(Editor’s note: This is one in a series on the theology of marriage and the family in preparation for the 10th World Meeting of Families, which will take place June 24-26. The worldwide meeting will take place in Rome; Bishop Oscar A. Solis has asked parishes throughout the Diocese of Salt Lake City to host activities to increase awareness of the importance of the vocation of marriage and family life.)
“Do we ever think about it?” asks “Nazareth: Rendering love normal,” one of the catechesis materials written by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life and posted on the website for the 10th World Meeting of Families. “Everything we experience every day at home, at work, at school, even if it doesn’t seem directly related to the task of passing on the faith, is actually our way of ‘seeking to make love and not hate normal, making mutual help commonplace, not indifference or enmity’ (Pope Francis, general audience Dec. 17, 2014). Just as occurred during those 30 years in Nazareth, so too can it occur within our own families and living environments.”
Love is the point of departure for a family’s four general tasks: forming a community of persons, serving life, participating in the development of society and sharing in the life and mission of the Church, states Familiaris Consorio, the 1981 apostolic exhortation by Pope John Paul II, written following the 1980 Synod of Bishops.
“… without love the family is not a community of persons and, in the same way, without love the family cannot live, grow and perfect itself as a community of persons,” Pope John Paul II wrote, adding that the love between members of the same household leads the family into deeper community.
The family community can only be preserved “through a great spirit of sacrifice,” the pope continued. “It requires, in fact, a ready and generous openness of each and all to understanding, to forbearance, to pardon, to reconciliation. There is no family that does not know how selfishness, discord, tension and conflict violently attack and at times mortally wound its own communion: hence there arise the many and varied forms of division in family life. But, at the same time, every family is called by the God of peace to have the joyous and renewing experience of ‘reconciliation,’ that is, communion reestablished, unity restored.”
Educating their children is a serious right and primary duty of parents, the Church’s Code of Canon Law states, and Christian parents are called “to show their children the depths of significance to which the faith and love of Jesus Christ can lead,” according to Familiaris Consorio.
It adds, “The family must educate the children for life in such a way that each one may fully perform his or her role according to the vocation received from God.”
“Parents are also responsible for shaping the will of their children, fostering good habits and a natural inclination to goodness,” Pope Francis notes in his 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. “This entails presenting certain ways of thinking and acting as desirable and worthwhile, as part of a gradual process of growth.
“It is also essential to help children and adolescents to realize that misbehavior has consequences,” the pope continues. “They need to be encouraged to put themselves in other people’s shoes and to acknowledge the hurt they have caused.”
Praying together can strengthen a family, Pope Francis adds. “A few minutes can be found each day to come together before the living God, to tell him our worries, to ask for the needs of our family, to pray for someone experiencing difficulty, to ask for help in showing love, to give thanks for life and for its blessings, and to ask Our Lady to protect us beneath her maternal mantle. With a few simple words, this moment of prayer can do immense good for our families.”
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