“In our language families and generations are called ‘houses,’ the Hebrews themselves called the generation of children ‘building up a house.’ In this sense it is said that God built up houses for the Egyptian midwives to show that raising a house — that is, a family — does not consist in building a splendid residence and storing up vast worldly possessions but in training children well in the fear of God and in virtue. No trouble or labor should be spared to do this, for children are their father’s and mother’s crown.”

 – St. Francis de Sales

How do we “train” our children to have a proper perspective toward material possessions? Toward media? Toward their usage of time?

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed

like one of these.”

-Matthew 6: 24-29

Do you trust God? How is this evidenced in how you treat your material possessions?