As a Catholic convert, I find myself thinking a lot about charity.
Not charity in the sense of dropping a few dollars into a bucket, though that certainly has its place. I mean charity as a way of living. A posture of the heart.
The Scriptures put it something like this: freely you have received; freely give.
The older I get, the more I realize that nearly everything good in my life has been given to me. Grace. Forgiveness. Friendship. Encouragement. Mercy. None of it was earned.
And because of that, I find myself asking a different question than I used to.
Not, What do I deserve?
But, What can I give?
Purpose
I hear people talk about finding their purpose all the time.
Maybe that’s because purpose feels so tied to identity.
For me, purpose isn’t difficult to find.
My purpose is to love my husband.
My purpose is to love my children.
My purpose is to use whatever gifts God has given me to serve others.
But purpose and commission are not always the same thing.
My husband and I have been married for nearly twenty-four years. Our marriage is unique. No one else has been called to be his wife.
Likewise, no one else has been called to be the mother of Nala, Myah, Jada, and Silas.
Those are my particular callings.
But every Christian shares the same commission.
To let our light shine.
To love our neighbor.
To care for the poor.
To forgive.
To be generous.
To freely give what we have freely received.
Passing Down Our Faith
Do you remember when aliens were a regular thing on prime-time television?
I guess I’m aging myself.
There was Mork from Ork.
The Martian from My Favorite Martian.
ALF from Melmac.
The entire premise of those shows was that these characters represented another world. If you wanted to know something about their planet, you watched the alien.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if Christians are a little like that.
We are citizens of a Kingdom that is not of this world.
People learn something about our King by watching us.
That thought has changed the way I think about passing down the faith.
For years I assumed passing down Christianity meant teaching my children what Christians believe.
And it does mean that.
We should teach them the Scriptures.
We should teach them the faith.
We should teach them to pray.
But I wonder if there is something else happening too.
What if we are teaching them every day by the way we live?
They learn something about Christ when they watch us forgive.
They learn something about Christ when they watch us serve.
They learn something about Christ when they watch us show kindness to a stranger, patience to a difficult person, or mercy to someone who doesn’t deserve it.
Long before my children can explain theology, they can recognize love.
Maybe that is why charity matters so much.
Because every act of love points beyond itself.
Every act of generosity whispers something about the God we serve.
Every act of mercy reveals something about the Kingdom we belong to.
Perhaps the greatest way to pass down our faith is not merely to teach our children how to be Christians.
It is to show them Christ.
If this post spoke to you…
Share it with someone who might need it, too. Whether it’s a quiet encouragement or a new way of seeing things, these reflections are meant to be passed along.
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Martina Griffin is a Catholic convert, writer, wife, and mother of four. She writes about faith, motherhood, beauty, books, and the quiet ache of transformation. A lover of popcorn, deep questions, and old classics, she shares her heart at Big Bowl of Popcorn—one post at a time. Instagram | Facebook | Email Me |
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