Catholic Families

This is more of an invitation to open forum than a post.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how to keep families Catholic. In a time when so often the Faith is not passed from one generation to the next -- often not because the children wouldn't have accepted the Faith, or because the parents wouldn't have passed it on, but simply because the exchange never happened in our busy, secular world -- I have to wonder, what would be the corner stones of a "Catholic" family life? How to parents evangelize or form children in the Faith through home life?

I see there being two parts to this process, the ordinary and the extradinary componants of lifestyle. Example: an ordinary componant of lifestyle would be going to Mass every Sunday; it's regular. An extradinary componant of lifestyle would be Christmas -- it's a special event.

This post then will consider the ordinary componants. What can a family do on a regular basis to make their household a Christocentric, Catholic home?

It seems to me that the solution is a small number of important things. If it is too many things, one's plan would become burdensome and too rigid to meet the reality of family life. If the customs are not significant, however, they will not make a difference.

So what few, important things would best define a Catholic family lifestyle?

A few suggestions of mine, but I ask you, Blogophilus, to contribute your own thoughts/experiences.

- Dinner as a family at least 5-6 nights a week (the family is the "domestic Church," and the Church is a communio personarum -- a communion and community of persons. Dinner seems an ideal way to build up this community.

- Daily Mass as a family. Is that realistic, and in what ways?

- Rosary as a family. How and how often? Make attendance compulsory for children after a certain age or not?

- The Angelus. Is this adding too much? Or (as I'm inclined to think) does the beauty of this forgotten devotion (side note: Start saying it today, people!) make the added commitment on the family as a whole worth it?

- Weekends family life. At least until the children are busy with their own friends, make every other Saturday a day for day trips (see the local museums, parks, etc.). That's something my family always did, and we all liked it. The other Saturdays would be set aside for everyone cleaning the house.

- Sundays. After Mass, do some enriching activity that excersizes uniquely human leisure. Visiting relatives, having everyone engage in some form of artistic expression -- practicing music, (finger)painting, whatever.

Anyone else?