About God in family
Fr. IRENEUSZ SKUBIŚ
We are under the impression of the World Family Congress and Benedict XVI's visit to Valencia in Spain, the country that has legalised homosexual relationships. One and a half million crowd of Spaniards and people from all over the world reacted with spontaneity and applause to the message of Benedict XVI who reminded people of the fundamental and traditional function of marriage and family. The Holy Father listened attentively to the testimonies of life and love given by particular families. It is only sad to know that Spain, a Catholic country, has been involved in everything what is not Christian, what is not in accordance with the natural law. We do not understand what has happened with this country and what the country is aiming at. At the same time we have noticed that the Spanish society declared to be a normal society during the meeting with the Pope. I think that Benedict XVI's visit will yield blessed fruit like it was in Poland during John Paul II's visits.
Listening to the testimonies of families we can reach a conclusion that we focus too little on marriage and family. Since family is the basic unit of social life. Two people who want to be together, receiving the sacrament of matrimony, create a germ of life that does not only give happiness to them but also creates new life, and thus brings happiness to this new life and provides it with all skills indispensable to new life. Marriage as sacrament does not only contain human love but also God's love, God who comes to people who invite him into their lives. God-Love directs all things, naturally if man wants this, so that human life becomes love.
Thus we dare to say that everything begins in family: love between spouses is born, new life is born out of love and man grows up in love - both the very tiny human being and the adult. It has its personalistic dimension and it also has an interpersonal dimension and then a social dimension - it is changed into further relationships - but the thread which is strung in all these relationships is love experienced in family.
In Valencia there were talks about family as a cradle of love and also about family as the basis to pass on faith. For the attitude towards God, which is formed later in life, has its source in family: in the relationships between child and mother and father and in the experience of their love. Because of that family should be the subject of the Church's concern both on the pastoral level and in pro-family social actions.
Family is the basis for evangelisation, for proclamation of the Kingdom of God. In its 'nucleum' ( the embryo, the germ ( it contains potential possibility of good formation of man, making him aware of the need to accept certain values. The greatest value for man is his closeness to God who is his extraordinary, since supernatural, support. Man needs this support in order to stand firm on the marshy ground. It is faith that gives strong basis.
Therefore, we cannot lose sight of virtus religionis ( virtue of religiosity, and the virtue of God's love and faith in the Divine Providence. They constitute the foundations of human life. Satan's servants or reckless and light-hearted people want to tear man away from that firm point and leave him in vacuum, in some existential emptiness, which, as we can see, accompanies many people today and makes them seek for various strange substitutes for this support.
Let us know that support in family and God's teaching is a firm support, which is the best starting point to form personality, character and upbringing of individuals. This teaching is included in the idea of the Home Church, forming families on the pattern of the Holy Family and at the same time it has Trinitarian dimension (reminding us of the teaching on the Holy Trinity: about God's love, sending of God's Son and the existence of the Holy Spirit who develops man in family), as well as missionary dimension like the Church. Missionarism and trinitarism are the fundamental dimensions so that true life of Christian family can be formed in love.
"Niedziela" 30/2006