"Your children will be like olive
shoots around your table" (Ps
128:3): the family as the "sanctuary of life"
92. Within the "people of life
and the people for life", the family has a decisive responsibility. This
responsibility flows from its very nature as a community of life and love,
founded upon marriage, and from its mission to "guard, reveal and
communicate love".117 Here it is a matter of God's own love, of
which parents are co-workers and as it were interpreters when they transmit
life and raise it according to his fatherly plan. 118 This is the love
that becomes selflessness, receptiveness and gift. Within the family each
member is accepted, respected and honoured precisely because he or she is a
person; and if any family member is in greater need, the care which he or she
receives is all the more intense and attentive.
The family has a special role to play throughout the
life of its members, from birth to death. It is truly "the sanctuary of
life: the place in which life - the gift of God - can be properly welcomed and
protected against the many attacks to which it is exposed, and can develop in
accordance with what constitutes authentic human growth".119
Consequently the role of the family in building a culture of life is decisive
and irreplaceable.
As the domestic church, the family is summoned to
proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life. This is a responsibility
which first concerns married couples, called to be givers of life, on the basis
of an ever greater awareness of the meaning of procreation as a unique event
which clearly reveals that human life is a gift received in order then to be
given as a gift. In giving origin to a new life, parents recognize that the
child, "as the fruit of their mutual gift of love, is, in turn, a gift for
both of them, a gift which flows from them".120
It is above all in raising children that the family
fulfils its mission to proclaim the Gospel of life. By word and example, in the
daily round of relations and choices, and through concrete actions and signs,
parents lead their children to authentic freedom, actualized in the sincere gift
of self, and they cultivate in them respect for others, a sense of justice,
cordial openness, dialogue, generous service, solidarity and all the other
values which help people to live life as a gift. In raising children Christian
parents must be concerned about their children's faith and help them to fulfil
the vocation God has given them. The parents' mission as educators also
includes teaching and giving their children an example of the true meaning of
suffering and death. They will be able to do this if they are sensitive to all
kinds of suffering around them and, even more, if they succeed in fostering
attitudes of closeness, assistance and sharing towards sick or elderly members
of the family.
93. The family celebrates the Gospel
of life through daily prayer, both individual prayer and family prayer. The
family prays in order to glorify and give thanks to God for the gift of life,
and implores his light and strength in order to face times of difficulty and
suffering without losing hope. But the celebration which gives meaning to every
other form of prayer and worship is found in the family's actual daily life
together, if it is a life of love and self-giving.
This celebration thus becomes a service to the Gospel
of life, expressed through solidarity as experienced within and around the
family in the form of concerned, attentive and loving care shown in the humble,
ordinary events of each day. A particularly significant expression of
solidarity between families is a willingness to adopt or take in children
abandoned by their parents or in situations of serious hardship. True parental
love is ready to go beyond the bonds of flesh and blood in order to accept
children from other families, offering them whatever is necessary for their well-being
and full development. Among the various forms of adoption, consideration should
be given to adoption-at-a-distance, preferable in cases where the only reason
for giving up the child is the extreme poverty of the child's family. Through
this type of adoption, parents are given the help needed to support and raise
their children, without their being uprooted from their natural environment.
As "a firm and persevering determination to
commit oneself to the common good",121 solidarity also needs to be
practised through participation in social and political life. Serving the
Gospel of life thus means that the family, particularly through its membership
of family associations, works to ensure that the laws and institutions of the
State in no way violate the right to life, from conception to natural death,
but rather protect and promote it.
94. Special attention must be given
to the elderly. While in some cultures older people remain a part of the family
with an important and active role, in others the elderly are regarded as a
useless burden and are left to themselves. Here the temptation to resort to
euthanasia can more easily arise.
Neglect of the elderly or their outright rejection are
intolerable. Their presence in the family, or at least their closeness to the
family in cases where limited living space or other reasons make this
impossible, is of fundamental importance in creating a climate of mutual
interaction and enriching communication between the different age - groups. It
is therefore important to preserve, or to re-establish where it has been lost,
a sort of "covenant" between generations. In this way parents, in
their later years, can receive from their children the acceptance and
solidarity which they themselves gave to their children when they brought them
into the world. This is required by obedience to the divine commandment to
honour one's father and mother (cf. Ex 20:12; Lev 19:3). But there is more.
The elderly are not only to be considered the object of our concern, closeness
and service. They themselves have a valuable contribution to make to the Gospel
of life. Thanks to the rich treasury of experiences they have acquired through
the years, the elderly can and must be sources of wisdom and witnesses of hope
and love.
Although it is true that "the future of humanity
passes by way of the family",122 it must be admitted that modern
social, economic and cultural conditions make the family's task of serving life
more difficult and demanding. In order to fulfil its vocation as the
"sanctuary of life", as the cell of a society which loves and
welcomes life, the family urgently needs to be helped and supported.
Communities and States must guarantee all the support, including economic
support, which families need in order to meet their problems in a truly human
way. For her part, the Church must untiringly promote a plan of pastoral care
for families, capable of making every family rediscover and live with joy and
courage its mission to further the Gospel of life.
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