Parents Will Save The World

We get so worried these days about the state of the modern family and wonder how the concept of the Catholic Family is going to survive with all the threats in our society against it. We need to remember our past and learn from our history it will survive as long as parents do their part.

In the 1540's St. Francis Xavier and the Jesuits were missionaries in Nagasaki Japan and were responsible for over 100,000 converts. But by 1587 Christianity was repressed in Japan as a threat to national unity and ceased to exist publicy and had to go underground.

By 1610, 1 out of 6 Japanese were Catholic. But in 1611 and 1613 the priests were expelled and thousands of Catholics were put to death. When the priests left Japan though they told the people to keep the faith and pass it on to your children, and eventually they would return.

After 250 years, 10 generations, when Japan was open up to the west again, the priests did return. The priests would walk through the streets, dressed very conspicuously with the hope of finding some remaining Catholics. Eventually a group of the faithful approached the priests and asked them some questions their parents had taught them on how to know a priest. They had to figure out if they were celibate, if they loved the mother of God and if they loved the Holy Man in Rome.

The priests soon discovered that there were 30,000 Catholics remaining in Japan after the 250 years. With only 2 sacraments, Baptism and Marriage, and in spite of great persecution, the parents had been able to pass on the faith to their children and keep the Church alive in Japan. The Church survived because of the parents.

Family life is the primary training ground for Catholics. With the concept of family rapidly changing in our society (redefinition of marriage in law, same sex marriage, cohabitation, casual sex, easy no-fault divorce), along with individualism, secularism, materialism, agnosticism, hedonism, rationalism and relativism, parents have their work cut out for them. Abortion, reproductive technologies and manipulation, euthanasia, destruction of human life for scientific advancement, rampant pornography and gratuitous violence, all make it seem like we have lost the battle to raise our children Catholic.

Sure if we focus on these destructive influences we could lose hope. So instead we have to stand firm and not be afraid of these influences or the people who have fallen for them and remember we have the truth on our side. We have to study our faith and know it well and lead by our example.

Healthy Christian marriages are the foundation of healthy families; and healthy families are the foundation of society. It is up to us to help restore this understanding by how we live our family life.

To begin with we must be clear that the family; mother, father, and any children(or no children for those who cannot have children) is the basic cell of any society. We must be very clear as to what a family is and what it is meant to be. We have to be able to explain what is the family’s full purpose and we need a profound understanding of God’s plan for the family.

The family is the only true natural institution. It is made by God and ordered to the care of the children. Through living out family life an individual develops and grows towards maturity.

If we look at the purpose of an acorn we can see that an acorn already contains all of the information necessary to form itself into an oak tree. All it needs is for certain conditions to be met, such as the absorption of water, sunlight, and nutrients. In essence, then, an acorn is an oak tree in a state of underdevelopment. The "Oak-tree-ness" is already written within the genetic code of the acorn. The acorn already is an oak tree, and that is how it is able to manifest itself as an oak tree when its conditions (for water, sunlight, and nutrients) are met.

It is the same with the family. The husband and wife are already a family but they have to be developed. The parents need to form the virtues in themselves and in any children they have, so like the acorn their family can reach its full potential.

Our job as parents is not to keep our children busy and amused, nor just to keep them out of trouble and make them behave. The real job of family life is to lead children by example, directed practice, and explanation, so that they grow up to be competent, responsible, considerate men and women who are committed to live by Catholic principles all their lives.

To this end it is imperative that all parents should have a copy of the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio(On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) from Pope John Paul II on their bedside and be reading and reflecting on it regularly. It is mandatory reading for all couples. This document opens the mind and heart to what God wants for the family.

It is no accident that Jesus grew up in a family. His public ministry did not arise out of the blue. It was in the hidden and uncelebrated years of family life, growing up in the home of Joseph and Mary, that the foundations of his ministry were laid. We see from the Holy Family’s great example that family love can change the world. We have to have confidence in the love which lies hidden in our own families and its bearing on the future of the world.

All married couples have to have a strong understanding of what the family is and be able to articulate it to their children, their grandchildren and all those around them. Weak thought will lead to weak families. We have to be able to give a rational explanation for our understanding of the family if we expect the family to survive in this age of technology and an overabundance of information. We must know the problems, know the enemy, know the tactics and know the answers.

Our Catholic Faith is one of faith and reason. We must truly understand the dignity of the person, the problems with modern materialism, relativism, new ageism, hedonism etc and be able to explain this simply enough for a child to understand.

If we do not really understand what the role of the family is and what God intended for it, then we float or are blown around by almost every and any cultural breeze that arises. We must be grounded in the truth, be able to explain to our children the rational reasons for the importance of why marriage as permanent, that God is everlasting, and His truths are everlasting. We must show our children how truth cannot change.

Sure it seems like the boat is bouncing on the waves but as long as Jesus is on the boat we do not have to be afraid. But when we take out eyes off Jesus we will sink. We must grow in the faith that all battles have been won. We must continue to pray. We must continue to study our faith and know it well and know the reasons for the truth.

Only the Church stands solidly against these inhumane trends that attack the dignity of the human person and the family. But keep in mind that Jesus is not an “against” type of person. He is a person, he is the incarnate truth, he is incarnate love, he is the way. We must know and revere what the Church teaches so we can live those teachings and share them with others.

Raising a family is an adventure and God designed it to live that way. We cannot lose heart in the strength of the family for then we lose heart in the truth. We have to pray for an ever increasing amount of the virtue of prudence. The Cardinal virtue of Prudence is the virtue that requires us to see things the way God sees them, in reality, and then to act in a manner coherent with that reality. We have to be grounded in reality. If we do not attempt to act in accordance with the truth, we are at risk to be swept away by every modern distortion of the truth.

God is counting on all parents to pass on the faith to our children like the people of Japan did in spite of persecutions. God is counting on all parents to save the world through our hard work and efforts in teaching our children the truth. We cannot let life get us down and give up. We have to just keep getting up and starting again.