A blessing coming from the parents is the grace of God Himself on your children.
By Adailton Batista
Son: Bless me, father, sleep with God!
Father: May God bless you my son. Sleep with God too.
Son: Amen. Bless me mother, sleep with God. . . Amen. Good night to you all. Amen.
These are, to this day, the last words that are spoken in my house before sleeping.
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Asking the blessing of parents before sleeping or before going on a trip, always was a custom in my family. A necessary value that my parents and grandparents inherited from their ancestors. For many people these attitudes can appear old-fashioned, but for those that have faith, and have a spiritual view over reality, asking the blessing to parents and elderly persons, is much more valuable than asking for a present –for example– “something material”.
The blessing coming from parents is the very grace of God upon their children.
Blessing children is as important as how much education that the parents pass on in teaching good customs. In the document of the Catholic Church on the family, the Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, (FC) John Paul II, says that the parents are called to show to the children , through the testimony of their own lives, the love of God.
“When they become parents, spouses receive from God the gift of a new responsibility. Their parental love is called to become for the children the visible sign of the very love of God, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” (FC #14)
Do you who are the child have the custom of asking a blessing from your parents?
Father and mother, do you sometimes take the initiative of blessing your children before sleeping or before sending them to school? If the answer is no, I invite you to to do it.
Without doubt, the children that learn to ask a blessing of their parents from the earliest days will know how to make the assertive choices in the future
The missionary and assistance telephone technician, Adenilson Lemos de Oliveira, emphasizes that the blessing that he gives to his four children, is not his blessing, but is God’s own grace on his children. “I believe greatly in what I am doing. When I ask that God bless them, I believe piously that God is blessing them.” . . .
With the request “God bless you my son” of a father and mother to a son or daughter comes also the desire that he or she grows being a person of character, a man and a woman of defined identity, filled with values.
- Thiago Camargos, Andrea Taisa e their children: Bento e Matias – photo: personal file
It is a duty and right of the parents to instill in the life of their sons the values and the truth of the human vocation. “The family should form the children for life in the way that each one realizes fully his duty according to the vocation received from God.” affirms the exhortation on number 14.
The founder of the Canção Nova Community, Monsignor Jonas Abib, teaches pedagogically in his preachings and books that the persons that learn things by doing it, performing the task. Father Jonas affirms that one learns forgiveness by forgiving, learning to sing by singing and to love by loving. Therefore, the children from childhood will learn to ask the blessing of their children if their parents take the initiative of giving a blessing to their sons and do so successively.
Let us not prevent ourselves form cultivating this and other values, of our families. Speaking of the importance of the family, to society today is to recognize that peaceful and harmonious living among nations, peoples and individuals marked by individualism and by war demands valuing and investing in the family.
Missionário da Comunidade Canção Nova.