BUILDING STRONGER FAMILIES

May 8, 2009

Because they play such a key role in the family, I would like to reflect this Mother’s Day on building stronger families.  Parents of children at any age struggle with forces beyond their control. They are always concerned about how the world beyond the family circle will affect what they're trying to nurture within it.

This is normal, but today's generation of parents have special reason for alarm about what today's mainstream culture is doing to the family, and especially to the young. Pope John Paul II stated in his encyclical, "The Gospel of Life", that "Although it is true that the future of humanity passes by way of the family, it must be admitted that modern social, economic, and cultural conditions make the family's task of serving life more difficult and demanding" (94).

The Catholic bishops of our country have also acknowledged how difficult the family's situation is today. Addressing ourselves to families in a pastoral letter entitled "Follow the Way of Love", we have stated: "We know you face obstacles as you try to maintain strong family ties and to follow your calling as a church of the home. The rapid pace of social change, the religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity of our society, the revolution of values within our culture, the intrusion of mass media, the impact of political and economic conditions: all these place families under considerable stress."

Today's parents are justified when they feel frustration and anger because the values and self-discipline they're trying to instill in their children at home are often not supported in the schools, in society's political and economic priorities, or in the media.

Some parents respond to this negative situation by abandoning their responsibilities and forfeiting their legitimate rights. In this case, the home becomes a hotel, where everyone shares the same facilities but where the family ceases to exist as a closely knit circle of people who spend time together, involve themselves in each other's lives, and share in general love and care for each other.

It is true that the family should be an open circle, that is, one that is open to the world and ready to engage in acts of charity and service. Nonetheless, by God's providential design, the family's first objective should be to attend to the needs of each of its members.

Today's culture is filled with forces and influences that pull people in the direction of individual autonomy, not in the direction of communities of mutual care. As a result, the family's challenge of being open to the world is not difficult to meet. It's the other challenge, the challenge of preserving and cherishing the relationships within the family circle, that is difficult.

What can be done to build stronger family ties? Whenever families themselves are asked about the best ways of combating the negative elements in our culture and remaining faithful to Christ's way of love, one idea comes out again and again. Parents who are trying to make the family a place of prayer, learning, and celebration, of welcome, service, forgiveness, communication, and love ‑‑ in short, a healthy and holy family ‑‑ cannot do it alone.

They must rely on God, the source of love which founded the marriage and family in the first place: God. As it is rightly said, the family that prays together stays together. Communion of the family with God through prayer ‑‑ spouses praying together, parents and children praying together ‑‑ is a consequence and requirement of the Sacraments of Baptism and Matrimony. The words with which the Lord Jesus promises his presence can be applied to the members of the Christian family in a special way: "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt 18:19‑20).

Family prayer has for its object family life itself, which in all its changing circumstances is a call from God and is lived as a response to his call. Joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, births and birthday celebrations, wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures, separations and home‑comings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of those who are dear, and on and on ‑‑ all of these mark God's loving intervention in the family's ongoing history. They should be seen as suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting abandonment of the family into the hands of their common Father in heaven.

The dignity and responsibility of the Christian family as the domestic Church can be achieved only with God's unceasing aid, which will surely be granted if it is humbly and trustingly petitioned in prayer.  We thank our mothers for teaching us to pray and to trust in God.  And on this her day, we commend her in prayer to God’s loving care.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 11-Jan-2010 8:22 sitemap