The family and the new evangelization

AS we enter into the conclusion of the Year of Faith, it’s good to bring out to the fore again the primordial duty of the family, especially the parents, to help inculcate and spread the faith to the children and other people.

We all know how basic and indispensable the family is in the education and formation of children. We don’t call the family the “domestic Church” and the “first school” for nothing.

Before anything else, it’s the family where the first frontline in the battle for educating the children takes place. It’s really important for the parents to realize this duty deeply and to acquire the necessary skills relevant to the task.

As parents, they don’t only bring children to life. They also need to bring them up, making them authentic persons who know how to think and love, and how to behave not only as dutiful children and citizens of society, but also and most especially as children of God.

That’s why parents are the first teachers to their children. They are most responsible in laying the foundations of the children’s formation. Hopefully the foundations will be a living one capable of growth and development toward true human and Christian perfection.

We have to understand that while we are now talking a lot about new evangelization, we should realize that before we think in terms of evangelizing the world, we first have to think of how to effectively evangelize the family.

Any effort to evangelize the world would have no leg to stand on if we ignore the basic duty to evangelize the family. And the family has to be evangelized first before it can be an evangelizer, an active and effective agent in the transmission of the faith.

That’s why parents have to realize that they are always in need of continuing formation themselves. Formation actually never ends. It’s coterminous with life itself. Parents therefore should hone this awareness of their duty for continuing formation, going beyond simply taking care of the material needs of the children.

In this regard, it’s important that parents should continually give doctrine of our faith to their children, with gift of tongue, with proper timing and skill to adapt things to the mentality of the children. It should be done in such a way that the children get to enjoy such talks, conversations and dialogues.

They should be able to show to the children, more through their example than through words, how exciting an adventure it is to really deal with God through the mastery of the doctrine, the recourse to the sacraments, the development of virtues, the waging of the ascetical struggle, etc.

Children always look for fun, and we have to convince them that there is actually more fun and more adventure when we take God seriously, not only in our thoughts and feelings, but also in our actions.

We have to put this truth as visible as possible, going beyond intentions and in words. Parents should see to it that their reactions to their daily challenges are infused with true faith and trust in God. This is how the children will learn how to react to changing situations with faith and trust in God also, without neglecting the human means.

We have to alert the children of the difficulties to expect, the dangers and the possible failures as well, but always putting them in the right place in the economy of our faith where all these things have their respective roles to play. We have to reassure them that as long as we are with God, everything will always work out for the good.

That’s why it is important that parents really spend time with their children, and get down to the task of knowing them to the extent that they become familiar with their children’s thoughts and feelings and desires, etc. They should know their children’s strengths and weaknesses to be able to help them effectively.

Parents should be adept in making and following a plan of formation for their children. This should not be taken for granted. This is a serious duty that has become more urgent considering the current conditions of the world.

That’s why parents should also look into how they can more or less professionalize their parenting, putting more science and art into it than just sheer reliance on the so-called what-comes-naturally attitude.

They can form a parents’ organization where the different issues involved in their duties are adequately discussed. I would say this is a concrete contribution to the new evangelization.