Catholic families are always looking for ways to connect their kids to faith. Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak are ready to help with their recently-launched app CatholicHÔM, which stands for Households on Mission. It’s a comprehensive digital platform dedicated to helping Catholic families encounter Christ in their homes.
The Popcaks are authors of more than 20 books, hosts of More2Life on EWTN Radio, and serve on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops National Advisory Board for Marriage and Family Ministry. They also gave the opening keynote at the World Meeting of Families in Rome this past June.
Their mission through CatholicHÔM is to help families live out the Liturgy of Domestic Life. “The Second Vatican Council called for ‘a universal call to holiness,’ but very little has been done in the last 60 years to develop a domestic church- based, family-based approach to spirituality,” Dr. Popcak says. “So this Liturgy of Domestic Church Life…basically means experiencing Christ more meaningfully at home and not feeling like we have to leave home to find God.”
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Lisa expands on this, saying, “This is about really making Christ another member of your family, and being able to experience him through the love we have through each other and the things that we do together all day long.”
The app has free and premium versions to help bring Catholicism home. Some offerings include animated videos, podcasts, livestream events, access to their Catholic Counselors ministry and more. “It’s really an online platform to support Catholic families in living out their mission to love each other like Christ,” Dr. Popcak says.
They stress that this model of family life is not just for seemingly perfect families. “It’s not about adding more to your plate,” Lisa saying, noting their busy lives and parents and grandparents. Rather, it’s about finding ways to be intentional about working, playing, talking and praying together. “Those things, when done intentionally, change the whole dynamic of the family,” she says.
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The Popcaks also want to help parents keep the flame of faith alive in their kids as they grow. “Research is showing that children who grow up to be adults who stay in the faith, actually own their faith as adults, most often [recognize] that the faith was the source of the warmth in their home,” Lisa says.
She continues that too often we treat Catholicism as simply catechesis or a school subject that we learn and leave behind. Rather she says, “When we make the faith the source of warmth in our home…that lays down the foundation for not only a happier, healthier, holier family, but for our children to actually want to own the faith into adulthood and pass it down to their children as well.”