The unity of the family was sanctified as holy and essential to human life. God himself valued and needed a holy family on earth and that is why God instituted (The family of Jesus, Mary & Joseph), all the more should we.
What makes a family?: A family is man and a woman united in marriage, together with their children and so according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC2206), The family is a privileged community called to achieve a “ sharing of thought and common deliberation by the spouses as well as their eager cooperation as parents in the children’s upbringing.’’ And according to Saint John Paul11, “The family is the first community of life and love, the first environment where man can learn to love and feel loved, not only by other people, but also and above all by God.
Your spouse came to you not as an accident of circumstance, but as a necessary gift from God. Loving your spouse, no matter the circumstances, is a means to your sanctification. Through spousal love we learn to love without limit. Is it hard? Darned hard. Trust me, learning how to love selflessly is the key to finding the “narrow path” to Heaven.
Point 2206 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), said that a man and a woman united in marriage, together with their children, form a family but not everyone is blessed with children, but all children are blessings. That means that we have to remain open to life and we are to embrace each life as God’s gifts to the world. Truth be told, our children are not always as easy to love as when they are sweet babies, but we must love them selflessly, all the same.
The home is the center of selfless service toward others. In the early years the parents serve their children and as the children age they are expected to serve their parent’s needs and from the warm center of family service we reach out to serve the needs of our neighbors. You and l know that these days it is not always so .Children do not always adore their parents, but as parents we are expected to always honor and love them because parents and children form the essential bonds that require constant nurturing, no matter their ages.
If we as parents fail to do what is right and just in the sight of God, we can hardly complain if our children turn out to be disobedient to God and to us. Believe me; the young ones learn more from example than from teaching. If parents give their children the example of a life of obedience to the laws of God and their country, the children will in turn carry out their duties to God, to their parents and to their fellowman. Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children.
Parents also have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and impartial service are the rule of law. As the saying goes, charity begins at home; parents should ensure that the home is well suited for education in the virtues with self-sacrifice/ denial and sound judgment. So, education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child’s earliest years.
This already happens when family members help one another to grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the Gospel. Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God. (CCC 2226)35 .The family is the foundation from which a child identifies his/her vocation. Vocation involves a calling, either to marriage or to religious life, it may also include choosing a profession.
Within family life we watch for and nurture each individual’s special gifts. When they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life. They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their parents, willingly asking and receiving their advice and counsel.
Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. This necessary restraint does not prevent them – quite the contrary from giving their children judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family. More importantly, parents should try and make the family a confessional rather than a courtroom. See that you never convert your family into a courtroom; instead let it be a confessional, where we are ready to admit our faults and try to correct them. This makes the family a heavenly one.
For according to St John Paul 11, God who created man out of love also calls him to love. Given this reality, the aim of the educational mission of parents cannot be other than teaching how to love. This aim is reinforced by the fact that the family is the only place where persons are loved not for what they possess, or what they know or can produce, but simply for their being members of the family: spouses, parents, children, brothers and sisters.
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