Family Spirituality

Family Spirituality

How can the experience of being a mother or father—embraced as a true vocation or spiritual practice—become a sacred path that brings healing and wholeness to the entire family?

How can we connect family life with spiritual practices and the wisdom of the Christian tradition in ways that bring life to our homes and help us discover God’s presence in our everyday lives?

The Family Spirituality Certificate Program will support parents and caregivers of children and youth in integrating their faith into daily life and sharing that faith with their children as a living and radiant experience.

Parents may participate individually; attendance with one’s spouse is not required. Therefore, the course may be taken individually or as a couple.

Through spiritual practices, readings, personal reflection exercises, small group sharing, and spiritual accompaniment, participants will acquire the tools needed to integrate their faith more deeply into their home life.

The focus of this course is to support participants as they become informed, formed, and transformed in faith.

Who Can Participate

This course is open to parents or anyone responsible for the care of children and youth in the home who wish to ground their family life in God’s love. The program has been thoughtfully designed with parents’ and caregivers’ schedules, responsibilities, and needs in mind.

We also welcome those who already support families in the formation and integration of faith through ministry. The emphasis is personal—an invitation to deepen the ways in which spiritual growth bears fruit in one’s home and in the wider community.

Benefits and Objectives

Participants will receive support in integrating their daily lives with their faith. The program begins from their own experiences, stories, questions, concerns, and hopes within their family life.

Throughout this journey of discovery—through sharing with other parents and through spiritual direction—participants will be accompanied toward a deeper encounter with their own hearts.

The program takes a holistic approach, focusing on healthy human development and including attention to physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

Classes meet once a month online and live. In addition to the monthly session, participants will complete personal online work (readings, reflections, videos on monthly topics, prayer exercises, etc.) at their own pace and schedule throughout the month.

Upon Completion of the Program, Participants Will:

• Experience a greater integration of their thoughts, feelings, actions, words, perceptions, and way of being—centered in the love of God.

• Gain a deeper understanding of various Christian spiritual practices and how to adapt them to family life.

• Develop a fuller and richer understanding of prayer—its meanings, forms, and expressions—and discover which forms of prayer best suit their family circle.

• More clearly recognize the rhythms and moments in their family life where grace and love already flow.

• Deepen their self-understanding in relation to God and their community, and recognize more fully how they are personally and collectively called to live out their faith as a family.

• Develop their own ministerial response to support other families in their spiritual growth.