The Necessary Heroism of Daily Family Life

“Love is love”, as the saying goes.  But as is so often the case in a post-modern world, cliches attempting to elicit some universal and simple precept are hijacked and twisted to fill the isolating void which is the nightmare of a world recreated in the image of man.  That “love is love” is indeed true, with simple practicality should not be a matter for discussion, and yet it is.  It is just one more way in which the world tries to undermine the unshakeable foundation of society: the family.  The nuclear family remains the foundation and smallest unit of society, for within it parents find themselves with a task as unique as their own love for each other: “The ministry carried out by Christian parents is original and irreplaceable.  It assumes the characteristics typical of family life itself, which should be interwoven with love, simplicity, practicality, and daily witness (Familiaris Consortio, paragraph 53)”.  Out of the charge of parents to fulfill their ministry of education to their children with the fourfold characteristics of love, simplicity, practicality, and daily witness, the hardest of these is the faithfulness required of the daily witness.

One of the reasons that marriage is the foundational unit of society is the reality that our environments and actions help shape the realization of Anamnesis within the soul, that voice of conscience which beckons to the individual at the core of his soul to seek God in the unique unrepeatable way God wants to be known by that individual.  This itself is the defining point of individuality and personhood, of identity.  The family’s main role is education of the members and especially the children, a role aimed not at filling so many buckets with facts but at true formation of the person.  Since our environments help shape the person, education takes shape not only in the form of formal education but also in that immediate experience of love and acceptance held by the family members.  Individual identity is lost when it is left to the exposures of the world: we lose ourselves when we lose sight of our true happiness, God.  Since we only have an identity such that we are able to form and is formed through our environment, the environment should be one aimed at the Chief Good, and a recognition of the individual person on a fundamental level.  There is no identity without some sense of family, either biological or by convention.

Lofty words, much harder to realize on a daily basis.  Love turns to frustration, simplicity turns to complex inter-personal politics, and practicality rooted in reality gives way to emotion and theory.  The level of commitment and constant renewal of the gift of self required to provide a daily witness of the dignity due to human life is immense, and easily deteriorates under the natural course of time in a fallen world, especially when confronted with the realities of seeing human life under every circumstance.  It is a heroic task, but a task which truly makes the family the smallest unit of society.  Only a society that can encounter human life under the strain of real life and continue to uphold the love and personal encounter which the human person demands will ever be a society capable of justice and compassion.