TRUE FAMILY ^_[1]

FAMILY RECIPE

1.  A newspaper advice columnist, when asked by a reader to define a functional family, replied:  "A functional family is one that 'works.' People respect one another's right to be different. They don't impose their values on others. They help one another when they're in trouble.  They are nonjudgmental and supportive. They refrain from jealousy, backbiting and tale-carrying. And most of all, they honor that old Ann Landers axiom, M.Y.O.B."^[2]

2.  If this definition sounds good to you, pause for a moment before you turn to the comic pages. What do these words really mean? Are they food for thought or junk food--a string of cliches with little or no nutritional value? Look closely and you will discover that this so-called family recipe cannot confect  togetherness and solidarity because its ingredients and directions are wrong.  It dishes out a patently reclusive and churlish appraisal of humanity. The functional family is the pop-culture palaver of a cynical person who shamelessly panders the great American broken family.

MERE ROOMMATES

3.  Yes, says the columnist,  the lowest common denominator determines the family standards. How low can family members go before the family collapses? If a family follows the columnist's opinion--mind your own business--we will learn the answer because the worst has happened. The autonomous individual is the fundamental actor on the MYOB stage. Mind your own business is the script for a one man show, the exclusive rights appropriated by the MYOB celebrity to mistreat others and to disperse unhappiness throughout his family.  His obtrusive and appalling behavior is his own creative property and as such are off limits to other family members.

4.  If parents or siblings complain about mistreatment, the offending individual has only to trump their grumbling with the law mind your own business and the levy you have to get me out of trouble. MYOB is right in the eyes of those who idolize the right to be different, the power to choose consistently for ones own self-interests rather than for the good of the many. In this scenario, family members are mere roommates whose personal values are faddish and privatized. Far from being ordered, family life is expected to be fundamentally disorganized--even formless--as compared to the privatized life of the self-directed individual. The family as a whole is expected to acquiesce to the individuals living within it and unconditionally support them.  Notwithstanding,  stronger members--those who control wealth and ownership of a family's assets--can prevail upon weaker members. They can leverage anybody's assumptions about family life and reinvent them entirely and often.

TOO HARSH?

5.  Unquestionably, autonomous individuals stretch the definition of family to the limits even under the best of circumstances.  What does one call a group of persons who share a house and not each other's lives? Roommates. How do you describe a family in which adults act like unmanageable children and children are forced to take on adult responsibilities they have no right to carry? Sick. Is this assessment too harsh? Look closely and discover the astonishing omissions. The advice columnist makes no mention of love in her family recipe.

6.  Her functional family formula is altogether silent on the subject of reconciliation--and no wonder because she would have to confront the reality of right and wrong.  Personal sacrifice and the respect of one's family name in the community has no place in her criteria. Look for evidence of ethics or morality. Look for evidence of faith. You will not find it. Any family lacking these foundational social and religious values is like a tree cut off at the roots  [cf. Mt 3:10],  a house built on sand.  [cf. Mt 7: 24-27]  The family that adopts MYOB mutilates its own intimate society and no therapy or secular proselytism of active homosexuality, same-sex marriages, abortion, euthanasia, and the abolition of sacramental marriage can repair the damage. 

NO REWARD, NO VICTORY

7.  And who in his right mind could expect genuine charitableness from an MYOB oriented person? There is ample blame to go around. Over the past three decades, Christians have grown more and more reluctant to accept the moral and ethical teachings of Christ as a guide for happy communities. A culture which prizes consumption and the pursuit of pleasure is certain to devalue its families and children. The shocking statistics of lawlessness, violent crime and murder are reflected in the population explosion in our nations correctional system. The dramatic escalation of divorce, contraception, abortion, trial marriages, so-called alternative families, fatherless families,  and home-alone children has created a crisis of alarming proportions in the Church.

8.  The cultural and religious crisis is aggravated by fathers who refuse to teach their children about faith and religion, fathers for whom God is a tax agent and the Church is a nagging mother-in-law.  Many laity and clergy opt for secular values and assign a high premium on manipulative vocabulary such as openness, tolerance, acceptance and inclusiveness. They welcome the breakdown of traditional norms as a desirable evolution of religious and cultural practice. A happy ending is unattainable with such a script. The curtain will fall on a generation of people who will experience great suffering.  No reward will await the fittest, no victory will be declared for the survivors. Consider the story of a hard-working Irish widow: 

SHE HAD been the mother of many children, but most of them died; and last of all, her husband, a handsome man, whom she considered a being quite superior to herself, died, after a protracted illness.  He did the housework long after he could not do other labor, so that she might be the chief wage-earner of the family. After his death, she said: "I fretted a (great) deal for him,--I couldn't help it.  I know he had been sick a long time, but you miss a person just the same if they have been sick; and he was such a clean man about the house, kept it so neat when he was able to be about."^[3]  

The article was written for the Atlantic Monthly in 1888. Eventually factory work proved to too strenuous, and Irish widow was forced to retire. All too soon she was unable to care for her home. One day her children buried her. What memories did the many children cherish at her passing? That she worked hard? That she kept a home for her children and food on the table? This 19th century American  factory woman deserves our admiration. 

WHEN GOOD IS NOT ENOUGH

9.  Nevertheless we must ask: will our children and our grandchildren have more to say? That their parents impressed upon them a love for Jesus Christ and his Bride the Church? Will they tell their companions of their parents'  love and trust in God's Holy Word? Will they say that their father and mother practiced the habit of faithful discipleship? That they prayed at all times? That both father and mother educated them in the moral and ethical principles of Christian life? Certainly tensions and occasional conflict are considered a normal part of family life. Difficult decisions and the desire for privacy understandably go hand in hand. Nevertheless important decisions cannot remain private. Man is a social creature, and human experience is never neutral. Major decisions often affect loved ones as much as the persons who make them.

10.  Evil choices are unstable and explosive by nature; Self-indulgent behavior always incurs negative consequences; moreover a sinful action can ignite a blistering sequence of events culminating in personal and social tragedy. The psalmist of old recognized the critical need for a fully formed conscience and prayed for God's assistance: 

PUT FALSE  ways far from me; and graciously  teach me  thy law! I have chosen the way of faithfulness, I set thy ordinances before me. I cleave to thy testimonies, O Lord; let me not be put to shame! I will run in the way of thy commandments when thou enlargest my understanding! Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep thy law and observe it with my whole heart.  [Psa 119:29-34] 

Hence, to grow in the knowledge of the good and to choose for the good is essential. To properly teach the children of this generation, you must learn yourself that everything good originates in God.  You must learn that true freedom is the reward of choosing for the good. You must respect a law and authority higher than yourselves. You must believe with all your heart that God is both means and end of the human search for fulfillment. God entrusts the responsibility to parents and the adult members of the Christian community to be outstanding teachers of the faith. No effective substitute exists. Without a life in Christ, good is not good enough. Yes, it is good to work long hours, two jobs and do whatever it takes to shelter and feed your family. It is good to provide the basics of life and some of life's pleasures for those whom you love.

PEARL OF CHRISTIAN LIFE

11.  But in the end this good is not good enough if Jesus Christ is not at the center of your family life:  "But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children"  [Deu 4:9]  so that it might go well with you and your children forever.  [cf. Deu 5:29]  This teaching office finds its complement in the example of the Church which conscientiously transmits the principles of faith precisely to safeguard the individual from the extremes of selfish autonomy and neo-primitivism. The Church is herself the antidote to such extremism. She is a community of voluntary members whose faith in God and respect for one another is perfected in the celebration of the Seven Great Graces, of which the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is most pleasing and efficacious act of love. Man's true happiness is the joyful fulfillment of his love in God who is Truth. Whether inclusive of shadow or reflected light, human happiness is only temporary. Such transience would be for man an insurmountable sorrow were it not a prophecy of the permanence of true happiness in God. 

12.  The pearl of Christian life  [Mt 13:45-46]  is the new covenant of Christ established in his name, sealed by the sacrifice of his body and blood on the cross and empowered by the Holy Spirit. This covenant is not a transparency layered over every choice and lifestyle, nor is the Christian way of life a contemporary veneer or personal interpretation which glosses over divine revelation. The new covenant of Christ reveals and makes known the substance of our lives. It  judges with rigorous clarity our words and deeds according God's standards:  "I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations."  [Isa 42:6]   

LEARN AND WITNESS

13.  Mothers and Fathers, give to your children the exceptional gift of your personal witness to the beauty and graciousness of our God. Let them see in your spousal love for one another the image of Christ the Groom and his Bride the Church. Remain steadfastly diligent in leading your children to Christ and you will discover in heaven that God has prepared a page for you in his book of eternal life. Your names and virtuous deeds will be written on this page. In the hour of judgment, Christ will welcome you into the family of his heavenly Father. The importance that Sacred Scripture places on family and home is paramount. Much of Jesus ministry takes place in the home--healings, teaching, fellowship, the experience of love and the breaking of bread.

14.  A home is much more than a place to eat, sleep and mind one's own business. The true family, says Jesus, takes its definition and direction from his heavenly Father:  "And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, (Jesus) said, Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother."  Mt 12:49-50]  We would do well to think of ourselves and our homes as a temple in which the Lord dwells.  As Sacred Scripture says, "Do you not know that you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have from God, and that you are not your own."  [1Cor 6:19-20]  If you truly want your family to be blessed, and embraced by God, you will have to help and teach each other spiritually throughout your lives. Often it will not be easy: it means that you must be spiritual yourself. You must learn who Jesus Christ is. You must witness who Jesus Christ is.

DOXOLOGY OF FAITH

15.  When you have founded your family and home upon solid rock  [cf. Lk 6:47-49], and established deep spiritual roots, the rest will be in the hands of God. Nor will God fail to provide for your needs. God affirms the sanctity and value of all human life. God opposes anything which may threaten your welfare. God will encourage and nurture the things that enhance your life and its enjoyment. God will stand by you, support you, and never leave you. God will bring you to himself.^[4]  As Catholics, we know that MYOB is a prescription for desolation and guaranteed failure. If, however, we put on the mind of Christ  [cf. 1Cor 2:16],  the Holy Spirit will guide us to a joyful life on earth and bring his peace to our homes.  [cf. Jn 14:27]  I urge you renounce the selfishness and narcissism of MYOB and adopt as your motto one far superior. Choose as your symbol of faith the letters I C H T H U S from the ancient Greek word meaning fish. The seven letters of the acronym ICHTHUS represent seven words by which the ancient Church professed its faith. When put together, the first letters of the seven Greek words proclaim Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, the doxology of true Christian families.