About the Author

Bonnie Landry is a Catholic convert, wife and mama who lives in the little hamlet of Cobble Hill on Vancouver Island. She and her husband Albert have been raising and homeschooling their seven children since 1987. Bonnie hosts the podcast Make Joy Normal: cozy homeschooling; she covers topics that lend themselves to her mission: JOY. Life is kind of a bust if you can’t get along with people. You can find her work online at www.bonnielandry.ca and her podcast at www.makejoynormal.buzzsprout.com. 

Homeschooling and Catholic Marriage

In the Catholic realm, conversation about marriage cannot be narrow. It must be broad because marriage is a broad topic, including, but not limited to: preparation, chastity, sacrament, expectations, growing in holiness, physical intimacy, conception, birth, the regulation of birth, children and the education of children.

I’m going to be addressing some hot button issues. Intimacy (both physical and emotional), marriage, begetting of children and education. All the stuff that we are supposed to avoid in polite conversation.

A noticeable absence here might seem to be politics: also not light conversation to put people at ease. But fear not, I’ve covered that too; it’s all political.

On Choosing the Right Words

The first course of action, I strongly believe, is to start with language. Before we talk about marriage, we should talk about how we talk about marriage. How we speak, the words we use, to talk about challenging things. In this case, human sexuality, marriage, conception, children and responsibility.

It’s a popular notion to address young adults with language around human sexuality that is contemporary – so we don’t look old fashioned and we might more effectively find a place of connection. We could say that about many things. Swearing, for example. We as Christians could just swear like everyone else so they feel comfortable talking to us because we are using language in the same way. But most of us don’t do that. Most Christians don’t swear (much). Why not? Probably because it is debasing natural human functions, holy objects or Our Lord Himself. By using such language, we debase ourselves. I’d rather be out of style than offend my Lord.

In the secular culture, we elevate the language that we use to describe some things in the natural world because of their obvious sacredness. Birth and death are good examples. Someone gives birth, brings a baby into the world, delivers…rather than pops the kid out. Someone passes on, receives their heavenly reward, meets their maker…instead of croaks or kicks the bucket. To use crass phrases turns the whole thing into a base joke. We just don’t talk that way. And it is good. Sanctify the language of love and life and of the body. To sanctify language is to praise God. 

Talking about love, procreation, life and the human body have become an unfortunate target, however, for degeneracy. In almost all other provinces of human behaviour, we, as Catholics, raise the standard. We set the bar high. With our behaviour, with our drawings of lines in the sand, we raise the standard. Let’s try that with how we use language. If my reader finds my language dated, please unders tand that I seek to raise the bar.

Marriage and Self Giving

In the eyes of the Church, in the Eyes of God, marriage is good. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (article 1601) states: “The matrimonial covenants, by which a man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses…” but wait, there’s more.  “…and the procreation and education of offspring…”. The result of the physical union that rightly belongs to marriage is naturally – children. When everything is going right, when our bodies are working, the physical intimacy that we experience in marriage produces offspring. Children. The grace of the Sacrament of Marriage is provided by Our Lord to raise and educate children. Why does that matter and what does that even mean? It’s important to define the terms. Marriage is good because it draws us closer to life in Christ.

What is Catholic marriage? We use the phrase, “when I get married.” Innocent enough, we know what is meant. But let’s be precise about language, because words matter, they affect us on a subconscious level. Which is, perhaps, where misunderstanding about marriage may begin. We are not supposed to enter marriage with the idea of what we are getting on the forefront of our brains. We give ourselves in marriage. Young people, still in the stages of remote preparation for marriage must begin here. “When I give myself in marriage…”. Even in our physical intimacy, we give, we receive. Getting only leads to focus on the self. Catholic marriage is a gift of self.

Marriage can’t be ‘what is in it for me.” Marriage must be an outpouring of self. And, it would appear, we are learning how to be married our entire married lives. I have yet to meet a couple who, even after thirty or fifty years of marriage, sits back on their laurels and says, yep, we’ve figured it out. It’s lifetime formation. And that’s not a life sentence. It’s a privilege. It is not a getting, a having, a place of arrival. Marriage is a place of letting go, of giving and a place of departure. A beginning. Not just the beginning of a new couple, but of a new relationship with God, and with one’s spouse. It’s a new relationship with one’s own nuclear family. Our position has shifted, our loyalties, really, have shifted. Everything has changed. I have found that the very best way for me to undermine my marriage (and all of my relationships within my family) is to wake up in the morning and think thoughts along the lines of, “what’s in it for me?”

Starting with Grace

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the sacramental character of marriage implies a special grace.  “‘By reason of their state in life and of their order, [Christian spouses] have their own special gifts in the People of God.’ This grace proper to the sacrament of Matrimony is intended to perfect the couple’s love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity.”

Grace is a special gift from God. We cannot think, for one moment, that we will not require that grace. No matter how compatible we are, no matter how much we talk through the Big Issues, no matter how our ideals, worldview and interests align…there will be days when all we have is the grace of God to get us through. The grace is there, for our sacramental marriage, heaped up and overflowing. God has made a covenant with us and He will not, He cannot, refuse us the grace of the Sacrament of Marriage, because He is the maker of the covenant. Grace is there for the asking. Our job, however, as a married couple, is to do the asking. Our job is to keep our marriages healthy, to remain in conversation with God and asking (read: begging) for the graces that He has promised us. We must ask. It’s in the asking we foster and fuel the conversation with God and our dependence on Him. Grace builds us up in Christ.

Article 1641 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church goes on to say, “By this grace [the grace we must ask for] they ‘help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in welcoming and educating their children.’” 

What has Catholic marriage got to do with education? Everything. From the moment that first child is born, even before their birth, parents are educating. Overtly, of course, to trust, to talk, to listen, to eat, to obey, to pray; to use language accurately. The unspoken part of education, though, includes even more – to love God, to encounter Him. This happens through a child’s parents and others who love the child. Their words and actions teach the child to experience joy, to be open to guidance and to be receptive to the workings of the Holy Spirit in his or her life. This example of receptivity is set by watching parents become receptive. Long before what we refer to as “formal education” occurs, informal, even innate formation begins from the moment of birth. The child is not the only one being formed. The parents are being formed in how to love. It’s beautiful. Children and educating them in the life of Our Lord is the completion, the crowning of married love.

To become a mother or father is to respond to the love of God. We marry because we love, and when we do we discover that Love is not a thing but a person. The love we are experiencing is God. Prior to marriage, a couple deepens love through meaningful conversation, through prayer together, through knowing the other more fully. From that deepening love grows desire and in our marriage we experience the fulfillment of that desire in our physical intimacy. The expression of our love in intimacy, giving fully of ourselves, without impediment or reservation, results in a child; child conceived in love, conceived in God. Parenthood is the fruit of our loving response.

The Beauty and the Challenge

It’s beautiful and it’s challenging. Why? How is it possible that there is a challenge associated with forming and teaching a child, conceived in love, raised in love, and with all the advantages that a child could have being born into a well-formed Catholic marriage founded on the rock? There are two main reasons why this is challenging. The first challenge is that we have no idea, prior to being parents, how invested we will be in the outcome of this child. It weighs on us and we feel the weight of responsibility daily and hourly. Secondly: we’re tired. We have no idea what it means to be tired, physically and emotionally, before children. But these tired, invested, responsible, weighed-down adults will be the first to tell you how awesome having children actually is. Bleary eyed and overwrought, they’ll be thrilled for when they hear the announcement of a child coming into the world, a new family being created. They are thrilled because they have experienced the joy and beauty that overrides and eclipses the challenges of parenthood.

Why is it so awesome, you may wonder? In what other capacity of life, do we get to co-create, with God, one of the most amazing things He ever brought forth: a human being. But marriage invites us to take part in this awesome act of co-creation. No wonder those who accept this invitation require heaps and heaps of grace. All good things are difficult. The Catechism of the Catholic Church goes on in Article 1642, and fortunately:

Christ is the source of this grace. “Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Saviour, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony.” Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,” and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love. In the joys of their love and family life he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Focusing on the Education of Children

In the same way that our love that leads us to marriage, and our marriage itself, is a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb, our children are too. Let’s get back to the education of children, the fruit of our marriages. A child happens, maybe two or three. School age starts to loom before us. We remember article 2223 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which tells us that we are charged with the education of our children:

Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues…Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children.

Does this mean that we are supposed to homeschool our children? Not necessarily. However, it does mean that we are in the driver’s seat making decisions about our children’s education. We must take the responsibility for this, it’s our job. Nobody else gets to make the decisions for our own children. Nobody else receives the grace to discern what matters for our own children. They are ours. It means that no matter what you choose as an educational model, the responsibility lies with you. If education is contracted out to a public or private school, a charter school or a tutor, the responsibility for this education still lies with the parents. They must be vigilant over the education being given to their children. Home education allows us to be fully engaged in vigilance.

As parents, we can never allow ourselves to be dictated to, we can never let the opinions of others – no matter how close they are and how much they have given us – be the deciding factor in what’s best for us and our children. Like other questions that marriage poses, the secular world (and sometimes the in-laws), in my opinion, asks the wrong questions. Instead of, “Why have a child?” we should be asking, “Why not have a child?” And, in the context of this commentary, we should be asking, “Why contract out our child’s education?” instead of, “Why would we homeschool?”

Homeschooling in the Context of Catholic Marriage

We just wrapped up thirty two years of homeschooling. Ups and downs, for sure, but overall, a beautiful experience. It was a beautiful career choice for me. Last year, while one of my sons was away at university, I receive a long text from him. I’ll share a portion of it here. He sums up, in my opinion, the impact that his education had on him:

“…you risked it and we all turned out pretty good…I realized that I have a way more well rounded knowledge than the vast majority of my friends. I realized that you could have easily passed the responsibility on to the school system.”

He speaks here primarily of the educational value of home education, but for me, the text was far more significant because of his appreciation of our decision, his awareness of how it affected him, and the fact that I had other choices I could have made. This is a mature, thoughtful, self-aware young man expressing himself with both clarity and charity. It says a lot about his character. Building of character and the formation of young people was the real reason and the real benefit of educating our own. We had so much time together to guide our children.

Time together is perhaps the greatest gift we offer to our family. Quality time is a myth. Quantity of time is what matters and it’s what really tells those we love that they matter. Time to read together, play together, discuss together. Physical intimacy co-created these children. Our physical presence, our physically being together, provides the opportunity to deepen our love of God and each other. We are working through this life together and it requires time.

The reasons given so far as to why homeschooling may be an excellent choice are, actually, not the most important reasons. Perhaps the most significant grace that we experience as parents, when we choose to homeschool our kids is our own growth. Most parents I meet are delighted that homeschooling has allowed them the opportunity to learn…to really learn, to read excellent literature, to fill in the gaps in their own education and to learn more effectively how to educate themselves. The growth in knowledge, however, pales in comparison to the spiritual growth we can experience in our marriages.

Practicing patience, perseverance and charity, as well as these attributes, listed in Article 2223 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity…” are central and vital to a loving home. When we take on home education and time is on our side, opportunities to practice all of these things abound. The opportunity to practice is always only a moment away. Practice is what draws us closer into the life of Christ. Time and opportunity are constantly presented to us to practice growing in holiness. And honestly, that’s all that matters.

We want a good education, of course, and it’s one of the fruits of home education. But academic excellence should never be the end goal. Academic excellence, social agility, physical aptitude, need for a good job and all the many reasons that a good education matters can never, ever usurp love of God. And love of God is learned through loving others. All the pesky others in all their difficult moments that we encounter in our lives are the “other” that Our Lord is talking about. On the top of our “other” list, is our spouse and our children. Good education means so much more than we realize at first glance.

We desire to grow in holiness. We fall in love with the person we feel is best suited to walk through life and pursue holiness with us. We raise children for the Kingdom of God and teach them, by word and example, to pursue a relationship with Our Father in heaven. We want to do all the things; all the things that will bring us to our Heavenly home. All the knowledge, all the praying, all the novenas, all the spiritual growth. But there’s this. We don’t have to go looking for it. At all.

Holiness 101 starts here, in family life; both in theory and practice. If Our Lord has lain it upon your heart to homeschool your future children, I can guarantee you it isn’t for their academic prowess. It is to perfect you. It is to perfect your relationships with your spouse, your children and He, Himself. Don’t miss the key sentence in article2223, The home is well suited to education in the virtues. The heart of your home is your marriage. Growing in holiness is the purpose, the challenge and the goal of marriage. In family life, the primary place we work out our salvation is in our relationships, primarily and essentially, the relationships in our homes.