Friday, July 5, 2019

Meditation ~ Layers of Family

It's hard to understand what Trinitarian life looks like, and that's why God created family. Family is all about a communion of persons who share life together.

Of course, there's our immediate family, but then also extended family, neighbors, colleagues, friends, those who share our ethnicity and/or citizenship. For Catholics, there's membership in the parish and the universal Church (militant, suffering, and triumphant!)

I believe that a life in the Spirit is a life of ever deepening familial relationships. To grow in the Spirit is to grow in intimacy with the Trinity, the family to whom all families point. From that relationship flows a love of every other family in which we participate. God helps us associate definitive happiness with happy relationships. This is to be distinguished from merely being social. Rather, it's about meaningfully giving up ourselves for others, and them doing so for us. If love isn't costly, it isn't really love.

When St. John describes lust of the flesh, eyes, and pride of life, he enumerates the three primary drives that break up families: desire for unmitigated pleasure, wealth, and/or achievement. In contrast, family living creates an ecosystem wherein each person has their own duties and privileges. The family "works" because each person does their role well for the good of all the others.

Typical in the breakdown of families is for leaders to exploit their power, or for those with less authority to envy those in power. Leaders must exercise their power for the good of all. Subordinates must understand that through the leadership of one, the many are served.

Successful living could be defined in terms of successful participation in family life: rightly understanding my duties and doing them, rightly understanding my privileges and enjoying them. We love those we serve, and also those who serve us. The combination of duties and privileges creates interdependency and the deep, purposeful relationships we crave.

No comments:

Post a Comment

On My Delayed Vocation

 2021 was a monumental year for me.... I got engaged, married, pregnant, and gave birth to my beautiful daughter. It was the year when every...