By Mark and Melanie Hart
It’s vital for couples to have a common vision of what success looks like at home and not just view parenting as a shared workload. This is one reason we believe so strongly that every couple should have a mission statement for their marriage and family. It should be something you can craft together, live by, and, as the kids get older, introduce to your children. Every couple’s mission statement will look different, but here are some priorities that you may want to consider:
- Putting your marriage relationship first.
- Incorporating your Catholic faith.
- Committing to serving others as a family.
- Practicing hospitality and having a home open to visitors.
- Making healthy lifestyle choices.
- Teaching your kids about the faith.
- Fostering prayer and virtue within the home.
We recommend taking this project to prayer and asking the Lord to guide you as you write down what you hope for your marriage and family. We did this very thing seventeen years ago and came up with this mission statement:
We will put God first in our marriage, family, and home. We will pray daily both alone and as a family. We will share our sacrament and Catholic faith with joy. Our home will be a place where the name and goodness of God are proclaimed to all who enter. We will speak the truth with love, admit our mistakes, and offer and seek forgiveness from one another. We will work to keep our minds, bodies, and souls healthy, strong, and pure. We will be grateful for our blessings and share those blessings with others. We are Harts.
Our mission statement isn’t perfect by any stretch (you might even say it’s not-quite-holy!), but it’s enough to keep us grounded. It helps keep things in right order, and when sickness or job changes or financial stresses come, it helps ensure that we make decisions based on who we want to be (as a family) and not on default reactions or emotions.
Begin crafting your own statement by asking yourselves, “What does God desire from and for our marriage and family?” Next, move through the charisms that your family can offer extended family, friends, the Church, and society in general. Finally, consider what kind of example you want your family to be to other families and how you want to be remembered by your own kids and others.
This excerpt from Our Not-Quite-Holy Family is reprinted with permission of Ave Maria Press.
