1. Say the Name. My parents talked about their relationships with the Lord, what he was doing in their lives, and what they could see him doing in our lives on a daily basis. Jesus’ name was frequently spoken in our house, and always in a positive way. I never felt like God was a police officer in the sky, waiting for me to screw up. I knew that He loved me even more than my parents did. For my siblings and me, faith wasn’t just a Church thing or a school thing. My parents’ faith and love for Jesus was the air that we breathed.

2. Have daily family devotions. Like most Catholic families, we did the typical grace before meals and prayers before bed. Unlike most Catholic families, we did a lot of extemporaneous prayer as a family, usually after dinner. My parents didn’t emphasize rote prayer so much as heartfelt conversations with the Lord. We learned, from a young age, that the Lord cared about all of our concerns and that we could voice them aloud, directly to Him. My Dad says that this type of prayer helped us “stretch our prayer muscles," and he's right! My parents were good about keeping our prayer times on the short side so that we wouldn’t get restless, and they encouraged us (at the appropriate ages) to have our own prayer time each day. I didn’t start to do that until high school, but the seeds were definitely planted, and our family prayer times paved the way for my future spiritual growth and intimacy with the Lord.

3. Read the Bible. My parents met because of the Catholic Charismatic Movement, which was the context in which they both encountered the Bible--outside of the Mass--for the first time. They took Biblical literacy seriously and wanted us to dive into God’s Word as soon as possible. We listened to Bible verse memory cassettes in the car, which we legitimately loved, and read the children’s Bible so often that we had entire stories memorized. As my Dad says,”The Word is like the rain and snow that come down and water the earth making it fruitful. You need water in your garden of souls; the Bible is your water source.” I couldn’t agree more.

4. Pray for your children's spiritual formation. My parents prayed for us daily, and we knew this. They also took their responsibility to form us in the faith seriously, and educated themselves on the Bible and Church teaching. I can honestly say that, until college, I didn’t have a theology teacher who taught me anything my parents hadn’t already covered--and then some.

5. Be credible witnesses: I remember waking up for school and seeing my mom reading her Bible, journaling, or kneeling, deep in prayer, before she came into the kitchen to supervise breakfast. My Dad also had a daily prayer routine that was visible to all of us, and we knew how seriously he took his relationship with Christ. I think this was the most important component in our faith formation: the fact that we saw my parents, especially my Dad, living what they were teaching (albeit imperfectly), day in and day out. Not only that, but I could tell that for my parents, living the Christian life was a joy, even when it was difficult. I never associated Jesus or the Church with a bunch of arbitrary rules, because my parents always framed morality in the context of our relationship with Christ.

6. Frequent the Sacraments. I was so excited to receive my first Communion. I knew that I would be receiving Jesus, and I knew that it was my mom’s favorite part of the week. I wanted to experience the joy I saw on her face every Sunday after she received the Eucharist. While we didn't start to go to daily Mass as a family until I was in college, my parents’ joyful attitude toward Sunday Mass was what kept me interested as a child, even when the homily was way over my head. I wanted to be as close to Jesus as she was. It wasn’t until much later that my parents (and I) started to go to confession regularly, but now it’s a staple in the life of my family.