A toddler is carried during the July 4, 2024 Eucharistic procession through the Auburn, Kentucky, area during the visit of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage to the Diocese of Owensboro, as part of the National Eucharistic Revival. RILEY GREIF | WKC
The gift of intentional parenting
BY SUSANA SOLORZA, SPECIAL TO THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
As we begin a season of gift giving, I want to cut through the “Jingle Bell Rock,” deciding whether to use last year’s wrapping paper, and the “elves,” to invite you to a place that will give your children the best gift of all: your healthy, happy, and holy parenting.
Several of our diocesan offices have come together to create the “Building a Family of Faith” workshops. We care about your parenting because we care about your kids. As a mom of three boys, and as a teacher and youth minister, I have had the blessing to be living all the experiences and teachings I will be sharing with you. I have heard from so many young people that what they want from their parents is time. They want to be with you! They like you! They want to be heard by you.
Just like you, I have messed up in my parenting journey more times than I would have hoped for when I started out. My Pinterest-perfect motherhood wasn’t playing out the way I had planned, life got messy, I got angry, and my faith-filled household descended into chaos. When my husband and I reached out to God for help, we received the support we needed from family, the joy of friends in the same stage of life as us, and we found resources and people that taught us what we didn’t know, and that healed us where we were found to be broken. As parents, God gifts us with this incredible opportunity to raise someone – to receive this person into our home and love them. We can’t fake it with our children; they will call us out on our bluff. Our faith must be authentic because they see us when no one else is around, after the social media post has been liked, or after Mass on Sunday is over. They see what role God really plays in our lives. So let God into your parenting; give your children the gift of a relationship with the one who loves them even more than you do.
I wish I could tell you that this workshop will solve all of your parenting problems, but I can guarantee that it will point you in the right direction, toward Christ. Like the three Wise Men, we will orient ourselves toward the one who has shown how we can love each other on this earth in order that we may one day find each other in heaven.
Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents, and all people who care about how our children are being raised, please share this article, and share the registration link. Grab your other friends who are parents and come check out what we have to say. Parent to parent, this is the gift they will always thank you for.
For dates, locations, and to register, visit owensborodiocese.org/building-a-family-of-faith.
Originally printed in the December 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
