FAMILIES ARE VITAL SOURCES OF LIFE, FAITH, AND SERVICE

JULY 23, 2006

In the recent World Congress on the Family, sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on the Family, Pope Benedict XVI emphasized the role of the family in these words: “The Christian family passes on the faith when parents teach their children to pray and when they pray with them (cf. Familiaris Consortio, 60); when they lead them to the sacraments and gradually introduce them to the life of the Church; when all join in reading the Bible, letting the light of faith shine on their family life and praising God as our Father.


“The Christian family passes on the faith when parents teach their children to pray and when they pray with them (cf. Familiaris Consortio, 60); when they lead them to the sacraments and gradually introduce them to the life of the Church; when all join in reading the Bible, letting the light of faith shine on their family life and praising God as our Father.”
The story of family life is a story about love -- shared, nurtured, and sometimes rejected or lost. In every family God is revealed uniquely and personally, for, as we read in 1 John 4:16, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

Elsewhere, in 1 John 4:9-11, he says, "In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him. In this is love: Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us... Beloved", says John, "if God so loved us, we must love one another".

So we can say, as St. Paul said to the Ephesians (5:2): "Follow the way of love, even as Christ loved you." The first place everyone is challenged to follow the way of love is in his or her own family, however divided, imperfect or broken it may seem to be. It was God's love that brought each of us to life as members of a family. It is God's love that sustains families through good times and bad.

The family is an intimate community of life and love. The challenge for the family is to create a community of love, to help one another to grow, and to serve each one according to each one's needs. This is important not just for the health and holiness of families, but also for the strength of society and of the Church. It is a participation in the work of the Lord, a sharing in the mission of the Church. To be a Christian family is a holy thing.

In fact, the family is in its own right the Church. Baptism brings all Christians into union with God. Family life is sacred because family relationships confirm and deepen this union and allow the Lord to work through them. The profound and ordinary moments of daily life -- mealtimes, workdays, vacations, expressions of love and intimacy, household chores, caring for a sick child or elderly parent, and even conflicts over things like how to celebrate holidays, discipline children, or spend money -- all are the threads from which families can weave a pattern of holiness.

According to Mt 18:20, Jesus promises to be wherever two or three are gathered in his name. We give the name "Church" to the people whom the Lord gathers, who strive to follow his way of love and through whose lives his saving presence is made known.

A family is our first community and most basic way in which the Lord gathers us, forms us, and acts in the world. The early Church expressed this truth by calling the Christian family a "domestic church" or "church of the home" The point of this teaching is simple, yet profound. Christian families not only belong to the Church, but are a true expression of it.

How do families carry out the mission of the Church? In many ways: By believing in God and God's care in such a way that a family turns to him in times of trouble, and gives him thanks when all goes well. Families carry out the Church's mission also by loving and never ceasing to believe in the value of another person, and by fostering intimacy.

Families do the work of the Church by professing faith in God, acting in accord with Gospel values and setting an example of Christian living. Families fulfill the Church's mission also by educating. Parents are the primary teachers of their children. They impart knowledge of the faith and help them acquire values necessary for Christian living. Their example is the most effective way to teach.

Families are Church whenever they pray together or serve or help one another. Families are Church when forgiveness is given, and when they celebrate life at such times as birthdays, weddings, births and deaths, family reunions, holy days and holidays.

Families carry out the church's mission when they welcome the stranger, the lonely one, the grieving person into their homes; when they feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, when they acknowledge others' dignity, when they stand against discrimination and racism, and when they work to overcome hunger, poverty, homelessness, and illiteracy.

Families do the work of the Church when they affirm life as a gift of God and oppose whatever destroys life, and when they raise up vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

Families carry out the mission of the Church in so many ways. Clearly, the vitality of the church depends on the vitality of the faith, hope, and love of families. The vitality of that faith, hope and love will be maintained in the family when parents heed the Advice of our Holy Father and truly transmit the fullness of the faith to there children


+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 05-Jun-2008 9:48 sitemap