The Time of the Family is NOW

“The spiritual communion between Christian families, rooted in a common faith and hope and given life by love, constitutes an inner energy that generates, spreads, and develops justice, reconciliation, fraternity and peace among human beings.  Insofar as it is a ‘small-scale Church’, the Christian family is called upon, like the ‘large-scale Church’, to be a sign of unity for the world and in this way to exercise its prophetic role by bearing witness to the Kingdom and peace of Christ, towards which the whole world is journeying (Familiaris Consortio, paragraph 48)”.

I must confess that when I first read this section my first thought was not on the family, that “small-scale Church’.  My thoughts went to the magisterium and some proximate failings of recent memory: 

The orthodox priests from the 80’s era who kept their heads down through seminary (until they were ordained and could make a difference), who continued to keep their heads down (until they were a pastor and could make a difference) and who continued to keep their head down (until they were a Bishop… and could presumably make a difference) so that when they judged themselves able to make a difference they no longer had the gumption or ability to speak up and make the change necessary,

The child abuse scandal of 2019 showcasing the Church’s inability (or unwillingness) to admit the ugliness of real life even within itself,

The arbitrary interdict that the US was condemned to at the outbreak and continued presence of the Covid-19 wave, denying healthy communities and infirm the Sacraments that are so essential to life in trying times,

The list goes on.  What did all of these issues have in common?  A focus on behaving a certain way until some nebulous time in the future where it would be more convenient to perform the correct way and fulfill the duties that go along with the office.

I could similarly list issues attacking the family from within, but that is not the point.  Instead, there is a very positive teaching to be had in light of the passage quoted at the beginning from FS: that the time is now.  We worry about orchestrating societal or world wide change, when the love and care of our families is right here in front of us.  The family is where love starts and emanates forth from.  If it is not present in the family, it will never be present in the world.  There will be no time in the future where it will be more appropriate, convenient, or acceptable to perform the responsibilities of love and encounter between family members than this very moment.  As the Church at large must administer the Sacraments at every time, so too the Family must show love and unity among its member at every time.  Only then, from this most foundational unit within the society, will the world be made aware of its errors and return to that desire for love and communion written on the hearts of man.