While reading the below email, I began to consider the following:
In Jesus’ time and culture, family ties were sacred and central to one’s identity…
I feel, that by in large, this aspect of family has been lost in today's culture. Family has taken on the stigma of disfunction, and of avoidance. Family takes a back seat to social indulgences. The drive for work place success and recognition pulls families to the four corners of the country and in some cases the world. The allure and noise of social media demands our attention. We answer the call to be active and to be involved without giving consideration to the source of the call. We give little or no thought to the value to self or family and even the greater community of that arbitrary and often anonymous call. We feel the pull to be heard, to tell “my truth”, to be seen and to be accepted. But at what price? Abandonment of principles, of values, of spiritual grace, of our family and of the Mystical Family of God, our identity?
Matthew 7:13-14 we read
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Much of the noise and allure of current society leads us down the path to the wide gate. This path draws us away from much of our upbringing. It calls for celebration of self, defines success and the meaning of life in terms of career, creature comforts and temporal things. We are being asked to abandon family in pursuit of self. We are being taught that love is fleeting. That beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That opinion is truth. All of which are contrary to The Way, The Truth and The Life.
In the book, The Art of Praying, by Romano Guardini, we read:
We should also take before God everything that concerns the community as a whole: the events of the current history, the needs of the people, the sorrows of the age. Everyone is responsible for the whole of human existence.
It is my prayer for you, my family and my community that we each strive for and find that narrow gate.
Send Comments: boniface@oblate.info