FAMILY

a) Importance of the Family
b) Marital love
c) Engagement
d) Marriage
e) Parents
f) Children
g) Grandparents
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a) Importance of the Family

        In the beginning, God saw that it wasn’t good for man to live alone. So he decided to give man adequate help, so that he could grow together with another person and multiply. Ever since then, man has left his father and his mother and he has united with his wife, both becoming one flesh.

        And in this world, we can speak about 3 social levels:

-state. This is made up of the destiny unit, and through it we all help to enrich each other through our diversity and common wealth;
-city. This is made up of the earth unit and through this we share the same ideals and groupings;
-family. This
is made up of the blood unit, and through this we transmit our love and care to the new generations.

        The most important social layer is the family. It is the base for the other two.

b) Marital love

        This is about loving your loved one and all that is his/hers. It continues developing, and we give our whole life and death for him/her. Love between a husband and wife involves:

-living with your spouse, maturing in our affection and psychologically, sharing common joys and sorrows, trying to achieve the most intense moments together;

-paternal responsibility, the family nucleus and atmosphere, and growing in a natural way (and never through artificial methods), for example the number of children we have, their education nourishment and future.

c) Engagement

        This is the first step in building a family. It’s a time for preparation (between 5 and 11 years) in which the future married couple should get to know and complement each other, to start forming this one flesh.

        This is about maturing in our marital love, loving each other cleanly and generously. It is made up of 3 steps:

-falling in love. This is the love at first sight, the intuition that the other person is meant for me and that there can be no other, and that he/she feels the same. This is the sentimental part;

-stabilization. This is when a man and a woman go out together, speaking, getting to know each other’s families and habits, giving up certain things and other people to give themselves to the other person more and more. This is the rational part;

-wedding. This is the definitive union of the two lives and the beginning of new lives, future and circumstances. This is the union of the sentimental and rational parts.

d) Marriage

        This is the natural form of coexisting on this earth, since it is:

-to procreate on earth (the eternal law),
-because of the attraction between a man and a woman (the nature law),
-for mankind to experience greater happiness (the human law),
-for the proper upbringing of their children (the Christian law).

        A natural marriage is, thus:

-unity: both the man and the woman together,
-indissolubility: forever,
-f
ertility:
with as many children as God wants for us.

        So marriage, of course, excludes any type of artificial method or family "experiments" (3 men with 2 women, 1 man with 0 women, a man with another man…), as well as anything that may attack the family institution.

e) Parents

        These are the most important members of the family institution. They are the family founders and they are the ones in charge of whether it works well or not. They are also the ones that receive the necessary grace from God to carry out this difficult task.

        Parents must:

-juggle their work and family, timetables and housework, colleagues and wives, holidays and punctuality…
-bring up their children, feed
them, correct their mistakes, teach values, and guide them to have careers…

        All of this must be done freely. Parents must love their children more than themselves.

f) Children

        The gospel tells us that Jesus, although he is God, was under Mary and Joseph’s care. He grew up in physical stature, wisdom and in grace before God and before men.

        In the future, our children will be good parents only if they have been good children, and they will found a home similar to what they have grown up in.

        Children must:

-finish their studies, reach some professional training, a professional project, some sort of intellectual culture…
-obey their parents, lov
e them, be grateful to them, and learn from their orders and from their lessons in life…

g) Grandparents

        They are the last component to the family nucleus. They bring together all of the branches of the family and guide the parents with their wisdom and experience. They should also take care of their grandchildren and show them love and tenderness.

        As grandparents they must:

-unite the family, by sharing their knowledge and history to each and every member of the family,
-transmitting love and care to the new members, to all o
f the newborns until they get married themselves.

        Parents and children also have an obligation towards the grandparents. They must respect them and take care of them, whether they are old, sick or alone, and not to egotistically take them to homes for the aged because they have become nuisances.

 

Mercaba Eds 
Diocese of Cartagena-Murcia 
General Diagram of Mercaba's You
th Catechism