Years ago, I learned a lesson about passing on religious faith during a golden summer while my family was on vacation. My daughters were young, about ages 3 and 6, and we were staying with my wife's extended family in a spacious summer home just a short walk from Lake Michigan's beautiful shoreline.

One sunny afternoon I went to get my daughters up from their naps so we could head down for a day at the beach, but they weren't in their beds. And they weren't in the living room or the kitchen or on the deck. I began to worry, knowing that the lake was just a half block away. I was about to call out for them when I heard familiar whispering in Aunt Marie's room.

Sitting on the edge of the bed was Aunt Marie, with Judy and Patti plopped on either side of her. Marie was holding a well-worn prayer book jammed full of holy cards. The girls' eyes were wide with curiosity. I listened in on their hushed whisperings. "Now, this is your great-great-grandmother's," said Aunt Marie, holding a prayer card in her hand. "She died just a few days before Dennis was married. She baked the best bread and cakes and was always one for helping a sick neighbor or someone down on their luck.

"And this one's from old Mrs. Clancy. She was a great help to our mother after Father passed away. And here's a prayer card for Father Sheehy. He was a wonderful priest. He went off to the missions in Bolivia. He always spoke so lovingly about the people there."

As she talked, she'd hand off a card to the girls. They'd hold them reverently in their tiny hands, looking at them front and back. "And now let's pray for the people I promised to pray for," said Aunt Marie. The three of them bowed their heads as she began a litany that included neighbors, troubled relatives, poor souls in purgatory, shopkeepers, the congregation of nuns who taught her years ago, and deceased family members. As always, she ended her prayer with, "God help the sick."

I left them to their prayers and stood out on the deck appreciating the fine day. In a few minutes the girls came dashing out, towels in hand, eager to go to the beach. We were a motley caravan traipsing down to the shoreline with plastic rafts, inner tubes, beach chairs, and blankets.

The waves were high that day, and I watched as Aunt Marie and Uncle Johnny walked the girls into the surf, hand in hand, laughing as the waves crashed into them. Clinging together, they stood, holding one another up as the currents pushed and pulled them. They were safe, hanging on together.

Faith is all relative
I was on vacation, so I didn't give it much deep thought. But the image of them holding on to one another in the turbulent lake stayed with me, and it stays with me still as a moment rich in meaning and depth because it contains so many elements I believe are essential to passing on a living faith.

The extended family is where life is lived fully and passionately. Children often get their sense of what life is all about in interactions with extended family. These are people who are connected to you, have claims on you (and you on them), and would even die for you. You place your own story in the context of this larger story. What's life all about? What do we believe in? What do we stand for? Who am I? All these questions get answered first in light of your place in your larger family.

It's true that children can hear and absorb from others the truths that they become oblivious to when spoken by their parents. As a manager, I know this is true in the workplace as well. I've learned to send employees off to seminars to learn from others what I could probably tell them because they're more likely to believe something when they hear it from an "expert." Likewise, we parents know that a beloved outsider can impress truths on our children that they would dismiss from us. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, godparents, and valued family friends can have a major impact for good on our children.

Close relationships with extended family members are major sources of strength that many American families are losing. When I watch recent immigrants-for example, Hispanic families-I observe the obvious importance of the grandparents, especially the abuelitas (grandmothers), in nurturing the faith of the youngsters. This can be done directly through instruction but also (and probably more powerfully over the long haul) through the subtle, everyday interactions between grandparents and children.

Another factor that made the incident at Lake Michigan so powerful and illustrative is how naturally the lesson evolved. Praying while poring over her prayer book was a normal event in Aunt Marie's life. She was letting the girls in on an activity of great meaning that was part of her day. This was nothing put-on or showy. It wasn't someone saying to herself, "Let's devise a lesson in prayer for these kids." Rather, she was inviting them to an experience of her daily life.

As is typical with those who have attained spiritual depth, Marie naturally desired to give away freely what was given to her and what she had come to treasure. Part of the lesson my daughters learned that day was that it's a good thing to pray for others daily; this is something a respected person eagerly does.

The lesson was delivered in terms of relationships, commitments, love, and service. It wasn't about who put on the best act at being holy but about the lives people lived and the ways in which their faith illuminated those lives. There was nothing grand or theoretical. The lesson was simple and concrete.

Yet the content was far ranging, embracing all aspects of life. Marie prayed for everyone she encountered, from the grocer to the pope, from the newest child born in the family to the older folks lingering near death. She prayed for people taking driver's tests, a nephew hoping for a promotion, or a neighbor awaiting the results of medical tests for cancer.

There was no place and no part of life that went untouched by grace or was not offered up to God's healing touch. No moment of Marie's day and no part of her heart were outside the gaze of God. The content of Marie's lesson was: Everything belongs in God's hands.

During this show-and-tell, the girls were exposed to a number of lessons. First, Marie's old prayer book was a longtime companion. They knew that she was walking with them down a well-traveled path. This prayer time happened daily. The prayer cards they held in their hands had vivid pictures of Mary, Jesus, the Holy Family, and Archangel Michael victorious over Satan. The words and the pictures were both evocative and rich. The litany of prayers focused on people and events that were concrete, specific, and real.

The lesson wasn't a lecture; it was a joyful invitation to "come and see." My daughters were being offered not only information but also a way of living that leads to the abundant life Jesus promises. Marie offered an interactive experience wherein she let the kids see, touch, hear, and "handle the goods." Her own enthusiasm and sincere faith were perhaps the biggest lesson of all. Faith is spread not by teachers but by witnesses.

When we all went down to the beach, the girls got an additional lesson. The waves were high and could be dangerous. But Aunt Marie and Uncle Johnny were there to hang on to. In fact, grabbing hands and hanging on, they could walk straight into those waves, laughing and rejoicing. Together, we survive.

Today, years later, Marie and Johnny are a bit wobbly on their feet. Just last Sunday my daughters were escorting their great-aunt and great-uncle up our front stairs as they came to celebrate another family gathering. And though, this time, Marie and Johnny were leaning on my girls for support, I know that the girls will lean on the strength and character of these, their elders, throughout their entire lives.

I feel grateful that my girls have been exposed to faith lessons from so many of their extended family members over the years. Occasionally I'll hear young parents complain about having to spend time visiting relatives. They talk about the situation as a burden rather than an opportunity. And from a distance, I cannot judge. But I hope they are not being too quick to eliminate valuable relationships from their child's life that can be crucial to the child's future faith.

It may have been stifling in the old days for families to spend every Sunday at Grandma's. But have we eliminated a valuable element of our own lives and the lives of our children by all but cutting off ties with extended family members?

Real-life lessons
Almost everyone agrees that religion is best nurtured at home. But too often we make the mistake of thinking that we need to import classroom methods to teach these lessons. This is odd because teachers are doing all they can to employ real-life lessons in the classroom. They know that such real-life lessons are the ones that make the most lasting impression on students.

My wife, Kathleen, who teaches math to seventh graders, is constantly trying to devise ways to bring real-life examples to introduce and illustrate math principles. For example, she'll have her students work in teams on such projects as investing $10,000 (with imaginary money, of course) in the stock market.

At a seminar about how to help students retain more of what they learn, Kathleen received the following list. I can't vouch for the accuracy of these percentages, but the principles are surely true.

People retain:

10 percent of what they read

20 percent of what they hear

30 percent of what they see

50 percent of what they see and hear

70 percent of what they say

90 percent of what they do and say.

That last statistic is good news for parents who make the effort to introduce faith to their children. Any efforts you make to communicate your faith to your children are bound to deepen your own spiritual life in the process.

Understanding how children learn to grasp complex concepts will help you foster development of your children's faith. Children move from the simple and concrete to the more complex and abstract. For example, it's only when a child learns what it feels like to "fall down and go boom" that he or she can go on to develop an understanding of the concept of gravity.

Likewise, having regular experience of a family meal can be the prelude to understanding the Eucharist. Or experiencing forgiveness and acceptance after hurting another family member can lead the way to understanding the theology of repentance and redemption.

We do not approach the study of faith with a blank slate. We bring our life experiences as the raw material from which to build a human faith in a God who became human. Our children's earliest brushes with the holy and the sacred, experienced in ordinary, daily life, become the building blocks for developing an adult faith.

In Magical Child (Plume, 1992), his groundbreaking book about child development, Joseph Chilton Pearce established that all higher knowledge grows from and depends on early, concrete experiences. He wrote, "All thinking arises out of concreteness, which means out of the brain patterns resulting from actual body movements of interacting with actual things."

Thus, a child learns what Mom means by "Hot, don't touch" as a prelude to grasping laws of thermodynamics. Likewise, a child gains clues about God's faithfulness by experiencing a parent's reliability, or about God's mercy when siblings offer forgiveness when the child says, "I'm sorry."

Too often we think of religious education as a mysterious process that takes place at church or later in life. The truth is that the foundation of our children's later faith is being laid in the day-to-day life we share with them today.