I usually start the prayer and he repeats what I say. Sometimes he improvises and that becomes the best of all prayers.

 We have always prayed in Spanish. My son is bilingual and is able to go from one language to the other with ease. One night, for reasons I don’t remember, I decided to start the prayer in English. We knelt. I began, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." With a puzzled look, he hesitantly blessed himself repeating what I said.

I then folded my hands; he did the same. I said, "Our Father, Who art in heaven ...," and he repeated. After a moment he stopped, looked at me and said: "Daddy, that is English, and we are praying, and prayer is done in Spanish ... Daddy" and he laughed out loud for his daddy’s "mistake.”

 As a father, my main priorities are the education of my children and the life of my family. So his reaction left me thinking for days. What is the ultimate goal in the education of my children? How will I know I have fulfilled my mission as a parent? Is parenting only about providing food, clothing, education, luxuries, etc.? Have I fulfilled my mission as a father if I get my son or daughter to graduate from school? Will I be a great father if any of them becomes president one day? Will I be satisfied if they are rich? What, ultimately, will tell me whether I did a good job as a parent?

 Luis Soto

Although I believe all of these are important, I’m convinced that my primary mission as a parent is that my children become saints. Not only that they become men and women of kindness, like the rich young man of the Gospel (Mt 19, 16-22) who was a good man, but that they are saints—holy children, holy friends, holy professionals, holy priests or religious, holy spouses, holy parents, etc.—holy in every aspect of their lives. Simply put, that they go to heaven and enjoy eternal friendship with God.

 Heaven is where I want to be with them, forever. My concern for them is timeless. I don’t just care about their life here on earth, I care about their eternal life.

 So, back to praying with my son. The experience of my prayer with my son conveys an everyday reality. It is clear that with each generation we are losing Catholics. An estimated 10 percent of Catholics are lost every generation, which means several millions. Most worrisome is that Catholics are not necessarily leaving the Church and converting to other religions. Alarmingly, the fastest growing "religion" today is secularism—in other words, no religion. In ministering to the Hispanic community in the United States, we have insisted on using Spanish in all environments, including religious education and youth ministry. Many times it works. But I believe that if my child doesn’t learn to pray in English, and to live and explain his faith in English, and know that his faith—the faith inherited from his parents—is something he can share in today’s society, he will lose it. That is happening every day and it will continue to happen to millions of young people unless we change our ways.

 Whether I like it or not, because of a decision I made, my son's first language is and will be English. He will speak in English most of his life. This is how he will communicate with his friends, at work, school, etc. If someone thinks the Catholic faith is something only experienced in the language of their parents, in the privacy of their home and under the shelter of their parents, they will never be able to live and bear witness to it in their daily life. Either the world will consume them and they’ll end up losing their faith or they’ll participate only in certain traditional celebrations not necessarily by faith, but by tradition. I'm not urging my fellow Hispanics to forget Spanish.  Rather, I’m urging us to learn to live and to celebrate our faith in English.

If my goal is that my children become saints, I must ensure that their faith is part of their entire lives. Therefore, English should be part of their faith practice. What Hispanics desire most today isn’t cultural resonance and tradition; Hispanics are hungry for the life of faith, for the sacraments and for the word of God. Beware believing culture is everything. Faith goes beyond cultural expression. If I want my son to live his Catholic faith and be holy, I must be able to live it, express it and defend it in the language that is now, due to my decision, his first language.

 We can pray, praise and thank God in English. Thank goodness God is multilingual.

 Luis Soto is executive director of the Denver Archdiocese’s Centro San Juan Diego: Hispanic Institute for Family and Pastoral Care and director of the Hispanic Ministry Office, and a member of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (“CALL”).