Fr. Jaime Lorenzo, LC, was ordained only three years ago on September 5, 2020, but he has been working with youth and young adults for nearly a decade. Today, he is serving as the Executive Youth and Camp Director for ECYD, and he has recently begun a new video podcast series called Building Holy Families, designed to provide parents with the tools and resources to support them along their spiritual journey and in their mission to build a happy and holy home.
It was his years of work with youth that inspired and motivated Fr. Jaime to focus on the spiritual formation of parents and helping them to build a foundation of faith in the family. In organizing and hosting the various youth events, retreats, clubs, activities, and camps that his ministry entailed, and accompanying so many boys and young adults over so many years, Fr. Jaime came to realize that he, as a priest, could only do so much, and that the solution to many of the faith struggles he was witnessing in the youth he was serving could only really be found in the families themselves.
“At one point during a moment of prayer/frustration, I realized that I am only doing half of what these kids need – the other half, or most of the work, is done in the home,” says Fr. Jaime. “And I felt the call to reach out to the families and work with them – personally with those who are close by, but also through videos and social media as a way to reach a wider audience.”
The Building Holy Families podcast provides conversations and suggestions on a diverse variety of topics (like “How to have meaningful conversations with your children,” “Inspiring trust,” and “Should my child get a phone?”) but what they all have in common is that they are short, sharable, and practical. Most of the episodes are approximately 7-10 minutes long, and offer parents ideas, motivations, and challenges to get them thinking about their own spiritual journey and owning the faith for their family. Here, parents can find best practices to guide their children through the world that is full of spiritual obstacles and not always amenable to the faith, while their eyes and hearts are set on heaven. And one of the biggest spiritual obstacles facing Catholic families today, according to Fr. Jaime, is a lack of passion for the faith.
“The faith has become very basic and very easy to live, but the fire, the excitement, and the depth is sometimes lacking,” says Fr. Jaime, who sees many families simply going through the motions – attending Mass and receiving the sacraments, but living a Catholic faith that is dry and monotonous and lacking true life and a real thirst for God. “The world has humanized God, and humanized the faith, to the point where the call to grow isn’t very strong. What’s really lacking is growth in the faith as a family, the call to grow, to go deeper. A lot of families don’t know how to do that, or they’re looking for places or people to help them be formed and guided and keep growing in the faith, and they don’t know where to go.”
Fr. Jaime’s podcast offers a space for these conversations to happen. In one of his episodes, Fr. Jaime talks with Jacquie Lustig, a Consecrated Woman of Regnum Christi and the Assistant Vocations Director for the Consecrated Women, who is currently working with youth ages 10-18 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Together, Fr. Jaime and Jacquie discuss how parents can show active love towards their children in the face of challenges, discouragement, frustration, and exhaustion, and when it even feels like their love is not reciprocated or appreciated. “When kids get home, even if they don’t know it sometimes, those girls or those boys are testing to see ‘how loveable can I all of me be?’,” suggest Jacquie. “No one has a harder job than being a parent, because you’re kind of like the cliff that those waves keep crashing against, but sometimes you just need to stay the course and give yourself permission to say, ‘I’m doing a good job.’ And just keep showing up.”
But in the midst of the all the challenges facing the family today, Fr. Jaime sees an abundance of hope. For him, the Church is a place with a multitude of resources around the globe, particularly within the world of technology, and a space where people can come to be nourished, to be accompanied, and to grow, and Fr. Jaime sees his podcast as just one more resource of personal formation and growth for the family. “It’s a beautiful thing that Regnum Christi, and, in fact, the whole Church, is called to offer that place to have those conversations, to share experiences and stories, successes and failures, and to support and accompany each other through this journey together.”
Fr. Jaime releases a new episode approximately once a week during the school year, and he plans to introduce new topics and new guests in the upcoming months. You can watch Building Holy Families on YouTube or listen to it on any podcast platform. If there are any topics you would like Fr. Jaime to cover, feel free to email him.
Besides his work with youth, Fr. Jaime is one of the core team of Regnum Christi Music Collective, a musical group consisting of Legionary priests, Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, and lay Regnum Christi members, who come together to create and perform. You can hear their music anywhere you stream music, or on their website rcmusiccollective.org, or subscribe to their Regnum Christi Music Collective YouTube channel for updates on new music.
