MFP 316: A Manual for Catholic Families

Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

Mike and Alicia Hernon : Catholic Marriage Parent and Family

Parenting, Parent, Podcast, Marriage, Religion & Spirituality, Catholic, Christianity, Kids & Family, Family

5 • 739 Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“Catholic parenting is above all a work of grace” - Fr. Carter Griffin

We often say there is no manual for being a parent, but this book comes pretty close! In this podcast, we interview the author of Forming Families, Forming Saints Fr. Carter Griffin. Fr. Griffin has worked for years forming young men into priests in the seminary setting. In doing so, he saw many similarities between what he was doing with young men and what parents were doing at home. The four pillars of formation in the seminary - human, intellectual, spiritual, and apostolic - can be applied in the family as well! In both settings, ultimately God is the one who does the transforming in people’s lives, but He does choose to use us in the process. We believe this book is a valuable resource for parents that they will be able to refer to again and again.

Key Concepts

Parents are proxies. God is the ultimate shaper of their hearts and minds, but He chooses to use us in the lives of our children
In the past decade or so there has been an emphasis on the importance of childhood and parenting on a person’s life. This knowledge is good, but it also has put an incredible amount of pressure on parents to “do it right”.
The four pillars of seminary formation - Human, Spiritual, Intellectual, and Apostolic can be applied for parents forming children within the home.
The most successful parents create an environment of trust in the home through continual dialogue with their children while sending the message that they don’t just love their kids, but they like them too!
Parents need to know they are not alone! There are many other families working alongside you and we have a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on.

Couple Discussion

Consider the four pillars that Fr. Griffith describes. How is our child doing in each of these? Can we make a goal for them in each area?
Are we overwhelmed by the responsibility of parenting? How can we rely on God more for the grace that we need and for the grace that our children need?

Resources

Father’s book: Forming Families, Forming Saints: https://stpaulcenter.com/product/forming-families-forming-saints/

Find out more about our UK tour in March - https://messyfamilyproject.org/uk-tour-2025/

Event in New Jersey with Array of Hope - Beloved https://arrayofhope.regfox.com/beloved

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Family, all in this together.
0:08.2	Family, we're taking a chance.
0:10.8	Family, like birds of a feather.
0:13.3	Family, we got my shoes and dance.
0:15.4	Hey, we are Mike and Alicia Hernin.
0:17.4	We have 10 kids and grandkids too, and we are here for every parent. Because we are on a
0:22.2	mission to empower moms and dads to embrace their sacred calling. So join the conversation.
0:28.6	Family, we're taking a chance.
0:31.1	Family like birds of a... Welcome to the podcast. We're so glad you joined us. This is, again,
0:37.2	it's still a new year for us.
0:39.5	And I think this is going to be a great interview for a new year. It's a great way to start off
0:43.9	the new year with us. Exactly. Exactly. It's great great. We've actually got some really great
0:48.3	episodes lined up for you for January and early February that I think are going to help start
0:53.4	your new year. We're so positive. We think we like almost everything. I hope you do. Let us know. Let us know
0:57.9	what you think. But this is, as we mentioned last time, we're, we're celebrating our 10th anniversary
1:04.9	this year. More to come on that. Not of marriage of the podcast. Of the podcast. Of the podcast.
1:09.0	Of the podcast. And so there's some fun things that we have plans, some the podcast. Of the podcast, of the podcast. Um, and so there's some fun
1:11.8	things that we have plans, some new things. We'll explain more of that later. Just reminder to reach
1:16.3	out to us. If you are a listener from eight plus years, we want to hear from you. That's right. We would
1:21.0	love to hear from you. We have some questions for you and some ideas. Yes. Yes, exactly. So one of the really, really exciting things that we are getting ready to do,
1:28.7	first of all, we have, we have, in March is super, super, super duper packed. So first of all, we,
1:35.8	for any of you who are on the East Coast, we have a great event that we're going to be at with
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mike and Alicia Hernon : Catholic Marriage Parent and Family, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Mike and Alicia Hernon : Catholic Marriage Parent and Family and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.