P R A Y I N G W I T H T H E C H U R C H
|
INTENTION : |
That young people who are searching for the sense of life may be understood, respected and accompanied with patience and love.
|
The family is the fundamental and essential educating community, privileged with the means of transmitting the religious and cultural values which help the person acquire his or her own identity. Their task is to train their children to respect the dignity of every person and accompany them in their search for meaning in life.
This search for a sense of life is an ongoing patient process accomplished with much patience, understanding and love by parents primarily. These religious and cultural values, more than being 'taught', must be lived and witnessed in a family setting. The domestic virtues, based upon a profound respect for human life and dignity, with enormous understanding, patience, mutual encouragement and forgiveness, enable the family to live out that self-giving love which is capable of accepting those who are different and allowing them to share in its own benefits.
Outside of this context of affectionate relationships and fruitful mutual solidarity young persons experience life as incomprehensible and senseless. If they do not experience love and make it their own they lose the meaning and sense of life. This love is not a fleeting emotion, but an intense and enduring moral force which seeks the good of others, even at the cost of self-sacrifice. The family which lives this love, becomes the primary agent in preparing and accompanying youth to face the future.
|
|
