Raising Kids St. Rita's Way

“We tried to teach them right from wrong. We took them to church. Now they don’t go anymore and they’re very worldly in their ways. Where did we fail?”

That's one lament heard all too often from Catholic parents whose children seem to be going astray.

If you count yourself among that crowd, take heart. Look to Rita Lotti Mancini, better known as St. Rita of Cascia, whose feast we celebrate May 22. She lived in a 14th-century Italian village, but the way she handled a major problem she faced as a mother makes her a first-rate role model for today's parents.

Things went from bad to worse when her husband was murdered and her two sons announced their intentions to exact revenge. “The sons were very much influenced by the values of [the] society [they lived in],” just like so many of today's young people, explains Augustinian Father Michael DiGregorio, rector of the National Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia in Philadelphia. With her strong faith, Rita knew “that's not the Catholic way, the way of forgiveness,” he adds. “She tried to win them over to her side by her example, her words and her prayers.”

After doing everything she could, yet still finding herself unable to sway her sons from the path they seemed to be on, Rita turned her predicament over to the Lord. Soon after, both boys became ill and died. Was this God's way of answering Rita's prayer by protecting her sons from committing the mortal sin of murder?

Today's society is tugging children away from God's path — more subtly than in St. Rita's day, maybe, but in greater numbers as well.

“The cultural forces are much more powerful than the average parent realizes,” says Dr. Ray Guarendi, a Catholic family psychologist and Register “Family Matters” columnist. “We raise them well, but we underestimate the other factors that counter what we're doing. The dominant mind-set of our culture is anti-Christian in many ways, and many parents are in a bit of a time warp when it comes to recognizing it.”

What's to be done? Like St. Rita, parents can direct their children to see the right path of Catholic values “primarily through example, through teaching and through praying for their children,” says Father DiGregorio.

First, parents need to be vigilant beyond anything they ever thought, Guarendi suggests. Second, they need to be countercultural in many respects. “They need to be a bit of a social misfit according to peer group definitions,” he adds.

At St. Rita of Cascia Catholic School in Aurora, Ill., principal Elizabeth Baney says that, while the media tells children “[the world promoted by popular culture] is real, we have to tell them that it isn’t.” In the area of computers, for instance, she shows students how to use technology for good: e-mailing prayer requests to the shrine of St. Rita, looking up saints, checking out the Vatican site.

In all areas, “parents have to be willing to go against the flow,” says Guarendi, “and recognize that many of their decisions will be questioned by other parents and even their faith community as views ‘too extreme' when, in fact, they’re nothing of the sort.” Parents need to show emotional stamina and persistence.

The saint of the impossible showed what's possible as she opposed society's anti-Christian mind-set.

As St. Rita's School works hand-in-hand with parents, Baney educates them on the life of the school's patron. “One of the areas we focus on is her title of peace-maker,” she says.

“We encourage parents to join us for every Tuesday's school liturgy,” says Baney, adding that a mother's group meets weekly to pray for, support and encourage one another to be good Christian parents. “As some of our families become more aware of St. Rita and her mission, her ideals come out whether they’re conscious of it or not.”

Another Rita-esque ideal vital to times like ours: persistence when things look bleak. “Even though you struggle as a parent,” Baney says, “it's okay if you get in conflict with your children from time to time, if it's for their faith, hope and holiness.” Like St. Rita, she notes, parents should never let go of hope.

At the same time, “pray for their protection,” advises Guarendi. “Never before in human history have forces been able to enter our homes and shape our children as this.” He's referring, of course, to television, video games, the Internet, magazines, music CDs and so on.

What to do when children avoid all the pitfalls only to take prodigal-like tumbles in their early adulthood? Father DiGregorio says parents must realize that the choices young people make aren’t always a reflection of their parents’ input.

“Say what you need to say, pray for your children, try to give them a good example, then realize that your responsibility is to rear them and then set them free,” says Father DiGregorio. “Remind yourself: ‘The choices my children make in life as an adult are their choices; I can’t consider myself responsible for what they choose.’"

“In the end, they’re free,” he says. “It's the same risk God takes with us. He respects our freedom.”

Counselors like Guarendi often encounter parents who, having undergone a life-changing conversion experience, now feel guilty over not inviting God into their homes sooner — when the children were younger and more malleable.

But “it's never to late to try" for a turnaround, says Guarendi, despite the tremendous challenges presented by older children and teens.

In other words: Why do you think they call Rita the saint of the impossible?

“For some parents, their efforts end happily, for some the situation is ongoing,” says Father DiGregorio. “But we never know how it ends until we get to the ‘other side.’ You have to take the long view of things from the point of view of eternal life, not this pilgrim life.”

“St. Rita had the long view of things,” he adds, “and that's what we're constantly called to do and see — the long view, not the short plan.” Parents have to come to terms realizing, “it's far better I seek their eternal happiness than a few more years of their lives.”

Baney has seen this happen. “Don’t give up the mission for the short term if the long-term goal is more important,” she tells parents. “Sometimes you think you’re losing the battle, but children do come back and tell you it makes a difference to have a Catholic education. Sometimes it's the ones you least expect" who end up thanking you later in their lives.

After St. Rita lost her family, of course, she entered the convent. After 40 years of praying there, “she received one rose that bloomed in the winter, that came to life out of time, out of the same cold ground that contained the bodies of her husband and children,” says Father DiGregorio. “She read it as a sign that God had brought out of the tragedy of their deaths their salvation through her prayers for them.”

“So what's the real vocation of parents?" he asks. “Is it to want my children to grow us successful and comfortable? Or is it wanting my children to grow up to be saints, get to paradise and see God?"

For Catholic parents, St. Rita has the answer.

Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.