About

This family blog is our small way of answering our grandpapa Benedict XVI's call for the faithful to "introduce into the culture of this new environment of communications and information technology the values on which you have built your lives" (24 May 2009).

We hope to share many adventures and joyful family moments and simply "give an account for the hope that is in us" (1Pet. 3:15).  We seek to discover what is true, beautiful, and good and to expose what is not.

Domestic Church Militant combines two traditional Christian expressions, "Domestic Church" and "Church Militant".

Domestic Church
For a beautiful explanation of this term, look no further than the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).

"In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith.  For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia domestica [domestic Church]" (CCC 1656)... Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and 'a school for human enrichment.'  Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life (1657)... The family is the original cell of social life (2207)."

Blessed Pope John Paul II called the family - the domestic Church - "the great mystery of God," as it most immediately reveals the bride of Christ (Letter to Families, 1994).  Pope Benedict XVI called it the "primary sphere of the Church's life" (Sacramenum Caritatis, 2007).  

Given this foundational importance, it should come as no surprise that we find the domestic Church facing unprecedented attacks today. All the more important is Saint John Paul the Great's call for "a special solidarity among families" and what he calls "the apostolate of families to one another".  We hope this blog can be one way to "seek together the answers to life's essential questions" (Letter to Families, 1994).  

Church Militant
Paragraph 954 of the Catechism speaks of "the three states of the Church".  Those who have died and are being purified in purgatory make up the "Church Suffering", and the saints in heaven are the "Church Triumphant".  We pilgrims on earth are the "Church Militant" or "fighting church".

Of course, "we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities" (Eph. 6:12).  It's a spiritual battle.  The line between good and evil is drawn right down the middle of every human heart, and we are living in a time when the battle is beyond fierce.  

"As Christians we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but as Christians we must also stand up for what we believe and always be ready to fight for the Faith.  The days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism.  We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead by conviction."                   ~Bishop Daniel Jenky, C.S.C., Diocese of Peoria

So are we trying to raise soldiers here?  You bet!  Good soldiers of Christ Jesus (2Tim. 2:3), ready to fight the good fight for the faith (1Tim. 6:12).