The family – a school of love

“God who created man out of love also calls him to love—the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.”[11] Given this reality, the aim of the educational mission of parents cannot be other than teaching how to love.
This aim is reinforced by the fact that the family is the only place where persons are loved not for what they possess, or what they know or can produce, but simply for their being members of the family: spouses, parents, children, brothers and sisters. John Paul II’s words are very significant in this regard: “Looking at it in such a way as to reach its very roots, we must say that the essence and role of the family are in the final analysis specified by love . . . Every particular task of the family is an expression and concrete actuation of that fundamental mission.”[12]

Love is not only the aim, but also the animating principle of all education. John Paul II, after outlining the three essential characteristics of the parents’ right and duty to educate their children, concludes: “in addition to these characteristics, it cannot be forgotten that the most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational role of parents, is parental love, which finds fulfillment in the task of education as it completes and perfects its service of life: as well as being a source, the parents’ love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of love.”[13]

Consequently, faced with the “educational emergency” highlighted by Benedict XVI, the first step is to remember once again that the aim and driving force behind all education is love. In the face of the deformed images often given of love today, parents, who are sharers and collaborators in God’s love, have the joyful mission to transmit forcefully the true image of love.

The education of the children is the consequence and continuation of conjugal love itself. Hence the family life which arises as a natural development of the spouses’ love for one another is the appropriate environment for the human and Christian education of children. The mutual love of their parents is the first school of love for the children. Through their parents’ example, children receive from a young age the ability to love truly. This is why the first piece of advice St. Josemaria would give to couples was that they should safeguard and renew each day their affection for one another, since mutual love is what animate and gives cohesion to the whole family.
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“Love each other a lot, for God is very happy when you love each other. And when the years go by—now you are all very young—don’t be afraid. Your love won’t weaken, but rather it will grow stronger. It will even become more ardent, like the affection of your courtship once again.”[14] If there is love between the parents, the children will breathe in an atmosphere of self-giving and generosity, reflected in the parents’ words, gestures and myriad details of loving sacrifice. These are generally very small things, but things a heart in love gives great importance to, and which have an enormous impact on the formation of the children right from their earliest years.

[11] Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1604.

[12] John Paul II, Apostolic Exhort. Familiaris consortio, November 22, 1981, no. 17.

[13] Ibid., no. 36.

[14] Hogares luminosos y alegres, p. 36.

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Published by Mark

Chaplain for the Caribbean Institute for Family Development

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