Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) - We give the third and last part of Pope Benedict XVI’s important address on the Family delivered in St John’s Basilica Cathedral on 6 June to open Rome’s diocesan Ecclesial Congress on the subject "The Family and the Christian Community: formation of the person and handing on the faith". (English translation from the original Italian by Fides)
The Family and the Church
All this has an obvious consequence: the family and the Church, concretely parishes and other forms of ecclesial communities, are called to work closely in that fundamental task consisting, inseparably, in formation of the person and the handing down of the faith. We all know that for authentic education the communication of a correct theory or doctrine is not enough. Something much greater and more human is required, that closeness lived day after day which is proper to love and which finds its most favourable setting in the family community but also in a parish, church movement or association which bring together people who care for others, particularly children and young people, but also adults, the elderly the sick and for families themselves because in Christ they desire their good. The great Patron of educators St John Bosco reminded his spiritual sons that "education is a thing of the heart of which only God is master" (Epistolario, 4,209).
Central to the work of educating and particularly of educating to the faith which is the summit of the person’s formation and his or her most appropriate horizon, is concretely the figure of the witness: the witness becomes a point of reference precisely because he or she is able to explain the reason for the hope which sustains life (cfr 1 Pt 3,15), and is personally involved with the truth proposed. The witness, besides, never refers to self, but always to something, or Someone much greater, whom he or she has encountered experiencing His trustworthy goodness. So every educator and witness finds his insuperable model in Jesus Christ, the great witness of the Father who said nothing of his own but only that which the Father had taught him (cfr Jn 8,28).
This explains why at the basis of the formation of the Christian person and the handing on of the faith there must necessarily be prayer, personal friendship with Christ and contemplation in him of the face of the Father. The same is obviously true for all our missionary endeavours in particularly for pastoral care of families: may the Family of Nazareth be for our families and our communities the object of our constant and trusting prayer as well as the model of life.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, and in a special way you dear priests, I am aware of the generosity and dedication with which you serve the Lord and the Church. Your daily commitment to formation of the new generations in the faith in close connection with the sacraments of Christian initiation, to prepare for matrimony, accompany families on their often difficult path particularly in the major task of educating children, is the fundamental way to regenerate the Church again and again and also to vivify the social tissue of our beloved city of Rome.
The threat of relativism
Continue then and do not be discouraged by the difficulties you encounter. The educational relationship is by nature so sensitive: it is a question in fact of the freedom of the person which, however gently, is provoked into making a decision. Parents, priests, catechists or other educators can never take the place of the freedom of the child, adolescent or youth whom they address. In a special way the Christian proposal touches this freedom profoundly, calling it to faith and conversion. Today a particularly insidious obstacle to the work of education is the massive presence in our society and culture of relativism which recognises nothing as definitive and leaves as ultimate measure only self and selfish whims and under the appearance of freedom becomes a prison for each person because it separates one person from the other closing each in his or her own ‘ego’ . In this relativistic horizon real education is impossible: without the light of truth; sooner or later the person is bound to doubt the goodness of life and its constitutive relationships, the validity of personal commitment to build something in common with others.
Therefore it is clear that we must not only strive to overcome relativism in our work of forming people, we are also called to counter its destructive predominance in society and culture. Therefore, besides the word of the Church, the public testimony and commitment of Christian families particularly to reaffirm the intangibility of human life from conception to natural end, most important is the unique and irreplaceable value of the family founded on matrimony and the necessity of legislative and administrative measures to support families in the task of generating and educating children, a task essential for our common future. Also for this commitment I thank you warmly.
Priesthood and consecrated life
One final message I wish to entrust to you regarding attention for vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life: we all know how necessary they are for the Church! For vocations to flourish and mature, for those called to remain always worthy of their vocation, above all prayer is decisive, and it must never lack in every Christian family and every community. However also fundamental is the testimony of the lives of priests and men and women religious, their joy at being called by the Lord. Equally essential is the example children receive in the family and the conviction in the family that for it too a child’s vocation is a great gift from the Lord. The decision for virginity for love of God and brothers and sisters, required by priesthood and the consecrated life, goes hand in hand with the valorisation of Christian matrimony: both, in different but complementary ways, in some way render visible the mystery of the covenant between God and his people. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 9/6/2005, righe 77, parole 1.026)
