"The family that prays together, stays together", Mother Teresa used to often remind people. In a fast moving world, oriented towards maximum comfort and pleasure, where most things are treated as disposable, the very concept of traditional family is facing an unprecedented challenge. While the situation is knotty in Western countries, it is slowly beginning to affect the middle classes in India too.
The theme of the World Meeting of Families held in 2015 was, "Love is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive". The motto of this Congress was 'called together from all over the world in celebration of the family, the sanctuary of love and life". For Christians, this sanctuary of love is inseparable from one's faith. Pope Francis, who presided over the concluding ceremony of this world meeting in Philadelphia on 27th September, 2015 said in October 2013 that: "the family which experiences the joy of faith communicates it naturally...family is the salt of the earth and the light of the world, it is the haven of society..." Mother Teresa, therefore, insisted on that faith being expressed through daily prayers in families to strengthen the bond of love.
All this does not mean that Christian families do not experience problems and that faith automatically brings in love to end conflict between family members.
What it means is that while it is completely human to have conflicts on the inter-personal relationship front, faith and love provide a broader and deeper dimension. While these conflicts, caused by deep personal hurt and pain, could appear enormous on their own, seen in the light of faith and love they are actually trivial.
Faith can certainly bring alive the words of Jesus to forgive the other 'not seven times but up to seventy times seven'.
His example of showing love in forgiving the enemies who crucified him by praying even as he breathed his last - "...forgive them for they know not what they are doing" - can be practiced in one's life only with firm faith. I never forget what I once heard in my theology class forty years ago: "How insignificant many of these conflicts appear when you contemplate them in view of eternal life". How true indeed!
A family is, indeed, "the sanctuary of love". It is there that we learn our first lesson about love without boundaries that love overcomes all inadequacies and, literally, turns us 'blind' to the faults of our loved ones. When love is allowed to grow and prosper, it produces the joy which cannot be bought for any price in a supermarket of disposable commodities. In love, according to Jesus, "one is ready to lay down one's life for one's friend".
For, as the Bible teaches, "God is love" and, therefore, like God it is eternal, unbreakable by any human agency, especially in a family.---Father Dominic Emmanuel, a founder member of Parliament of Religion, can be contacted at frdominic@gmail.com
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C.S. Chakravarthy
H. No. 12-13-302, St. No. 9,
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Satya Classic Apartments,
Tarnaka, Secunderabad- 500 017
Telangana State, India.
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