The Domestic Church
The Cella family’s witness to prayer and faithfulness in the home
The Cella family’s witness to prayer and faithfulness in the home
Husband and wife Joe and Kristen Cella, parishioners at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Ypsilanti, have heeded the Church’s call to raise their seven children in a faithful domestic church. Both native to Michigan and brought up in devout Catholic homes, the couple first met through the pro-life group at the University of Michigan. Kristen was a student at the university at the time, and Joe was a Hillsdale College graduate who was working for co-founder of Domino’s Pizza and founder of Ave Maria University Tom Monaghan, who had asked him to help the UofM Students for Life group grow and thrive. Recently featured in Bishop Boyea’s Year of the Family video series, the Cellas give witness to the joys and struggles they have experienced as they strive to make tangible in their home a Catholic life of prayer, hospitality, and fellowship.
Husband and wife Joe and Kristen Cella, parishioners at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Ypsilanti, have heeded the Church’s call to raise their seven children in a faithful domestic church. Both native to Michigan and brought up in devout Catholic homes, the couple first met through the pro-life group at the University of Michigan. Kristen was a student at the university at the time, and Joe was a Hillsdale College graduate who was working for co-founder of Domino’s Pizza and founder of Ave Maria University Tom Monaghan, who had asked him to help the UofM Students for Life group grow and thrive. Recently featured in Bishop Boyea’s Year of the Family video series, the Cellas give witness to the joys and struggles they have experienced as they strive to make tangible in their home a Catholic life of prayer, hospitality, and fellowship.
“When I look back,” Joe reflects, “the friends that I made the fastest, the first, and have had the longest were Catholics from large families. It would feel like home when I would go to their homes. It was just love on display and fidelity and little did I know that that would be foreshadowing of our call to marriage, fruitfulness, and a lot of children.” It is through that call to marriage and children that the couple has established daily rhythms of prayer and hospitality in their own home. Kristen, knowing well the trials and realities of family life, sees that God has encouraged them in faithfulness rather than rigidity. “I think that’s really helpful for families to know,” Kristen says, “even in monasteries and convents there are schedules — and they change and adjust schedules, too. So, in our families where our dedication to God also includes children, we do have to be flexible.” Seasons of change with the welcoming of children, multiple moves, and several career changes have reinforced the Cellas’ need to be docile.
Working in various capacities throughout his career, Joe co-founded the Catholic advocacy organization Fidelis (Catholic Vote), and since then he has served as U.S. ambassador to Fiji and now acts in a consulting role. “It's been a blessing to be able to integrate my faith into my work,” Joe says, “being and trying to be an ambassador for Christ as best as I'm able.” With change brings a need for flexibility, Kristen says, even in the practical implementation of prayer. “We do try to pray the rosary every night together, but there are nights where either we're praying it separately because one of us is driving home from a soccer game and will pray in the car with the kids on the way home and the ones at home are praying, or we get home late so we call short prayers.” “Short prayers,” the Cella’s term for an Our Father, Hail Mary or Glory Be paired with some brief evening prayers, ensures that prayers happen regardless of the hectic reality of family life. The key is faithfulness, Joe points out. “It doesn’t have to be anything complex.”
Ultimately, Kristen says, their aim has been to follow the Lord’s promptings for their family in how to live out prayer and hospitality. “There's constant adjustments and constant realities of life that we always try to take into consideration, but still keeping God at the center of our lives,” Frequently hosting parish gatherings, family and friends, and priests on their way to and from nearby Detroit Metropolitan Airport (a service they fondly refer to as the “Priestly Park and Ride”), Joe and Kristen can see that including others in their family’s daily life has borne much fruit.
When the couple purchased their home, Joe and Kristen felt strongly that the Lord was entrusting them with a ministry of hospitality. “It was put on my heart and mind that we should use this as a tool for the new evangelization,” Joe recalls. With the hope of celebrating the Catholic faith and family life, the Cellas have hosted a final vows party, ordination parties, Shakespeare plays, wedding receptions, and parish parties for All Hallows Eve and the feast of the Sacred Heart. “It's just a blessing to open up our home and celebrate the church and community life,” Joe says. “It's really just a joy to share.”
Grateful for all that the Lord has done in their lives, Joe points out that the struggles of family life can weigh parents down, but the gift of family life lived in faith, by grace, bears much fruit. “The mundane can be made profound by families,” Joe says, adding, “I think it's a matter of praying for each other and with each other.” Reiterating the uniqueness of God’s call for each family, Joe maintains that the goal is simply faithfulness. “However we can stay close to our Lord, our Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, and all the communion of saints in our daily walk, it will fortify us for the daily fight as we trudge on to heaven.”
To join the Bishop’s Year of the Family, text YOTF to 84576.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on family prayer:
2685 The Christian family is the first place of education in prayer. Based on the sacrament of marriage, the family is the "domestic church" where God's children learn to pray "as the Church" and to persevere in prayer. For young children in particular, daily family prayer is the first witness of the Church's living memory as awakened patiently by the Holy Spirit.
Mary Gates is the editor of FAITH magazine.
