The first time I made a real effort to read through the Bible on my own, I remember being aggravated at how many genealogies it contained. As you work through the Old Testament, it seems like there's a list of parent and children every few pages. Whenever a new character is introduced, the scriptural authors seem to spend half a dozen paragraphs explaining who their ancestors and descendants were. Even the New Testament begins not with an outline of the teachings of Jesus, but an outline of his ancestry.

I've since begun to realize why genealogies are such an important part of the Bible - In every part of Scripture, the promises of God are received and handed on within the family. From Adam and Eve to Jesus and Mary, the family is the place where God is supposed to be encountered and love is supposed to be learned.

The very first command that God gave to Adam and Eve, even before warning them about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was the command to raise a family. "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). When they eventually rejected God, they brought sin and its consequences not only to themselves, but to all of their descendants. The first family became so dysfunctional that their oldest son, Cain, murdered their younger son, Abel. (If your family feels dysfunctional at times, then, know that you're not alone, and you're hopefully not quite that bad.)

Later in the book of Genesis, God makes a series of promises to Abraham, a man of great faith. He promised that Abraham would have many descendants, who would receive the land of Canaan, would become a great nation, would bring forth great kings, and would bless the whole world. These were promises to the family of Abraham that would be repeated generation after generation, forming the very identity of the Israelite people.

When the Israelites - named after the grandson of Abraham, Israel - were becoming a nation and were given God's law, Moses made it clear that the family was the place where God's plan should be lived out and handed on. God's fourth commandment was "Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the LORD your God is giving you" (Exodus 20:12). When Moses prepared to send the Israelites into Canaan, the Promised Land, he told them:

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength. Take to heart these words which I command you today. Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them on your arm as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.

The next time you hear a genealogy in Scripture, then, either at Mass or when you're reading on your own, know that it's not just page-filler. Each list of parents and children is a reminder that God's promises and commandments have been handed on in the family for generations in the past and should be handed on to our own children. No, we don't need to memorize the genealogies of the Bible to be good Catholics, but we do need to understand the centrality of the family as the place where life with God is learned and lived out.

One of the ways that we can help to fulfill this mission is to gather as families in order to encourage each other in faith. This happens above all when we gather on Sundays for the Eucharist, but also in opportunities like our Family of Faith program. If you have a child from age 4 to Grade 8, I encourage you to register online and join us for our orientation on Sunday, September 26.