Family bond and mission

Ordin­ar­ily, a bond is a con­nec­tion that fastens things togeth­er. In sci­ence, it is an elec­tric­al force link­ing atoms. In our con­text, a bond is a con­nec­tion based on kin­ship, mar­riage or com­mon interest. As a verb, bond means to bring togeth­er in a com­mon cause or emo­tion. There­fore, a fam­ily bond is a strong con­nec­tion between fam­ily mem­bers. Such con­nec­tion cre­ates a strong cohe­sion. Fam­ily cohe­sion has been defined as the emo­tion­al bond­ing that fam­ily mem­bers have toward one anoth­er.^[2] Such fam­ily bond and cohe­sion pro­motes fam­ily sup­port and suc­cess. In this sense then, fam­ily bond or bond­ing is the intense attach­ment that devel­ops between par­ents and their chil­dren. It makes par­ents want to shower their chil­dren with love and affec­tion and to pro­tect and care for them. No doubt, par­ents’ respons­ive­ness (or lack of it) to a child’s sig­nals can affect the infant’s social and cog­nit­ive devel­op­ment. There was a strong bond between Mary, Joseph and their child Jesus. And such bond affected pos­it­ively the life of the child Jesus. Anoth­er reas­on this fam­ily is described as holy fam­ily. In this fam­ily, God was the found­a­tion and the reas­on the mem­bers of this fam­ily lived. What is the found­a­tion of many Chris­ti­an fam­il­ies today? What is the reas­on for their exist­ence? What is the ori­ent­a­tion of their chil­dren? Do par­ents teach their chil­dren obed­i­ence and fear of God or do they just teach them the love of mater­i­al things and world­li­ness? What kind of bond exist between the con­tem­por­ary par­ents and their children?

Conclusion

The bond that exis­ted in the holy fam­ily is the kind of rela­tion­ship that should exit in every fam­ily. A fam­ily where fath­er, moth­er and chil­dren know their respect­ive roles and adhere to it without wait­ing to be reminded, rep­rim­anded or policed about. The chil­dren of this gen­er­a­tion have so much abused free­dom that they are now vic­tims of uncon­trolled free­dom. Cath­ol­ic fam­il­ies should use the occa­sion of the holy fam­ily Sunday to review and reflect on their vari­ous fam­il­ies. Make your fam­ily the best. Remem­ber, the best fam­ily is not neces­sar­ily the richest family.

Both par­ents and chil­dren will bene­fit from spend­ing qual­ity time togeth­er. Chil­dren will auto­mat­ic­ally feel spe­cial when their par­ents spend time with them, or even simple every­day errands can make for a great bond­ing exper­i­ence. There are sev­er­al advant­ages of hav­ing tight bond with your fam­ily. The first one is that a happy couple or par­ents can role mod­el a lov­ing, caring and sup­port­ive rela­tion­ship for their chil­dren. This will be easi­er to teach the chil­dren how to seek out pos­it­ive rela­tion­ships and inter­act well with oth­ers. Again, chil­dren will bene­fit from watch­ing their par­ents work togeth­er to solve prob­lems, hand­ling and sup­port each oth­er. Secondly, chil­dren will per­form bet­ter in all aspects of life, even spir­itu­ally. Chil­dren who do well even in school are those chil­dren who com­mu­nic­ate well with their par­ents. The role of par­ents in the edu­ca­tion and form­a­tion of their chil­dren can nev­er be sub­sti­tuted by any oth­er per­son. Par­ent­al role should nev­er be delegated.

It is unfor­tu­nate that Chris­ti­ans do not know how to edu­cate chil­dren. Chil­dren are giv­en adult edu­ca­tion and are not allowed to behave, speak and act as chil­dren. Chil­dren are meant to wit­ness some fan­at­ic-reli­gious prac­tices which they are not cap­able of digest­ing giv­en their age. What adults should do alone are done in the pres­ence of chil­dren. Even in their tender age, chil­dren are taught to fight the dev­il, fast and wake up at mid-nights all in the name of pray­er. Prac­tices like these are not healthy for chil­dren. As the Book of Eccle­si­ast­es says, there is time for everything. Even in fam­il­ies, hus­bands and wives fight and abuse one anoth­er in the pres­ence of their chil­dren. Do such couples really know the psy­cho­lo­gic­al and mor­al harm they are doing to those chil­dren? If chil­dren are not trained as chil­dren, we should not expect to get a bet­ter soci­ety. There­fore, it is neces­sary that we recon­sider the kind of train­ing we give to chil­dren, the things we do or say before them. chil­dren are God’s bless­ings and con­sol­a­tion to par­ents (cf. First Read­ing), and there­fore, must be prop­erly taken care of.

Once more, happy Christ­mas and rejoice for God loves you. I wish you God’s bless­ings in your vari­ous fam­il­ies. Many fam­il­ies are not in peace because of selfish­ness, dis­obedi­ence, irre­spons­ib­il­ity and insens­it­iv­ity of either the wife, the hus­band or oth­er mem­bers of the fam­ily. As we cel­eb­rate and enjoy the last Sunday of 2018, we can­not but thank God for his good­ness and mercy, and for guid­ing and bless­ing us this year. We thank God for shower­ing His bless­ings on our vari­ous fam­il­ies. Make your fam­ily the best. And to our Cre­at­or we say: Fath­er, help us to live as the holy fam­ily, united in respect, love and care. Show us the value of fam­ily life. Restore peace, love and har­mony to those troubled fam­il­ies. And bring us to the joy and peace of your etern­al home. Amen! Happy Christ­mas and 2019 packed with God’s bless­ings, good health, god­li­ness, suc­cess and hap­pi­ness. Hold firm to your fam­ily bond. Rejoice for God loves you. May God keep water­ing your life and your fam­ily. And may God bless you and your fam­ily. Shalom!

1. Cf. Exod 23:14–17; Deut 16:16. ↑
2. Cf. Olsen-Rus­sell-Spren­kle, 1982. ↑

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