention.
22:20
I can't tell you what you learn about your kids in that moment.
22:24
It's amazing the things that you find out that are on their heart and the people that
22:30
they want to pray for and the worries that they're carrying with them.
22:34
And so it's this really deep, not only are they placing that at the foot of the cross,
22:39
but then they're inviting you in to a deeper relationship with them because you're carrying
22:44
the burden together.
22:46
And so I really encourage people to allow their kids to pick the intentions for the
22:52
rosary, even if they're not the ones like leading the decade themselves.
22:55
Sure.
22:56
And kids really do want to be part of something that everyone else believes is important.
23:05
And so grace before meals, grace after meals, there's an idea.
23:10
We can get really, really radical and observe the Friday fast, not just in Lent.
23:16
That would be a thing.
23:17
I mean, there are small things you can do.
23:19
I mean, I know a family that has an Advent calendar every year.
23:25
I've guided them away from the Legos, chocolate, Star Wars Advent calendars, but you can have
23:32
Advent calendars.
23:35
First Jesuit I met when I was in high school was Father Chuck Gallagher, God rest his soul.
23:39
And he talked about the importance of having Catholic art in your home.
23:43
And he said having Catholic art might not necessarily prove anything, but not having
23:49
it really does say something.
23:52
So, you know, having your house blessed on Epiphany with the chalk marks over the doorway,
23:57
having an enthronement of the Sacred Heart, I'm going to have some people have their head
24:02
explodes and talk about the importance of having a vigil candle in front of a statue
24:07
of Our Lady and so on.
24:09
But I think those things are really important as well.
24:14
And you've got to make it natural, and you've got to make it normal.
24:18
I have some very dear friends who, for years, would get together on the first Saturdays
24:24
of the month, and Father would hear their confessions, they'd have Mass, we'd pray
24:27
the Rosary, and then you'd have a barbecue or a picnic together, and everybody from babies
24:33
through grandparents just say, well, this is normal.
24:37
This is actually what you do, and it's not exceptional, it's not unusual.
24:41
You form kids' consciences that way, and you give them sacramental imagination.
24:48
And that's something that I want to talk about in the next segment, is how to form
24:51
the moral imagination of your kids.
24:53
Friends, when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation about teaching our
24:57
children of faith and the Mass as a means of teaching.
25:00
Our guest today is Rebecca Halpersberger.
25:03
She is now a Catholic classical educator, and she is a wife and mom as well.
25:09
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our audio
25:14
podcast, where if you can find audio, you can find us.
25:18
Follow us on your favorite platform, write a five-star review.
25:21
We need to attract the attention of the listeners so that these conversations get the attention
25:25
they deserve.
25:26
Everything you need to take us to your family and friends, we give to you.
25:29
Together, let's take it around the world.
25:31
Let's strive mightily here to be more than merely relevant.
25:34
We'll be back in just two minutes.
26:05
Catch up on an episode you've missed or share them with your family and friends.
26:09
The Catholic Current is podcasted wherever you enjoy listening.
26:13
Spotify, Podbean, TuneIn, and the iCatholic Radio mobile app.
26:19
Praise be Jesus Christ.
26:20
This is Fr.
26:21
Robert McKay of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic Current, where
26:25
we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
26:27
You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios, your local radio station,
26:30
the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
26:35
My guest today is Rebecca Halpersberger.
26:38
She is a retired school teacher, now a Catholic classical educator, and a mom as well.
26:44
We're talking about teaching our children not only about the Mass, but about the faith.
26:49
It's certainly true, Rebecca, that we have to lead by example, in particular when we're
26:54
in the church and it falls upon the entire congregation and the priests and deacons and
27:00
so on to be really exemplars of right action and intention and excellent execution when
27:08
it comes to bringing children to the Mass for Eucharistic devotion.
27:12
And I think we've established in the last segment that a lot of that starts in the home.
27:17
I want to lean into the idea of forming Catholic moral imagination.
27:21
Friends, if you're not familiar with the work of John Senior, I very much recommend him
27:26
to you.
27:27
He was a convert.
27:28
Let's just say he wandered a lot and read his way into the church and was a brilliant
27:35
educator whose legacy lives on in two books in particular.
27:40
The first is called The Death of Christian Culture, written in about 1979, and then the
27:46
follow-up two years later or so was called The Restoration of Christian Culture.
27:51
It's in the show notes.
27:52
But at the back of the book, Rebecca, of the first volume, The Death of Christian Culture,
27:57
he has a list of 1,000 books you should read with your kids between the ages of 3 and 18.
28:04
But it's the reason why I think it's so important.
28:07
We know that in higher education, there are some folks who congratulate themselves by
28:12
having a great books program.
28:16
And I know in the 60s and the 70s, people were saying, oh my gosh, we dropped all our
28:19
standards and our kids became barbarians.
28:22
Who knew?
28:23
I know.
28:24
Let's have a great...
28:25
Yeah, who saw that coming?
28:27
Let's have a great books program that will civilize them.
28:30
But here's Senior's claim, and you're an educator and you're a mom, so I want your evaluation
28:35
of this claim.
28:36
His claim is this, that if you don't first form the moral imagination of your young people
28:44
with stories of virtue and heroism and villains, then by the time they get to college and you
28:50
give them this reading list of great books, they're going to be skeptical, well-read,
28:57
literate dilettantes.
28:59
And the great books won't have done their work.
29:02
But you've got to prepare the soil by cultivating the moral imagination to show that great evil
29:08
is really bad and great goodness, though costly, is worth it.
29:13
And you do that especially through stories.
29:16
You're a mom, you're an educator.
29:18
What do you make of that?
29:19
I mean, the first thing I would say is the fact that we have to have a great books program
29:23
on its face is kind of strange.
29:24
Why would you read any book that wasn't a great book to begin with, right?
29:30
But certainly, it's really important that our kids are oriented very young to the true,
29:36
the good, and the beautiful, and who, again, are hearing heroic stories and seeing great
29:45
sacrifice in their stories.
29:48
And any stories that are sort of ideologically possessed to make them believe something,
29:55
whatever the pet cultural thing is, but don't have depth and nuance and are aimed towards
30:01
truth, goodness, and beauty are things that we should absolutely not be putting in front
30:06
of our kids.
30:07
And, you know, we should be very careful, and I'm glad that you brought up that list
30:11
of books in there, but we should be very careful about what we're putting in front of our kids.
30:16
And I think that horse is out of the barn culturally, you can't even take your kids
30:21
to the mall, you know, without them seeing something scandalous, yeah.
30:27
Several years back, I went to a public lecture at a private home with the great Dr. Anthony
30:33
Esslin, whose work I admire, truly, and he's a real Renaissance man.
30:39
And I asked him about a phrase that had become popular among churchmen, evangelizing the
30:44
culture, and he cut me off, and he says, Father, we don't have a culture, we have a sewer.
30:49
Our first job is to get out of the sewer.
30:52
And I said, all right, this is really Anthony Esslin, I get that.
30:56
I'll put it to you this way, you know, we teach our kids as they grow up about stranger
31:00
danger and, you know, don't go into the van of the man who's going to offer you a puppy.
31:05
We also have to be concerned about the strangers who come into our home through electronic
31:10
media.
31:11
And it seems a lot of parents have punted on this issue.
31:15
Can I get your take on that, please?
31:16
Yeah, I mean, I had dinner with a dear friend of mine who's still a public educator, and
31:21
I can tell you right now that the greatest source of evil for children right now comes
31:25
through electronics.
31:27
Not only are they being exposed to pornography and violent evil imagery, but they're also
31:36
being brain damaged just by the nature of how the addictive quality of the electronics
31:40
works.
31:41
Yes.
31:42
So I can't state strongly enough how important it is to give your children the freedom of
31:48
a childhood and to, you know, keep them away from really actually a lot of electronics,
31:55
and then be very cautiously introducing them in when they get older, because you have no
32:00
control over that.
32:02
And the evil comes to them and finds them in there.
32:05
And even if you think that you're using it for a good, it's just there's way too much
32:11
in it that is caustic and harmful to kids.
32:17
And I also think you have to, sorry to interject, you have to establish a pattern of honest
32:24
conversation.
32:25
The family, you know, they're very smart about electronics.
32:29
If on occasion they played video games, they did it together as a family.
32:35
If they watched a movie or a TV program, they did it together as a family and then talked
32:42
about it.
32:43
I have a friend who's got a daughter who I think was a sophomore at the time.
32:49
And she said her friends were recommending to her a particular program on television.
32:55
And so she said to her dad, can you and I watch the trailer together for this show and
33:02
then discuss it?
33:03
And they watched the trailer and my friend said that he was white knuckling it through
33:07
the trailer.
33:08
And then she turned and says, and she said, dad, we don't even have to talk about it.
33:12
I don't want to waste my time with this.
33:15
So I think that you don't want to have your kids be furtive with you.
33:21
You want them to know that, you know, we can always talk about everything and there's no
33:26
negative consequence for being honest with mom and dad.
33:33
So how do you maintain control in that arena?
33:38
Yeah, I'm actually, I mean, I want to be clear that I'm not advocating for just sheltering
33:43
your children into oblivion.
33:44
We have to, we have to armor them up and this is the reality of the world as it is.
33:49
And I think, you know, what's been fairly effective for my husband and I is that we
33:53
just talk about the things that our kids see.
33:57
They're comfortable coming to us and saying something and we hear them out and we don't,
34:01
you know, blast them for consuming something they shouldn't.
34:04
We just talk about why it's probably a good idea that they don't do that.
34:07
These are the reasons why.
34:09
So as in everything in parenting, it's in relationships with your kids and letting them
34:15
know or just having established a pattern of conversations about these things.
34:20
Your kids are not going to come to you and talk to you about something deep if you don't
34:24
habitually talk about deep things with your kids, you know?
34:28
So yeah.
34:29
Yeah.
34:30
I think that is important.
34:32
And then also leading by, again, the leading by example, I've told this story before on
34:37
the air, I was at an airport and, you know, I'm old enough to remember that when you're
34:41
at the airport and you had a long layover, you went to the bookstore and bought a book
34:45
to read.
34:46
I know those days are gone, unfortunately.
34:47
Yes, yes.
34:48
But there was a mom traveling with her toddler and they were sitting back to back to each
34:52
other and both of them were absolutely lost in their respective devices.
34:59
And one or the other could have disappeared and the other wouldn't have noticed for at
35:04
least an hour.
35:05
Now, at a practical, let's just say I have a heightened sense of danger in the emergent.
35:11
That's just me.
35:13
But doesn't that teach something to the kids that getting lost in your devices and ignoring
35:19
your family is normal?
35:22
Is that the kind of thing you want to communicate?
35:24
Yeah.
35:25
And, you know, I mean, thankfully for us, our kids call us out on it because we kid
35:29
ourselves if we think that we're not, you know, subject to the dangers of that too.
35:34
It's very easy to get addicted to them.
35:37
And I would say for your example, father, that you're missing crucial teaching time
35:42
with your kids if you allow them devices as a means of babysitting so you can get a task
35:47
done in public.
35:48
And you know, what I'm in the habit of doing is if I see somebody with their child in the
35:54
cart that's reading a book, I stop and talk to them and ask them what book they're reading
35:59
and congratulate the parents on their reading because we need reinforcement.
36:05
You know, we need help as a community.
36:08
Those parents need to know, OK, this was a little bit more.
36:11
This was a lot more difficult than handing my kid my phone.
36:14
But it's really worth it.
36:16
And somebody else is saying it and the fruits of this are going to be tremendous.
36:20
Absolutely.
36:21
No, that that sort of affirmation is really very important.
36:25
I think we have set up life in America so that the family home is the dormitory with
36:31
a microwave and the Wi-Fi are.
36:34
And I think that's a mistake.
36:36
And the families I know where the kids are really growing up to be healthy is that family
36:42
time is the best time.
36:45
And you know, school time or athletics time or social circle time is secondary.
36:52
And they can come and be satellite to to family time.
36:56
So having a habit of Sunday dinner is really important.
37:02
Having family board game that I know you may have to play chutes and ladders a few hundred
37:07
thousand times with your four year olds.
37:09
But they're right.
37:10
I know.
37:11
Cheerio.
37:12
OK, well, exactly.
37:13
You know, and eventually you work up into UNO and find out your kids are counting cards.
37:18
Can you talk a little bit about giving a primacy to family time?
37:23
Yeah.
37:24
You know, Father, honestly, COVID was such a blessing.
37:29
I got my family back when everything shut down.
37:34
My husband and I were high fiving each other in and out the door on the way to various
37:39
activities and different things.
37:42
And then and then you couldn't do anything.
37:44
You couldn't leave your house.
37:45
And we had to learn how to be a family together.
37:48
And I will always be so, so grateful for that force in our life.
37:54
We started it was really when we started praying the rosary together and we started reading
37:57
books to each other.
38:00
And when life opened back up after that, we held on to our family time with both hands
38:08
because we didn't even realize it was so incremental and losing that that we didn't even realize.
38:13
And so now, I mean, I wouldn't advocate for that kind of a thing again, for people to
38:19
get their families back.
38:20
But to the extent that you can, you can make it a priority because you've got what 18 years,
38:27
maybe with for that, where you're going to have that kind of direct influence and be
38:31
setting the stage for the rest of their life.
38:33
And you should count every single minute of that is precious.
38:37
Yes, yes, indeed.
38:38
I think it does pass quickly.
38:43
My niece just turned 18 and graduated from high school last month.
38:47
And I still remember her as a baby.
38:49
It does seem to be if you blink, you'll miss it.
38:55
But as I said, the best practices I've seen is you let your kids know that we like to
39:00
be together as a family.
39:03
And we'd like to pray together as a family.
39:06
And being Catholic together is really, really important.
39:11
And it's not just a way of keeping your kids out of jail or out of the news.
39:15
It's good for everybody's soul.
39:19
And that's what I think is so important.
39:21
And that's something, friends, I'm going to lean into in the next segment, is that everybody
39:25
wins when we teach our children well.
39:30
And it really is a community activity, not only among couples and parents and schools,
39:35
but in parish life and in parish masses as well.
39:39
And I'm definitely going to get up on my soapbox for that as well.
39:45
Rebecca, thank you for a very enjoyable conversation.
39:49
And God bless your very good work.
39:51
Thank you for your time today.
39:52
Thank you, Father.
39:53
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day at The Catholic Current.
39:56
It's a timely Tuesday.
39:57
You know what that means.
39:58
You want to stay with us for the rest of the hour.
40:00
Coming up next, timely thoughts, you and me reflecting on what we've heard today.
40:05
Be part of the conversation.
40:06
Follow what we're following by following us on Gab.
40:10
It's G-A-B dot com.
40:11
The channel is The Catholic Current.
40:13
And you can influence the conversation.
40:15
You can contact us at thestationofthecross.com slash askfather.
40:20
And especially if you're a parent or grandparent, I want to know from you what worked, what
40:24
didn't work, what are best practices, and what do you need from your parishes and pastors.
40:29
Be back in just two minutes.
40:31
Please do stay with us.
40:39
Have a question or feedback about today's episode?
41:04
Want to suggest a guest or a future topic?
41:07
Go to thestationofthecross.com slash askfather.
41:13
And help influence the conversation.
41:21
Praise be Jesus Christ.
41:22
This is Fr.
41:23
Robert McTague of The Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic Current, where
41:26
we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
41:29
You're listening to us from The Station of the Cross Studios, your local radio station,
41:32
the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
41:38
It's a timely Tuesday today.
41:39
You know what that means, the last segment, you and me sharing timely thoughts, reflecting
41:43
what we heard today.
41:44
My guest was Rebecca Halpersberger.
41:47
What an interesting woman.
41:48
She was a teacher for many years in the public school system.
41:52
She now works in Catholic classical education, and she is a wife and mother as well.
41:57
We're talking about learning from the Mass, and we meant it in particular this way.
42:02
What we do at Mass and how we do it is absorbed by our children, for better or for worse.
42:10
You know, there are parents who say, oh, my kids never pay attention.
42:13
Well, they do, but they pay attention at the most inopportune times.
42:19
When you're at your worst or you're messing up, that's when they pay attention the most.
42:24
So when we talk about the Eucharist as the source and summit of our lives, and you can
42:32
cover your obligation anywhere from 3.30 in the afternoon on Saturday till 10 o'clock
42:39
at night on Sunday, because the worship of the God who called you into existence out
42:47
of the nothing and who saved you from your own sin, we don't want the worship of that
42:54
God to get in the way of important things, like the early bird special at Olive Garden
43:03
or tea time for the golf course or soccer matches, etc., etc.
43:10
So look, you already know what I'm going to say.
43:13
We have set up a paradigm where the worship of God has become a money laundering scheme.
43:19
We are selling anti-hell insurance on a weekly subscription.
43:23
So if you deign to let God Almighty interfere with your personal weekend for as long as
43:32
an hour and you put money in the basket, then if you get hit by a bus that week, God owes
43:39
you heaven.
43:41
And we act like that, because for the most part at St. Typical's, from what I hear from
43:48
both priests and congregations from around the country and around the world, yeah, wander
43:54
in whatever, you wander out whenever, you get your liturgical proof of purchase, and
44:01
you put a couple bucks in God's tip jar, and easy peasy, we're out the door and we're ready
44:05
to go.
44:06
And so we tell our children the Eucharist is the source and summit of our lives, ignore
44:12
the banal music, ignore the insipid preaching, ignore the fact that Father doesn't complain
44:17
about wearing sweat-stained polyester vestments from the 1970s, ignore the bad art, ignore
44:24
the bad behavior, ignore adults scandalously dressed, ignore the people who should know
44:31
better being casual about the Holy Eucharist, and then become pious, become devout, don't
44:38
run away from the faith after you receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, get married
44:43
in the church, have a good Catholic marriage, and produce grandchildren.
44:49
So on the one hand, we have very high expectations of what we want our kids to be and do, and
44:57
on the other hand, we have very low expectations of what their needs actually are.
45:04
So we're in kind of a pickle.
45:07
It's certainly true that our children learn from us based on what we do and don't do at
45:13
Mass and how we do or don't do what we do at Mass.
45:17
That's not meant to say that the Eucharist is meant to be a catechetical event either.
45:23
The primary focus of worship, the primary focus of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is
45:29
worship of the living God.
45:31
And the only act of worship that was ever sufficient was Christ's self-sacrifice on
45:37
Calvary, which is made present again at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the altar.
45:43
So we go to Mass to worship God, and Mass is not a communion service.
45:48
You've heard me speak about this before.
45:50
And I do know there are people who are really heroic and faithful, and they want to have
45:56
a Catholic environment in their home.
45:59
They want their kids to be taught properly.
46:02
They want them to be reverent and grateful and devout.
46:07
And they make every effort to do everything right to the very best of their ability.
46:12
And then all their good efforts are undermined by casual, thoughtless, witless people who
46:20
are not reverent and who don't take this seriously.
46:25
And who at least apparently have no interest whatsoever in offering their very best to
46:31
God Almighty.
46:33
And many of the children perceive that Father Cheerful doesn't really care either, because
46:38
he puts up with this week after week after week.
46:41
So friends, let's conspire together.
46:46
For the sake of the children of these good Catholic families, let's up our game.
46:53
Let's arrive early.
46:57
Let's not leave before Mass ends.
46:59
Let's do something radical, like fall on our knees after Mass and make an act of thanksgiving.
47:07
Let's insist on good music, good preaching, and beauty and decorum in the church.
47:13
Let's let our pastors and priests know that this is what we want and need, and this is
47:18
what we're going to work towards.
47:21
And let our children see that they take this very seriously, and they begin to act accordingly.
47:29
I was tremendously edified the other day.
47:33
I got a photograph from a dear friend.
47:36
He and his wife are heroically trying to raise their kids right.
47:42
Little boy has been taught how to serve Mass with reverence.
47:44
He's about seven or eight years old.
47:49
They set up kind of a confessional in the living room.
47:53
And the little boy was, he had on, it was so funny, he had on his Cassock and Surplus
48:00
and his father's purple necktie draped over his shoulders like a stole.
48:05
And his little sisters dressed as saints and nuns and practiced confession.
48:11
What a beautiful, wonderful, noble thing.
48:16
And what an act of violence and ingratitude it would be if all that good work was undone
48:26
because someone decides to be casual or flippant at Mass, loudly drinking a Slurpee in the
48:34
communion line, for example.
48:35
Oh, I've seen that too.
48:38
Make no mistake.
48:39
Friends, the innocence of our children is so very, very precious.
48:45
And the best gift we can give them is not a college savings fund, but the understanding
48:55
of the faith and the normalization of the faith, and especially worship.
49:02
Make that normal, make that ordinary, make that expectant so that eventually when, God
49:09
forbid, a child sees something that's irreverent, that's casual, that's flippant, they'll
49:18
turn and say, that's not right, is it?
49:21
And you can say, no, it's not.
49:23
And here's why.
49:25
So let's make pious, piousness, piety, reverence, gratitude, decorum, beauty, graciousness,
49:36
seriousness, let's make that normal.
49:41
Let's make that typical.
49:44
Let's make that mandatory.
49:48
There are people who tell me quite proudly that it is not impossible or forbidden for
49:54
mass to be reverent.
49:56
Well, then, by golly, let's act like it.
49:58
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of the Catholic Current.
50:02
Join us tomorrow for another episode of the Catholic Current.
50:05
Great guest, great topic, great conversation.
50:08
That's how we roll here every day of the Catholic Current on the Station of the Cross,
50:12
where we strive mightily, and dare I say it, successfully, to be so very much more
50:18
than merely relevant.
50:20
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our audios
50:25
podcast, where if you can find audio, you can find us.
50:29
Follow us on your favorite platform, write a five-star review.
50:32
We need to attract the attention of the listeners so that these conversations get the attention
50:37
they deserve.
50:38
For the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may Almighty God bless you, Father,
50:41
Son, and Holy Spirit.
50:43
Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.