The Dominus Project

Episode 7: Holy Habits of Virtue with Allen and Jenny Richey

Dr. Brian Pedraza: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Holy Habits in the House. This is the podcast where we want to help parents and caregivers of all types, married, single, foster parents, adoptive parents, grandparents. To help you in your raising of the kids, to become Saints through the daily actions of the nitty gritty of the house.  

My name is Dr. Brian Pedraza, I'm a professor of Theology at FRANU and Director of the Dominus Project, and sitting with me is my friend, good friend, sometimes best friend. Father Josh Johnson. What's up, man.  

Father Josh Johnson: How are you doing?

Dr. Brian Pedraza:  I'm doing great, man. Who we got with us?  

Father Josh:  We have some of our parishioners from Sacred Heart of Jesus, Jenny and Allen Richey. Thank you both for joining us. A holy couple, husband, wife, parents and also, you'll be joining me and our parish on a pilgrimage this year. We're going to go to Venice, to Assisi and to Rome, all the best places.

Dr. Brian Pedraza.  I’ll fit in a big luggage.  

Father Josh Johnson: What are you all most looking forward to about this pilgrimage? Are you looking forward to a specific place, to a specific saint, and what's the reason why?  

Allen Richey:  For me, I'm fascinated by the idea of the incorruptibles, and so getting to see some of those forebears in the faith who experience incorruption and death.  

Father Josh: For our families at home, there are some saints throughout salvation history, the church's 2000-year history, their bodies, they never decay. Like, they died, like, recently there was a sister Wilamina, she was at nun up north, and they were moving her grave, and all of a sudden, they saw her foot and her foot was still there and they opened it up  and she looked the same that day, this is a few months ago actually, as she did the day she died, she died back in, I don't know if it was 2000 something. It was a while back, right? And so, for whatever reason, sometimes, God, he preserves the bodies of his saints. Sometimes it's not the whole body, it is a part of the body. But yeah, so that's incredible.

Father Josh: What about you Jenny?

Jenny Richey:  I think I'm looking forward to seeing Carlo Acutis.  Yeah, he’s caught my eye, and my kids, it’s just that he’s a young saint to be, so we're excited.  

Father Josh Johnson: He wore blue jeans, played video games, he's on the Internet.  He's going to be a canonized saint in 2025. He's blessed right now and just did a miracle. It shows us that kids can be saints. To be a saint is not for somebody later in life, to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ is not for old people, only, it's for all people, but if we go back to the incorruptible real quick, Allen, if you're called by God, by the grace of God, if you were chosen to be one of the incorruptible saints, but only partially incorruptible. What part of your body would you want to remain corrupt?  

Allen Richey: Well in college, I had great hair, that has since been corrupted. Yeah.  

Father Josh Johnson: The hair is gone, come back. Hair come back!

Allen Richey: If I can't pick college hair, I would go with my ears.  

Father Josh: Why the ears?  

Allen Richey: So that I can hear. I think too often, I don't hear fully. I think maybe even in the home, I don't hear fully. So, if I can have that part of me be a saint..

Dr. Brian Pedraza: We're not going to ask Jenny, if that's true, but all right.  

Allen Richey: I admit to, I admit to it.  

Father Josh: What about you Jenny?  

Jenny Richey: I need to go with eyes, although that might be weird. Yeah, but just to see clearly and to notice, who needs support or what God wants me to see.  

Father Josh: Dr. P?

Dr. Peddraza:   Man, funny story about Blessed Carlo. So, we have a family movie night, and then my boys were like, “can we have family video game night?” and then Adrienne and I were like, I don't know about that, it doesn't sound good.  They're like, “Blessed Carlo played for an hour every week”, we were like, “oh, alright, you win!”  So, we give in, and we give them an hour every other week.  

Father Josh: It’s clear that he was a saint for other reasons. So, the games are cool, it's not bad, but you can't make that all...

Dr. Pedraza: It's his temperance, to play video games.  

Father Josh: That spiritual life was in his video games. That's how he did it, his holy hour was a video game.  To that point, like, I do think God has to be a part of everything, God must be part of our entire life. He doesn't want to, to say, you go to church on Sunday for an hour, and that's your Jesus time. That's your box or you compartmentalize me. He wants to be invited even when we play video games or playing basketball or hanging out or cooking or cleaning. God desires to be part of every aspect in our life, not just in church things, but at the home as well.  

Dr. Pedraza:  God of the PlayStation,  

Fr. Josh: You got it. Yeah, Jesus Christ plays the PlayStation with you. That's right!

Dr. Pedraza: So, speaking of temperance, we wanted to talk to y'all about thinking about your family life as a school of virtue. How is it that our homes can be a place where our kids are going to grow in morality, become good people, good human beings. One of the things that we were thinking about in preparation for this episode was just really praying with the beatitudes, blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the pure of heart. We wanted to get a taste from you all about what's it like going on in your home when it comes to helping your kids grow in virtue.

Father, I don't know if you want to give us the quick 30 seconds for our video on virtue and why that's so important in the Christian life.

Father Josh: I think you could do that!

Dr. Pedraza: Okay.  So, a virtue is it's an excellence, that is a habit that kind of becomes second nature to us. Now there are habits that have become second nature to us like chewing your nails or something like that, right? We don't mean that, but it's an excellence. It's a way in which our character becomes good that gets attained through repeated action, except for the Theological virtues, which God just gives to you through the grace of baptism and then it's present, but then you can still help them grow through practice. So, it's these things, these excellences that we got to practice in everyday life.  So, turn it over to you, Richey's. You're thinking about your own kids and how old are your kids, by the way?  

Jenny Richey: We have three, we have a 13-year-old boy, an almost 10-year-old girl and an almost 7-year-old boy.  

Dr. Pedraza: Okay. So that's a good spread, 13 to seven and they're each probably facing their own issues with discerning good and evil, but what's one way as parents that you actually help your kids discern that and grow in their ability to discern good from evil and step into the good stuff?  

Allen Richey: So, I think your point is right that we meet them where they are, to start with. The 13-year-old, he's much more interested in the faith and expressing and finding his lane in the faith than, I think, the 7-year-old, in part because he's already received communion, the 13-year-old, he wants to be active in his faith life and so, that desire to be active in the faith life isn't always something that he acts on when he's frustrated with his little brother, little sister at home and so how do we help sculpt and remind the behaviors that they need to align with what he says that he values.  That takes patience and temperance, but it is an ongoing dialogue with each of them, where they are.  

Father Josh Johnson: And not only are they different ages, but they have different personalities, different temperaments. It's also a school for you to learn your child and each child.  What works for one child might not work for the next child.

Allen Richey: That's right, yeah, that's right. Might not work for that same child in all seasons of their life at times, one of the kids really resonates with bedtime stories from the Bible or from scriptural sources. They may not resonate with that six, eight, ten months later. So, I think keeping a handle on how we do find that resonance some that we talk about a lot. I think one of the things that is a consistent base in the background is regular reception of the Eucharist. We prioritize going to church. We go when we're on vacation. I'll take the older kids during the week at times, particularly when I'm in town and not out of town for work. There's that comfort and familiarity with the Eucharist; we'll pop into adoration and see, sometimes before mass, sometimes after mass, just to again, build that comfort  

Father Josh:  To your point, one thing that's special about Sacred Heart is we do have adoration chapel, that's available to our parishioners, passwords, 1719 to get in, but you can go there before mass as a family, to have some a quiet space in place just to be with God to look at God or after mass before you go home. Sometimes I will say, well, I don't have time to pray, so get to mass a little early, or stay a little bit later and go make that space for more time with Jesus and being with Jesus Christ transforms us because he's alive. He's not an idea. He's an actual person, and when we spend time with people, they rub off on us. His good habits, all his habits are good, but they become ours. More adoration leads to imitation, the more we spend time looking at Jesus and the blessed Sacrament, being close to him!  

When a family goes to a beach on vacation, they sit outside, for hours, doing nothing, but sitting outside on the beach for hours, they're going to leave that beach with either a sunburn or suntan, they're changed just by spending time on the beach, they didn't do anything, but they spent time with the sun and the sun transformed them. Jesus Christ, the son of God, He transforms us when we spend time with Him in prayer, so our actions, our thoughts, our words, our sentiments. They flow from speeding time with Him in the Bible! Like you said, you read your kids the scripture stories, or just by being with the Lord as well, it's so simple, but it's also so profound!  

Jenny Richey: Right, yeah. I think a lot about our oldest who's not in high school yet, but I think about him when he goes off to college and what is he going to fall back on? And so part of that, trying to help them lean on the sacraments and show them through our actions, what WE do to grow our faith. I'm hoping we're planting seeds that he will remember and appreciate and find even when we're not the ones leading.

Allen Richey: I should add, we're not by any means perfect in this, and it's messy. Getting the kids in the adoration chapel for 10 minutes before mass, start a decade of the rosary, invariably one of them needs the bathroom, then I have to find out where the bathroom is, and the other two are like distracted by the third. So, it is, and this was what we did particularly when you were on the retreat team. So, you weren't even in the room with us at times, and I'm like chasing one of the kids around and trying to pray. So, it is at times chaotic!

Dr. Pedraza:  But God bless the sweet old ladies who are like, I know they're rowdy, but you keep bringing them.

Allen Richey: But my hope, as you said, is that even though I can't perceive the change, the familiarity and the comfort over time builds the foundation for a profound and deep relationship.  

Dr. Pedraza: So, so I've got a nitty gritty question for, like, raising a young kid and then an older kid since ya'll got a 13-year-old, but here's the thing I think a lot of parents deal with in making their home a school of virtue for the young kids. Like, what is discipline supposed to look like, right? Because you're reading all these parenting books. It's like, okay, is spanking good, is spanking not good? I'm going to put him in time out and I put my kid in time out and he's licking the wall, and he looks like he doesn't even care. So, like, what am I to do here?  Virtue, properly speaking, is something that a kid's got to choose in their own freedom, but what if they don't have that freedom developed yet, what's it look like to discipline your kids? How do you help them sort of realize, like, hey, this is good and that's bad, and I'm trying to come up with something for you to realize it, but it's really hard right now. What do y'all do?  

Allen Richey: Well, we talk about it a lot and we talk about the executive function of the brain, too. Like, sometimes the kids are just not ready to make the understanding of the sequence.  

Jenny Richey: We don't talk to them about the executive function of the brain...

Father Josh: Dang...I was about to say. Your kids are really smart.  

Allen Richey: Yeah, I should have been clear to that point. You know, at its best a kid messes up. They already knew the consequences of messing up and can tell you about it. We can talk about the offense. We can repair the relationship, Sister hit brother, brother hit sister, someone was not doing their chore after the fifth time of being asked and we can build, we can build the repair. BUT It's not always at its best.  

Sometimes, sister hits brother, brother hits sister and I witness it and get frustrated and dress them down and, you know, and you can't do that. You need to, and you know, and you get more aggressive and direct. Even when it's not at its best, repairing the relationship afterwards, speaking to the child who messed up and doesn't want to mess up. They were frustrated and you help them understand that they are still loved, they are still part of our family and welcomed here and need to be living to the standards  

Father Josh: because the family, it's a safe place to be corrected and to be aware of our flaws, our imperfections, because I know I'm safe. I'm going to mess up, but my mom and my dad aren't going anywhere. I'm not going to be kicked out of the house because I've messed up again and it's a beautiful place for virtue to be cultivated because I can bring my stuff to the light, and I don't have to worry about being cast out.  

Jenny Richey: Right! Yeah, and we talk a lot about that point and that you are here for a mission and a purpose, and you're placed in our family for a reason, and our job is to help each other get to heaven and so we bring this up to you because this is what we're called to do, and sometimes that's citing a Bible verse or showing, like thinking about school work when they're not trying as hard, like we are given talents and we need to use them or being good stewards of our time.  

Dr. Pedraza: And don't know all, but one of the things that happens in our family is we're not the greatest models to imitate sometimes, right? So, you correct a kid and maybe you're too angry. Like, man I should have done that, you know, that was the wrong way to do it. So, then I've got to apologize. Which is trying to help them grow in virtue, too, but do you all deal with stuff like that?  

Jenny Richey: Absolutely. I apologize all the time.  

Allen Richey: Repairing that relationship so that it is one that can still be founded in trust and love and acceptance. Even when we don't accept the behavior.  

Dr. Pedraza:  I think that's got to be one of the most powerful examples that you can give to your children is saying sorry, saying sorry to God, going to confession together, saying sorry to each other. I mean, for kids to see that, you know, I always try to do that, especially when I'm tucking them in, and I know I did something I should've done that day, got too angry or whatever, and just at nighttime, there's something about the willingness to listen when you're tucking them in bed.  

One thing I wanted to get to is, the big kid question, okay? One of the places where vice is really creeping into family life, and not just vice, some good things can come for this, but it's technology. Right? So, I bet at 13, you have had the idea of a phone come up like in your house. So, what do y'all do?  

Allen Richey: Did our oldest plant this part?  

Father Josh: Yeah, he was texting me!

Allen Richey: That is not surprising... kids! As we understand it, we are the worst parents in the world because he doesn't have a phone, and I would not be surprised if he's the only kid in his grade who doesn't have a phone. At this point, I'd have to believe him that everyone else does and that's okay. I think that those tools can be tools of virtue. For us, I think we're not comfortable yet with what the digital world can expose people to and so helping him to develop the tools to manage the digital world has been something that we've been quite focused on. There's an online program called Family Tech University that we went through with him and it, walked through the content, sitting side by side on how do you think about social media? Yeah, the permanence of what you post online? What does porn do to the brain to the observer, to the victims in it, it is not a healthy development.  

What do you think about video games and how addictive they can be? So, we’ve spent a fair amount of time talking about it and I suspect we’ll, at some point, have to actually give him a phone full time. He'll have it for band trips, then when he gets back, we take it back, but I think pretty restrictive is probably our baseline.  

Jenny Richey: Yeah, I think that we are hoping that when we hand it to him, we are comfortable that he has the knowledge, we don't have to set up. I mean, we should set up safeguards, right, but also that he has an internal filter and understanding to go, I'm not supposed to be doing this or whatever and can kind of turn it around. So, I think that's what we're hoping for and working towards before we unleash him into the unknown.  

Dr. Pedraza: That's right, allow your kid to have enough virtue that when you give them that space of freedom, that they know what freedom is supposed to be, it's there. God gave it to us to choose what's good and so you're hoping they're there. But the kids arrive at a different time, right? Each kid is a bit different. It's going to make it tough.  

Allen Richey: When it's designed to be addictive, and it's designed to be played with. That's right. It's designed to be focused on one. And We have enough challenge knocking out homework chores and extracurriculars to add that to the mess as well.  

Father Josh Johnson: I want to invite us to do two things to take away. Tell me what ya’ll  think about this as practice. One is, I appreciate your ability and your intentionality with communication with your kids and the Lord as well. I think a practice that we can do as a church for this month is once a day, we can have a screen free time as a family, whether it is at dinner or lunch or after dinner, but to have some time where no TV screens, no cell phone screens, no computer screens for an hour, where we're just with each other as a family for 1 hour. Then on Sundays during this month, to have a screen free day. So do an entire day, yeah, we're going to go to mass, we're going to eat, we're going to play games, we're going to talk, we're going to go outside in the park but we're going to do something apart from a screen for an entire day. That's practice one!

Practice two is reconciliation.  So, the way that we pray affects the way we live and so, I want to invite our families, twice a month this month, to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation together to pray together and that way the kids see the parents and see that we are all the same, we're all sinners. So, no one's going to be more or less than the next. We're all going to show that we need Gods Mercy together, and then to not only do that twice a month in the confessional, but at home to maybe apologize to each other, right? For the ways that we may have let you down. Does that sound like it's a doable practice this month?  

Jenny Richey: I love it. I think we have a goal of going monthly as a family, most, well, 50/50 chance we make it, so having the challenge of saying, let's do it twice a month.  

Allen Richey:  So, I grew up Protestant and for me, one of my favorite sacraments is confession because you have the power and authority of Jesus absolving you from the Son. That is such a fundamentally different power than what I expressed or understood from my youth, that as you receive His mercy, we become way more merciful.  

Father Josh:  Yeah, because I'm like, oh, man, Jesus!   Like I just had experience recently in the confessional, and he's so good to me because I go to a confession once a week. I don't think I'm scrupulous, because John Paul II did that and John Paul II was one of my favorite saints and because he did it, I do it. But I received the Lord's mercy in such a profound way, and it was because the priest was so gentle in the confessional as well. . Then, as I became aware of someone else in my family's broken imperfections that same week, my first instinct was like, oh, I want to bust up whatever, all the different things and then I spent time praying and I remembered how merciful God was to me and how merciful He was in confession, about how good He was and how He like poured so many blessings on my life in the midst of me messing up and so, I say, how could I not imitate my God who is so good and so generous and me not to this person, my family?  

Dr. Pedraza: Yeah, yeah. Last thing to say, one thing, if you go to a confession as a family, some kids, it can be really heavy so, I recommend to always celebrate afterwards. God's mercy is sweet so we like hitting a Popolitas Mexican ice cream afterwards, and just like, recognizing, man, isn't God's mercy so good? You want to be joyful? Celebrate the Lord's mercy!

Father Josh:  And even leave the priest a gift in the confessional, like, hey, father, I want you to celebrate so, here's a gift card to your favorite restaurant if you want, here's a gas card or something like that!  (laughter)

Lord, thank you so much for your mercy and for your grace. Give us the grace that we need Lord, to spend more time with you so we can see you and learn from you, how you desire for us to live as a family, how to walk, how to talk, how to act, in our journey to becoming saints. We ask this prayer in your most holy name. Amen.  

Dr. Pedraza:  Great Man. Richey family, thank you so much.  

Jenny Richey: Yes!

Father Josh: Thank you, Alan, real pleasure.

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