Forming Families, Forming Saints

How do we raise children to be saints?

How do we become saints?

From those two questions we draw our mission. As parents, our primary purpose is to raise children fit for eternal life—while we pursue the same for ourselves. If we succeed, it will be our greatest success. If we fail, there is no greater failure imaginable.

Fr. Carter Griffin treats the family mission with the gravity it demands. He considers it a work of deep formation, as crucial and as intentional as the formation of future priests.

In practical chapters, Fr. Griffin, a seminary rector, adapts the four pillars of priestly formation and applies them to family life. He highlights the key virtues that are essential for our children’s human, intellectual, spiritual, and apostolic growth.

These pages are rich with testimonies from Catholic parents, exam­ples from the lives of the saints, and other helpful resources to address specific challenges. Forming Families, Forming Saints offers a framework for children and parents alike to reach the heights of humanity and the heights of holiness.

Father Carter Griffin is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington. A graduate of Princeton University and a former line officer in the United States Navy, he obtained his doctorate in theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. After serving as a parish priest, he was assigned to the newly established St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington, DC, where he now serves as rector. He is the author of several best-selling books, including Cross-Examined: Catholic Responses to the World’s Questions and Why Celibacy? Reclaiming the Fatherhood of the Priest.

“Forming Families, Forming Saints is an excellent guide for any Catholic family. Written in a style to either read straight through or zero in on topics that are of most pressing interest, Forming Families, Forming Saints is filled with illustrative anecdotes and deep wisdom. Fr. Griffin’s years of faithfully shepherding future priests gives him ample insight to offer faith-focused parents who seek to elevate their child-rearing goals above secular standards and raise future saints. As founders of a Catholic apostolate that helps heal men and women wounded by broken families of origin, we applaud Fr. Griffin for providing such meaningful support to striving parents today and re-proclaiming the beautiful and lofty vocation of Catholic families. This book will heal many souls and prevent family wounds by giving a trustworthy, practical, and reliable blueprint for marriage and parenting that is so desperately needed today. We wholeheartedly recommend it!”

—Daniel and Bethany Meola
Co-authors of Life-Giving Wounds: A Catholic Guide to Healing for Adult Children of Divorce or Separation and Founders of Life-Giving Wounds Ministry

“Father Griffin has created a lovely collection of reflections on family life that will bring inspiration to many Catholic families.”

—Jennifer Fulwiler
Author of Something Other Than God and host of the Jen Fulwiler Show

240 pages. Paperback.