The challenge, call and the Mission today
Genesis 2: 18-24; Hebrew 2: 9-11; Mark 10: 2-16
FAMILY is the basic unit of a holistic humanity, not the individual. Where this fact is gainsaid, we see the genesis of every problem the world is infested with today. The Word today invites us to dwell on this theme of Family. More and more today as a Church and as a world, we are becoming aware of the problems created by side-lining of families, both as an institution and as a communion of hearts.
Listening to Challenges: In a world that is filled with individualism, materialism and consumerism, the family has become an entity that is seen as a hindrance, a block, a burden that slows down one's personal progress towards self-fulfillment. In the Gospel, Jesus underlines the problems of infidelity and unchastity around the reality of marriage. With the increasing numbers of divorce, reducing numbers of marriages, growing justification of co-habitation, newer claims to the nature of marriage, we are called to listen to the times and understand the challenges involved in building a family today.
As a true disciple of Christ, what do you think of Marriage? How do you look at your Family? Listen to yourself... listen to yourself against the background of the Word of God, not just going with the trends of the world. It is important to listen to yourself, because from your thoughts are born your choices!
Discerning Vocations: The First reading highlights an indelible nature of marriage and family. Being a Family or being in a Marriage is a vocation. It is not a phenomenon that happens by default. It has to be a conscious choice, well discerned and taken up with absolute commitment. Discerning Vocations here would underscore the need for persons to make a choice, and the role of the community in helping a person make that choice with ease and seriousness. It would mean also the need of the pastors and those who play that role in some manner or degree, to accompany individuals within this context.
Right now the Synod is on – the synod on synodality. Is it not true that synodality is in simple terms the a spirit of familiarity, the spirit of being one family, with our roles and contributions, rights and privileges clearly understood!
Exploring the Mission of the Family Today: In the second reading we see that the Word reminds us of the most fundamental function of a family: it makes us brothers and sisters in the Lord. Though every person is an individual, each with his or her interests and motives, dreams and vision, desires and ambitions, we are never islands. We are called to live in a family, to begin with and that family is required to become the basic building block of a humanity that is loving, respectful and caring towards everyone else around us. Today a Christian family specially has an enormous responsibility, a mission to accomplish - Evangelisation. To evangelise is to share the love of God to the world today. A family is a lived experience of God's love on a daily basis - to share that love with everyone around and with the world at large is simply what Evangelisation means today.
Specially against the background of war and injustice, exploitation and domination, violence and crime, terrorism and fanaticism, the Christian families have to become beacons that bear out true love and compassion reminding the world of the Lord who is ever present in our midst and the Lord who is madly in love with you and me.