Families, “eradicate the darkness in your homes”, says Cardinal Rivera

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 4, 2008 / 13:21 pm

The Archbishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, said this week “the good of the person and of society is intimately linked to healthy families,” and therefore the Church “is committed to defending and promoting natural dignity and the exalted value of marriage and the family.”

During Mass on Sunday, when Mexico celebrated the Day of the Family, the cardinal said, “It is with sadness that we discover that in a society with so much communication, that isolation and individualism can be terrible illnesses in family life.”

“Instead of living connected amongst ourselves, we live connected to the gadgets that technology offers us and instead of having our hearts open to communication with others, we have it blocked, like [we are] saturated, by so many things that take us away from the people that we should love,” he emphasized.

In response to this situation, Cardinal Rivera invited the faithful to “reflect on the darkness that may be present in our homes in order to get to work in eradicating it,” adding that while experts on the family “provide techniques for improving inter-familial relations,” there is “one area nobody can reach.”
 
“It is the area of sin.  When the family is touched by sin, a good therapist or self-help book is not enough.  The presence of Jesus Christ in the midst of the family is needed in order to things to move forward,” he said.

After noting that sin is selfishness, arrogance, the lack of charity and respect between spouses, negligence in the transmission of the faith and Christian values from parents to children, the cardinal recalled that “Christian spouses have the sacrament of marriage which, with the presence of the Lord in the midst of their relationship, can overcome the sin and evil that because of human fragility is present in the home.”

Bishop Jose Isidro Guerrero Macias of Mexicali also expressed his concern about the well-being of the family and called on lawmakers to propose laws in favor of the family, since it is there that people “experience the love of God, as there is no other love that is more tender and strong than that of the parents for their children and vice versa,” he said.

Archbishop Rafael Romo Muñoz of Tijuana said that for the Church, the family is one of the top priorities and that when a family breaks up it is because of “faults that involve all of society.”

“The family is the highest value, but because of self-interests it gets distorted,” he said. We must “respect it, bless it, promote it and defend it,” the archbishop stressed.