Once a thought on the importance of family and the various benefits of the family brought a lot of enlightenment to me. I realized that one of the important things is that a family is an indispensable unit in the world. A man cannot live without the institution of a family because it is the basic fabric of society. It is God’s marvellous plan that a man is born into a family. It is a natural setting where a man grows into maturity. We cannot replace family with any other institution such as a hospital, home for the aged, boarding home, school, hotel or entertainment park, etc. These are man-made institutions for special purposes, but they cannot replace the institution of a family.
A family plays a very important role in a man’s life. It initiates him into society. He gets his name or an identity in the world and a sense of security. He is taken care of till he can make his own decisions. He learns everything in his life. He receives his faith, and religion from his family. Above everything else, he learns the most significant thing in his life i.e. love. A man learns to love in the family when he first experiences love from others. When we were small, we did not know how to love others but everyone loved us. Their love was seen and experienced in every small act towards us. We can conclude from our experiences that we learnt to love others from the love that we received from them. This is the major factor in making our families indispensable in our lives.
Can we imagine a family without love for each other? Can we imagine a society without love? Love is the essence of our living. This is experienced at home. Every family which is built on this truth continues to grow stronger. We need to adhere to this truth. Our families should be built on love: love between the spouses, love between the parents and the children and love between the children.
The church in the recent past has emphasized this aspect. We celebrated the tenth world meeting of families in Rome last month. The event was simultaneously celebrated all over the world in all the dioceses. Pope Francis chose a beautiful theme for the meeting: ‘Family love: a vocation and path to holiness.’ A beautiful prayer was made on the same theme. The approach was very practical during the celebration of families. Few families from all over the world were chosen to share their family experiences with the rest.
There were six witnessing families. Each of them had their own unique story. Serena Zangla and Luigi Franco, an Italian couple, shared that they baptized their three children even though they were not married in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis appreciated the community, a big family who voluntarily opened their arms to receive them and their children in their community. Pope Francis also exhorted the couple to accept the sacrament of matrimony as a gift of God.
Roberto and Maria Corbella, the parents of servants of God, Chiara Corbella, who chose the life of her unborn child over her own. Her cause for canonization was opened in 2018. Pope Francis said Chiara has given a great example of heroic faith. May she be an inspiration to us on our path to holiness. Paul and Germaine Balenza from Congo spoke about their twenty-six years of married life. Paul was unfaithful to her. She left him and the grown-up children for a year. She began to stay with her sister. She went into public (Facebook) to shame her husband and was on the brink of divorce. However, they received help from another couple for more than five months and reconciled with each other. Pope Francis said, that forgiveness along with prayers, helped them to save their lives. Iryna and her daughter Sofia who was forced to flee from Ukraine shared their painful stories. Her husband was a military man. They were welcomed by an Italian family. Pope Francis said that the families are places of welcome. If these families were not welcoming, then what a problem it would be. A society without welcoming families would become cold and unlivable. In the final witness, Zakia Seddiki, a Muslim whose husband Luca Seddiki, the Italian ambassador for the UN project to feed homeless children, was killed. She shared her family life where her husband taught them to live without prejudice, without judging each other. She expressed that she and her family believe in the same God who calls us to love our neighbours, seek good and respect each other. Pope Francis praised them because they live in fraternity. They overcame divisions, and prejudice to build a great and beautiful world.
Each of these families gave witness to love at the World Meeting of Families in Rome. We can identify ourselves with these witnesses. While reading about them, we could easily find the true love that sustained them in the difficult times. The love among the spouses, children, and neighbours helps us to live in peace and harmony. We are called to share this love with one another. This is the path to holiness. Each of our family situations differs from others. It may be challenging and heart-rendering, painful and pitiful but God has not deprived us of his love. He wants us to share it with others. It is the most available gift to all of us. We cannot ignore it because we are living in this world for the benefit of it. God wants us to share this love so that no one feels abandoned, deprived and rejected. May we learn to build our families on love, not on the material world.
