The Holy Father speaks in Croatia.
.
Yesterday morning the neighbors prepared for their son's graduation party. They moved in shortly after I moved into this house, so I watched the kids grow up. They are a wonderful family and the boys well behaved. Interestingly enough, they rarely go to church on Sunday. I know the boys were confirmed in the Lutheran church - yet there is hardly a Sunday anyone attends church. My sister's family is the same way, as are many American families, Catholic or Protestant. People fail to realize the worship that is due to God on Sundays, but more seriously, their indifference to the Sunday obligation reveals a certain secularism, a compartmentalizing of religion. Such attitudes affect societal morals and values far more than they realize or understand.
.
That said, I think the Holy Father's words in Zagreb are important for all families to listen to and to put into practice.
.
"Be courageous!"
.
In today's society the presence of exemplary Christian families is more necessary and urgent than ever. Unfortunately, we are forced to acknowledge the spread of a secularization which leads to the exclusion of God from life and the increasing disintegration of the family, especially in Europe. Freedom without commitment to the truth is made into an absolute, and individual well-being through the consumption of material goods and transient experiences is cultivated as an ideal, obscuring the quality of interpersonal relations and deeper human values; love is reduced to sentimental emotion and to the gratification of instinctive impulses, without a commitment to build lasting bonds of reciprocal belonging and without openness to life. We are called to oppose such a mentality!
.
Alongside what the Church says, the testimony and commitment of the Christian family - your concrete testimony - is very important, especially when you affirm the inviolability of human life from conception until natural death, the singular and irreplaceable value of the family founded upon matrimony and the need for legislation which supports families in the task of giving birth to children and educating them. Dear families, be courageous! Do not give in to that secularized mentality which proposes living together as a preparation, or even a substitute for marriage! Show by the witness of your lives that it is possible, like Christ, to love without reserve, and do not be afraid to make a commitment to another person! - Catholic Online
