The Happy Spiritual Family
The Happy Spiritual Family
On the occasion of the Feast of the Family, I would like today to speak to you about the happy spiritual family: how it is formed, what its social and spiritual pillars are, and what its sound foundations are.
The Happy Spiritual Family
The family, in its narrow sense, is two spouses and perhaps children. In its broader sense, it is a large family that includes smaller families branching from it. In an even broader sense, it includes the entire Church or the entire homeland, and in its complete sense it includes all humanity.
The first quality that the family must possess is love.
A family that loses love is a fragile and shaken family.
Love begins before the formation of the family, from the period of engagement or even before it, just as Jacob loved Rachel and married her in a marriage that was entirely love.
By love I mean friendship, affection, compassion, and harmony of hearts—not emotional or sexual frivolity. Upon affection the family is founded.
Unfortunately, sometimes the engagement period is merely a time for financial agreements regarding furniture, the celebration, clothing, dates, and the apartment, with some entertainment, while the engaged couple forget to build a relationship of friendship, affection, and understanding.
If love exists between the spouses, it can exist among the children as well.
But if children find problems between their parents—various forms of quarrels, insults, or disputes—this gives them a bad impression of marriage and family life, and may repel them from marriage or frighten them of it, or at least make them seek an escape from that particular family.
Love within the family should be equal, without favoritism.
Do you not know how Joseph the Righteous, when his father gave him a multicolored tunic in his childhood, aroused the jealousy and hatred of his brothers, and they plotted troubles for him? And you also know that other problems occurred when love was divided between two saintly spouses: Isaac loved Esau, and Rebekah loved Jacob, and the matter ended with Esau saying, “I will arise and kill Jacob my brother.”
Just as parents love their children equally, equality in love should also exist among the other members of the family—such as balance in love between the wife and the mother, or balance in love between the relatives of the husband and those of the wife.
If, for example, a conflict occurs between spouses and favoritism begins, with one group siding with this one and another group with that one, division then begins within the family.
There must be comprehensive love, complete and just love for all—a love that embraces everyone within it, without distinction.
The danger is that some family members, if they do not find love within the family, may search for love outside it, and deviations may occur.
If the wife does not give her husband sufficient love, he may seek this love outside the home—with friends at a café, at a club, in an association, or in entertainments. Likewise, the wife may search for love with her mother or in her father’s house.
The family is supposed to provide fulfillment of love for all its members—a pure, deep, sincere, serious, and practical love that does not require anything else.
A balanced person who is satisfied with love at home is not easily led astray outside. Even if he is attacked by certain emotions, they remain light and do not crush him or dominate all his feelings.
The happy family derives its happiness from love, and also from mutual understanding.
Understanding requires knowledge, wisdom, and goodness of heart. Some people try to treat mistakes with violence, with agitated nerves, with insults, rebukes, anger, destruction, threats, and quarrels—rather than treating mistakes through understanding.
The person who understands is one with a great heart.
As for the one who becomes angry, he is a person of little resourcefulness. Anyone in the world can become angry and raise his voice—even children.
But the great-hearted person is able to understand and to contain others.
My advice to every family is not to solve its problems with nerves.
The happy family does not solve its problems with nerves, nor with authority.
Treat your children with a spirit of friendship and understanding, not with a spirit of authority.
The father and mother speak to their children from a position of authority, and likewise the husband with his wife, and similarly the older brother with his brothers and sisters.
The worst aspect of authority is when it interferes in very personal matters.
Such as when a mother forces her daughter to marry her cousin, or a father forces his son to marry his cousin—each wanting to marry his children to his own relatives, regardless of compatibility or satisfaction in that marriage—with threats of cutting off inheritance, or threats of not paying for furniture and wedding expenses.
Scripture says: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord” (Eph. 6:1), and it also says: “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Col. 3:21).
Do not force your children in their personal matters, and do not burden their consciences in the name of obedience, for God Himself does not do this. God gives us commandments, but He does not force us forcibly to carry them out.
You may advise your son or daughter with what you see as good for him or her, but you do not have the right to use authority in everything and compel them by force, then accuse them of disobedience.
Be a friend to your child in a way that makes him open his heart to you with everything inside him, without embarrassment and without fear, listening to your advice in a spirit of benefit, discussing in order to understand and be convinced, and then to act.
But the father who deals with a spirit of authority—commands and prohibitions, and refusal of discussion—pushes his son toward fear, or lying, or behaving one way at home and another way outside.
Why does the child not deal with his father as he deals with his teacher in Sunday School? Why does he not confide in him? Why does he not seek his guidance?
Either because he does not trust his spirituality and guidance, or because he fears his authority, or because he fears due to previous experiences with him in using prohibition by command—even from church, service, or fasting.
Methods of pressure and repression in the family atmosphere do not produce results.
It is not good to erase the personalities of children, or to disable their independent thinking, or to deprive them of the opportunity to experience right and wrong—within limits—and thus deprive them of learning life under guidance and direction.
Sometimes one of the causes of family failure is the absence of personal freedom—not only for the young, but for adults as well.
A wife may hold her husband accountable for his comings and goings and his schedules, interrogating him harshly if he is late even a little, as though putting him on trial. The man then feels that through marriage he has lost his personal freedom or has come under surveillance. This may also happen to the woman; when she feels that she has completely lost her freedom in marriage, her psyche becomes burdened.
Understanding, agreement, and openness are acceptable, but constant interrogation is not.
Another thing that destroys family life is an atmosphere of gloom.
The husband wants to come home and find rest, cheerfulness, and love that make him forget the troubles of life and work. But if he finds gloom, sadness, frowns, interrogation, crying, and quarrels, he finds no pleasure in staying long at home, and the family begins to disintegrate.
Therefore, keep your cheerfulness and your smile always. Keep your features bright and radiant. Some problems can be solved with a humorous word or a kind phrase, with a cheerful spirit, far from hurtful words, and with a spirit of respect for all, young and old alike. We say this because some think that respect within the family atmosphere is a form of formality.
If only the first gift you present on the Feast of the Family would be a bouquet of love, kind words, and gentle, courteous expressions.
Another point I wish to draw attention to is the spirituality of the family.
Have you fulfilled the role of the godparent in the family toward your children?
You received your children from the Church clothed in white garments on the day of baptism, a symbol of the purity of the new life, considering the soul as a bride of Christ, as the Apostle said: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27).
Have you preserved the purity of your children? Have you taught them the fear of God and His love? Have you taught them verses from Scripture, hymns, and chants? Have you taught them prayer and trained them to be steadfast in attending church and receiving communion? Have they found in the home a spiritual life and an example in every virtue?
Has the saying been fulfilled in you: “the church that is in your house” (Philem. 1:2)?
This is not only with regard to the children, but also to the spouses.
Do you live together a shared spiritual life? Do you pray together? Do you have shared reading in Scripture and in the lives of the saints with your children?
Do your children grow up in this spiritual environment and see in you the spirit of true faith? Or do you neglect the upbringing of your children, then complain about them later, and the saying of one of the saints applies to you: “Discipline the young before they discipline you.”
We are not speaking only about the happiness of the family, but first of all about the holiness of the family. This holiness is the source of its happiness.
Here I would like to ask: what is the place of God in your family?
Are there spiritual principles that govern the relationships among family members? Does the home have shared prayers that instill reverence in the soul if a cause for conflict arises? Do the entertainments of the home have a spiritual character or a worldly one?
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