Family From A Christian

Perspective

Family from a Christian perspective according

to John Paul II performs the following roles:

1. Agent of Unity

2. Agent of Life

3. Agent for Social Development

4. Agent for Evangelization

 1. Agent of Unity
As agent of unity:

 primary task of the family is to be the seat of

communion established through the
principle of mutual love between spouses
and their children.

 As the first social community, the proper

way of existing and living together is by living
in communion, the end of which is
acceptance and love for each person.
 The inner principle of that task, its
permanent power and its final goal is love:
without love the family is not a community of
persons and in the same way, without love
the family cannot live, grow and perfect
itself as a community of persons.
 Unity is built upon the conjugal communion
of husband and wife.

 This unity being covenant and at the same

time a sacrament is expected to be
absolute, total, faithful and indissoluble
reflecting the love of Christ for his Spouse,
the Church.
 As a unity of two, the husband and the wife
are called to live in communion of love and
to mirror the love of the Trinity in the world.
Fatherhood and motherhood share a
specific participation in the mystery of the
Trinity.
 the manner by which the family reflects this
love is to view and treat each member of
the family as a human person created
according to God’s image and destined to
reach the fullness of Christ which is the true
and original image of God.
 Jesus Christ is the heart and center, the
beginning and end of God’s loving plan for
his creation, and it is from this perspective
that the family has a significant responsibility
in God’s plan.
 If everyone enjoys equal dignity before God
and has been redeemed by Christ,
everyone therefore, deserves to be loved
and to be respected.

 Created according to the image of His

creator, the human person is called to live
before God as a personal subject intended
for communion with others and with God.
 2. Agent of Life
 As Agent of Life, the family is called to be at the
service of life which implies that the identity of
marriage as communion personarum reaches its
fullness when both husband and wife dispose
themselves for the transmission of human life.

 The revealing sign of authentic married love is

openness to life. In marriage, the mutual self-
giving of husband and wife reaches its totality
when they become “cooperators with God for
giving life to a new human person.”
 “In a secularized mentality where the birth of a
child is decided upon by taking a pill, it is
important to emphasize that the process of
procreation is a mutual collaboration between
God and the married couple.
 Cafarra underlines that “just as the origin of
husband and wife community lies always in a
meeting between the enterprise of God and the
marriage consent of man and woman, in the
same manner, the origin of the family lies in a
meeting between God and the married couple,
between the divine act of creation and the
human act of procreation.”
 Male and female sexuality is ultimately
ordered for fatherhood and motherhood
where God himself is intimately present and
is the source of that image and likeness
proper to the human being as it was
received in creation.

 So when in the universe a human being

appears, someone appears who is destined
for immediate and direct communion with
God. God wills this person into existence.
 It is the responsibility, therefore of parents to
educate and lead their children towards growth
and development. Since parents have
conferred life on their children, they have the
most solemn obligation to educate their
offspring.
 This is a task rooted in the married couples’
vocation to participate in God’s creative
activity of engendering a new person towards
the process of becoming human. It is also a
mission and a ministry that they share with the
Church, the source of which is the sacrament of
marriage which calls them to the ministry of
educating their children in the Christian faith.
 In the education of children, it is necessary to
emphasize that while developing their intellectual
capacities, the family must cultivate in their children
moral virtues as well.
 Parents in this case must provide the necessary
human and spiritual environment where children can
acquire the foundation of culture such as language
and values, justice and religion.
 The family is not only the physical womb through
which children are born, it is also called to be the
spiritual womb through which children nourished by
love and discipline grow towards the fullness of their
humanity.

 AGENT FOR SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
 The family being the basic unit of society
plays a significant role in social
development.

 Being the foundation, it is from the family

that people are born and within the family
that they are first humanized and socialized
by learning the basic values such as love,
respect and justice.
 In Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II cites that the
fundamental contribution of the family in the
development of society is the promotion of an
authentic communion between persons within the
family.

 By living in communion, members learn to exercise the

virtue of justice and solidarity where not only the dignity
of the human person is given importance but the good
of the whole community is promoted as well.

 This very experience of communion and sharing within

the family can therefore serve as a stimulus for broader
community relationships. From this perspective, families
can influence the shaping of a community order
characterized by justice and solidarity.
 the family is the privileged place for
safeguarding the roots of cultural traditions
that have been for the longest time a
heritage for the society.
 It is from the family that people create a
memory by sharing affection, living and
forging a dream together. In a sense family
provides both the individual and the
community as a source of identity and
history.
 Families can also contribute to development by
being agents of economic life.

 They can provide both the human and

professional resources through which production
of goods and services can be facilitated for the
common good of the larger society.

 It is also from this perspective that families can

influence the shaping of a social and ethical
order by exercising the value of work in the spirit
of service and integrity.
AGENT OF EVANGELIZATION

 The family in its unique role as a community

of life and love also partakes in the Church’s
mission of evangelization. Being grafted into
the mystery of the Church, by virtue of the
Sacrament of Baptism and the Sacrament
of Matrimony, husband and wife are called
in a specific way to be witnesses of the
Trinitarian love as a reflection of their
conjugal love.
 As a Domestic Church, the vocation of the husband
and the wife is to be in their conjugal and family life,
a credible and significant sign of the love of God for
humanity and of Christ for the Church.
 The conjugal life of Christians must correspond to the
model of the Great Covenant that has its full and
unequivocal expression in the Cross.
 From this it means that their mission is that of
becoming the privileged manifestation of that
Covenant established in the blood of Christ,
witnessing the Good News to all, so that in the life of
the Christian spouses, Christ continues to give glory to
the Father, calls his Church together in communion
and gives himself for all humanity.
 By being a sign of God’s love for humanity, De
Mesa explains the missionary task of the
Christian families does not only remain within the
confines of its own home, but it must be able to
extend its communion with other communities
as well.
 The Christian family is therefore called to reach
out and build welcoming and inclusive
communities. This is the manner through which
the family is able to concretize solidarity and
practice hospitality.

 Cahill affirms this inclusive dimension of the Christian
family. If the family is a school of intimacy, empathy
and love, then the family as Domestic Church
practices this virtue in consideration to the least of
Christ’s brethren.

 To be one in the family of Christ is to welcome

compassionately those who are suffering within our
reach. The family manifests this compassion when
members feel each other’s pain, resonate with each
other’s sorrow, and strive to lighten each other’s
burdens. Learning to be empathetic with one
another enables the family to reach out with
compassion to the homeless, the oppressed and the
afflicted in the wider human family
 Finally, as a Domestic Church:

 According to John Paul II, the specific role of

the family is to promoters of the Culture of
Life.