Family life must include a vocation to holiness.
Newsroom (21/08/2022 3:00 PM, Gaudium Press ) Among the many crises the world is experiencing today, one of the gravest and of deepest consequence is that of the family. The present situation of the family unit is so desolate that many imagine it to be on the verge of complete extinction.
But the extinction of the family is impossible, since it is a divine institution, as one of the blessings of the Rite of Marriage shows: “O God, you unite woman to husband and give to this union, established from the beginning, the only blessing that has not been abolished, neither by the punishment of original sin, nor by the damnation of the flood.” Above all, it was raised to the status of a sacrament by the God-Man.
It cannot be denied that the sanctity and very stability of the family are seriously threatened, and the Popes do not cease to warn about this present great evil: the break-up of the family.
The Home: A Tabernacle of the Lord
Saving time and space, leaving aside other aspects of the problem, let us concentrate our attention on the causes of this crisis. These can be reduced to just one: the desire and effort to expel Christ from society. The other causes are only an inevitable consequence of this one. Laicism, materialism, consumerism, divorce, illegitimate unions, etc., are daughters and granddaughters of the return to earth of that deicidal cry of old: “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
If families will decide to take back the principle of their sacral – and therefore Christian – character, the face of the earth will be renewed, for the home must be, above all, a Tabernacle of the Lord.
This religious conception arises from the very essence and nature of marriage. Even the pagans of old recognized this principle, so much so that they worshipped two gods, who protected the home and they offered sacrifices to them.
For Christians, the family home is a temple where prayer, preaching, and sacrifice meet. The blessing of food, giving thanks, the collective recitation of the Rosary and other practices of piety, the celebration of Easter and Christmas in common, etc., constitute prayer in the domestic Church.
St. John Chrysostom strongly recommended that fathers of families in Constantinople and Antioch convert their homes into true temples. They should repeat there what they had learned in Church. St. Augustine went even further, assigning to them episcopal functions, inasmuch as they were responsible for transmitting true doctrine in the home.
But the most effective preaching is done by example. If the domestic environment is a temple of the Lord, in addition to prayer and preaching, it demands sacrifice; in it one must offer a victim: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God” (Rom 12:1).
A new era cannot be built with broken families. Only with well-formed and pious homes will we have a robust and healthy society. No other era has ever needed families so much to provide society with good citizens, authentic pillars and walls for the salvation and security of good human relationships. This noble and indispensable objective will only be achieved through the restoration of this mother-cell of civilization, according to the spirit, morals and doctrine of Holy Church.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
