Catholic Spiritual Growth - Building Community at Home With Family Ritual

Catholic spiritual growth includes building relationships and forming communities. We are called to live as members of God's family. If your vocation is to marriage and family life, one task that the Church gives you is to build an authentic community of persons. Using family ritual is one powerful practical step you can take to increase a sense of community in your family.

What is a community of persons?

When Pope John Paul II encouraged families in Familiaris Consortio to become a "community of persons," he explained that a family should be more than a group of people who live together but who lead very different lives. While it is good and healthy for individuals to peruse activities that fit their unique gifts and calling, a family should be a community that has a vested interest in each other. They should actively support and encourage each other's well-being and success.

It is so easy for us to get caught up in the busyness of the world and to forget to take the time to build relationship. How does the saying go? The people closest to us are often the most neglected. Don't take family relationships for granted. I you are called to marriage and family life, part of that vocation is to actively work to build a community of love within your family.

What are Rituals?

Like routines, rituals are activities or experiences that we do over and over again until they become part of the fabric of family life. But rituals differ from routines in some very important ways. Because of these differences, building ritual must be strategic. Because of these differences, rituals hold amazing power for building authentic community and love. What are the differences between ritual and routine?

1. Rituals are emotionally significant. Members of the family find them enjoyable, fulfilling and engaging. When they are absent rituals are missed.

2. Rituals are meaningful. There is a purpose to ritual, one that can be verbalized and reviewed. That meaning may or may not be explicitly discussed as part of the ritual, but it is clearly evident.

3. Rituals invite active engagement by every member of the family. In fact, in most rituals there are defined roles for each member to play. For example, a family may make gift opening into a ritual by opening gifts one at a time and saying thank you for each gift in order to acknowledge the giver. One defined role would be that family members take turns being "Santa" for the year - distributing presents to each member of the family form under the tree.

Why Are Rituals So Powerful?

Rituals are powerful because they provide ways for families to formalize their togetherness. In some sense, they play the same role as an inside joke. It is something shared only with a special group of people. Rituals give family members a sense of belonging. Just think about how special a boyfriend or girlfriend feels the first time they are welcomed into ritual by the family of the person he or she is dating.

The other source of the power of rituals lies in their meaning.

    We know that other families just tear into their Christmas presents all at once, but we open ours one at a time because we want to be sure to appreciate the giver of the gift and to acknowledge the love behind it.

That's a statement that has the power to define what a family stands for.

How Do We Build Ritual?

Building ritual into your family life can be a daunting task, especially if you're not used to thinking this way. But there are a few easy steps you can take to get started.

1. Acknowledge the rituals that already exist. Every family has some sort of ritual that they inherited from families of origin or that they created by establishing a "tradition." Being aware that these rituals exist can help you maximize their impact on your family.

2. Find routines that can be turned into ritual. Why try to establish a new habit when your family already has habits in place? Instead, inject those habits with meaning and establish some roles to transform them into a ritual. Already eating together? Turn off the distractions and establish a ritual of conversation, asking everyone to tell something significant about their day.

3. Capitalize on the power of the holidays. Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and feast days are filled with opportunities to establish rituals. And your family kind of expects you to do things to try making these times more special, so you may get less resistance. Establish a ritual of prayer around Advent or Lent, then let it continue into Ordinary Time.

4. Look for various areas in your life where you can begin to inject new rituals. You can create rituals for greeting each other, saying good morning, or welcoming each other home. You can create rituals surrounding eating meals and celebrating accomplishments. You can create rituals around serving people outside of your home or serving each other within the family. There are many opportunities in family life to establish rituals.

5. Start small, keep it simple, and make it fun. I know the word "ritual" sounds all formal and official. But rituals aren't always scripted or solemn. Greeting rituals can include tickling or hugging or shouting out a funny saying. A celebration ritual might be as simple as a special place setting or a little symbol put on someone's plate or on their pillow. As long as it's meaningful and invites people to participate, you have the making of a powerful ritual.

Rituals are powerful ways to give your family a sense of "togetherness" in a meaningful way. This "togetherness" leads family members quite naturally to build relationships that support and encourage each other, leading to a true "community of persons."

Building an authentic community of persons also builds a school of love. And that is exactly what Pope John Paul II had in mind when he gave families this task.

Building community within the family is an important, often overlooked key to spiritual growth. While there is a lot you can do to build community within your family, the most effective way to "get better at family" is to work on growing closer to God in all aspects of your life.