I’m working very hard and we’ll soon be rich,” said an ambitious businessman to his wife. She replied, “I am already rich. I have you and our children.” Where does our family fortune lie? In some bank? In the property we own? Or in arms that embrace us and our children’s laughter that lights up our lives? These days, while Christian representatives discuss and discern Family Life in Rome, let’s reflect on our own families at home.
The Bible is full of family stories: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Isaac and Jacob. Here, family includes a whole clan — like the traditional Indian joint family rather than the nuclear family more common in today’s world. Family is the basic unit into which God has put human beings and the channel through which God blesses them. Each family narrative bespeaks joys and sorrows, hopes and frustrations. Bible family stories also tell of betrayal, lust and murder. King David, for example, was God’s choice to be the ruler. Though David initially showed great promise, he seduced a woman, Bathsheba, got her pregnant and then sent her husband, Uriah, to the battlefront to be slain. David later repents and allegedly authored some poignant penitentiary psalms: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new spirit within me!”
Last Sunday, Pope Francis said to families assembled at St. Peter’s Square: “Let’s untie the knots which prevent us from encountering one another, heal the wounds that bleed, and rekindle hope.”
On October 11, we will celebrate UN’s International Day of the Girl Child. The life of our little sisters, daughters in our kutumbakam is threatened; their growth stifled. Let’s protect and promote vulnerable lives all around us at home and hope that family life discussions in Rome will be fruitful. Treasuring our family first, as if it’s our whole world, will make us aware that the whole world is our family. Aren’t we really rich?
Thank God for family fortune!
