Generations of Faith
Thomas Howard on Giving God Grandchildren
My two “children” (now 37 and 35) both went away from home on the same day, about twenty years ago, one to Exeter Academy, the other to Harvard, neither of which institutions can be said to be a fountainhead of orthodox Christian zeal. The fly in that ointment is that our household was (and is) an orthodox Christian household. We were all Anglicans then; three of us have long since been received into the Roman Catholic Church.
Deo gratias, all four of us are still practicing Christians. This remark does not indicate where any one of us stands in the sanctity sweepstakes, but at least we go to Mass, and say our prayers—although I should in all candor say that my wife, the mother of this family, lives in the very presence of the Most High, and I suspect that the other three of us depend heavily on her faith, fortitude, wisdom, love for God, and prayers.
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Thomas Howard taught for many years at St. John's Seminary College, the Roman Catholic seminary of the archdiocese of Boston. Among his many works are the books Christ the Tiger, Evangelical Is Not Enough, Lead Kindly Light, On Being Catholic, and The Secret of New York Revealed, and a videotape series of 13 lectures on "The Treasures of Catholicism" (all from Ignatius Press).
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