In these times in which the society and the media have presented other models of family, we Christians need to be conscious and committed to what is the true model of family that God created.

What is the position that the family occupies in the plan of God’s creation? “A man and a woman that marry constitute a family with their children. God wants that as much as possible, the children are born from the love of the parents. The children, entrusted to the protection and the care of their children, have the same dignity as they do.” (cf YOUCAT § 368)

The best way of combatting the wrong ideas of the family is to announce that which is true what the family is according to the original project of God, with its base in the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred Tradition and in the Magisterium of the Church.

It is in the family that the boy, as my grandfather used to say- looking to the life of his father, with his attitudes and words, learns to be man in the future. As also it is in the family cradle that the woman-mother looking to the life of her mother, with all that she is doing, learns to be woman.

Unfortunately, the actual scene of secular TVs through the soap operas and reality programming has shown and instilled in the minds of so many youth and children the ideology that is is normal and natural for the father  to leave the mother and be with another woman. that it is normal for men to dress in woman’s clothing and behave the opposite way. The true is that these behaviors are anti-natural and completely contrary to the plan of God for the Man.

The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God, and make good use of freedom. (cf CIC 2207)

It makes it necessary to put rules and  limits on what children should and should not attend, hear and read Without rules and limits no project arrives at is original end. If the parents will not assume the time in which the sons remain in front of the TV watching dramas, to dialog and teach their children the values, the truth and the justice, more and more our families are going to deteriorate.

Benedict XVI says that “The family is a necessary good for the people, a fundamental, indispensable, for the society and a great treasure of the spouses during their whole life. It is an unsubstitutable good for sons, that they may be fruit of love, of the total giving and generosity of the parents.

That each one of us can value our families and be aware of the importance of the parents to be present in the life of their sons. Perhaps you may be asking yourself: and those that have no family? That are born of an unwanted pregnancy or of a relationship before marriage? W cannot deny – it is a reality that we face day by day in our country – what do we say to  them?

God in his Divine Providence will be responsible for the caring and the forming of these chidlren. He is the Father who forsakes no one. But it falls to each one of us to do our part, including welcoming these mothers and children in various ways and projects that he Church offers.

What is more important is to know that the family is project and  design of God, and He cares, loves and exhorts through Church itself that is each one of us!

God Bless You!

Adailton Batista.

Translated from Portuguese