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Fr. Leo Pabayo .

THE family lives the life of the Holy Trinity in the world. It is the life of the Holy Trinity that we share that makes a family. The life of the family is always relational or is meant to be relational. The family is a family because father and mother are related to each other in love. The children come from their parents as the product of the expressions of the parents’ love for each other. And when a child is conceived and born from them the love of the parents’ that goes to the child and their joy knows no bounds.

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A mother once said to a priest, “Father, you do not know what it means to have a son.” The love that was generated in her life by having a son totally changed her life. If it was needed she was willing to give up her being a very successful executive to attend to her child. The son was the product of the love between that woman and her husband. The meeting between the woman and her husband gave rise to a love for each other. This love gave birth to new life that makes for more love. This is so much like the explanation of theologians about the Holy Trinity.

The meeting of people or their relationships is meant to evoke love after the pattern of the life of the Holy Trinity. Barring sin, love is evoked. Love is born because of the goodness, truth and beauty that they see in each other. This is very true in the meeting of a man and a woman where love is born or who fall in love with each other. This relationship of love becomes, creates and gives rise to new life in various ways, first, in themselves in making them happier, more trusting in life, more hopeful in time of adversity, more patient and loving, etc.. This new life that they discover in the relationship, make them willing to give up all other things to keep this.

This new life is more fully realized when they raise a family. By committing themselves to each other in marriage the couple’s love for each other bear fruit in children. The arrival of children, takes their love life and happiness to a new level, a higher level and becoming more unselfish and Christ-like. Their only motive and reward now for their work is their love for their children. When the love is reciprocated by the children the family becomes more loving and happier.

They are able to have this family where they can find the greatest joy in their life. This is so, partly because because they are sexual beings. Thus sexuality ought to be seen in this context to understand its real meaning. This family is the meaning and highest purpose of human sexuality.

The family members naturally love each other. Thus they grow and develop in the life of God the Holy Trinity. The doctrine on the Holy Trinity therefore is also telling us that the fullest realization of human wholeness on earth is found in raising a family. What does this mean in the day to day life? Or how do we see this in practical life? I believe that the following quote about the natural family gives us a down to earth understanding of it.

“Families–those great roystering messes of praise and poop, panic and pleasure–give flesh to the vision of the Trinity in the lovely, painful and beautiful expression of real human beings living out the gospel under grace. They are icons, windows on to a miracle. In their faces, we see the first face of Christ we will ever meet. By them, we are enrolled in the primal school of charity. Under their fumbling caresses and awkward disciplines, we are introduced to the touch of God’s own hand. From them, we learn our names and discover that we are not Wards of the State, Slaves of the Corporation or Rugged Individuals but sons and daughters called into the life of the Blessed Trinity with a name we can honor, a home we can love and an eternity we can rejoice in.” (Mark P. Shea, “Family as the Icon of the Holy Trinity”)

When we talk about family we usually mean this natural family that we all were raised in. However, we also speak of family in a wider sense. In this wider sense, it is the natural family that is the pattern of the relationships that should obtain. It is in the natural family where we learn first how we ought to relate to one another in the larger society.

So, the meaning of family is not limited to the natural family. Man is called to create a family in the various sense of the word. The relationship in an association whose members are bound by love and by a common cause, the relationship in a brotherhood, or sisterhood in religious or lay associations, the basic ecclesial communities, etc…. are best when they have the spirit of the family. The fullest meaning of family is the Church.

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