The FAMILY IS WHERE HUMAN VALUES BEGIN

(Homily delivered by His Eminence Gaudencio B. Cardinal Rosales, D.D., at the Mass on January 10, 2007, the second day of the International Conference on Challenges of Bio-technology on human life and family hosted by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines at the Edsa Shangri-la Hotel in Mandaluyong City.)

Value and Life

In the matter of values, the best gauge is to examine what one holds as dear (costly). But it goes without saying that there will be a set of values for every agreed interest. This could easily include the value tied to an effort, an object or a person. The value holder could be a group or the individual person. When professional concerns are considered, the teacher will naturally hold on to a different set of values from that of a businessman.

However, there are values that are highest in the scale, and they are common to all, whatever the interest may be involved. Values that are directly linked to life will always be great values.

The closer the interest is to the Divine Plan, the easier can a person appreciate its value or worth to self. Evangelization, for example, as the proclamation of the Kingdom of God is so important “that, by comparison, everything else becomes ‘the rest,’ which is ‘given in addition.’ Only the Kingdom, therefore, is absolute and it makes everything else relative.” (EN 8). Since the kingdom of God admits that in it (in the Kingdom) God has no rival, no equal and no competitor and that the love that reigns in it has freed humans, in and through Christ, from everything that has enslaved them, including liberation from sin and the Evil one, it (the Kingdom of God) cannot, therefore, be subject to anything higher than itself. Simply put, there is nothing higher that the Transcendent. But that measure of worth, indisputable to anyone, is in relation only to God.

Basis of Human Values

What if the question is about humans? What scale of values should be offered to them? No less than our Lord Jesus Christ presented the question in fundamental human values when He asked, “What, then, will anyone gain by winning the whole world but forfeiting his life? Or what can anyone offer in exchange for his life?” (Mt 16:26). For humans, then, the highest value is life. It is in their human life where men and women resemble God. “Let us make humans in our image, in the likeness of ourselves …” God said. (Gen 1:26). In the old Covenant, Yahweh demanded an accounting of life when he said, “Of man as regards his fellow men, I shall demand account for human life. He who sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God was man created.” (Gen 9:5-6).

Again the reminder is directed when the late Pope John Paul II in the Document Evangelium Vitae said, “Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the ‘creative action of God,’ and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end; no one can, in any circumstance, claim for himself the right to destroy directly an innocent human being.” (EV 53).

The value attached to life is a value given to the entire life of the human being. The critical defense of the yet unborn life and compassionate care of the elderly does not at all mean that our commitment to guard and assure the more human existence of the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the marginalized by the growing culture of uncaring wealth and consumerism, those victimized by power and vice – has waned and become only secondary concerns to the first.

It is obvious that in our reckoning, any valuation that could be linked with life or is posited next to life or equated with life must be of great value. The closer to life, the greater the value. Equated with life, the greatest value.

Family: Where Values Are Nurtured.

Value-worth is linked necessarily with life. The family then which is the cradle of human life necessarily becomes the nurturing ground for correct values. Life is first shared and is continuously sustained in the family. But it is also in the family that relationships are born; and when a person, young or matured, becomes aware of relationship, correlation and dependency, then s/he learns what a person or thing is worth (to him/her).

Does he or she create the values? (We will have to address that question later in the paper.)

Kinship plays a great role in the development of values. It is no small wonder that the young are endeared to persons who loved and cared for and smiled at them in childhood. Such appreciation and worth were stored up from the experience of every person’s childhood within the family. For this reason the family rightly called “a kind of school of deeper humanity… if it is to achieve the full flowering of its life and mission, it needs the kindly communion of minds and the joint deliberation of spouses of their children.” (GS 52). The family is a domestic school for human enrichment for it is here where under the tutelage of parents and elders the individual person is encouraged, helped and accompanied to freely and responsibly practice (whatever is) the good.

A Potential for God in every Person

There is then in every person the potential for good. When this potential, with the encouragement and guidance of parents and elders, is developed and becomes a habitual and firm disposition for good, disposing the intellect and the will and guides one’s conduct according to reason and faith, it is called virtue (CCC 1833, 1834). In the task of training the person to goodness, it is next to impossible to replace the role of parents who, beyond affection, looks at the young as flesh of their flesh, blood from their blood. Of parents and family this is what Vatican II states: “As it is the parents who have given life to their children, on them lies the gravest obligation of educating their family. They must therefore be recognized as being primarily and principally responsible for their education. The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide and adequate substitute.” (GE 3).

In the education to virtue and value the best parental teaching tool is good example. When there is an abundance of good example in the home, hardly is there a need for prolonged and wordy reminders. On the power of good example, our Lord Jesus Christ had this to say: “In the same way your light must shine in people’s sight, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in Heaven.” (Mt 4:16). Examples in the home linger longer than the echoes of repeated counsels. And it was the Chinese sage who once said, “From the loving example of a family, a whole nation may become loving and compassionate; from the ambition and lust of one man, the whole country may be thrown into rebellion. Such is the nature of good example.” (Confucius). How true the saying is that example speaks louder than words. (The saying of St. Francis of Assisi.)

Freedom Enhanced by the Mastery of Self.

A strong will, further reinforced by discipline, comes in next in the list of tools parents may use to instill values among the young. Repeated acts lead to virtue; but values are defended by restraint and discipline. Here is where the experience of parents comes in as inspiration to the children. Or as the Book of Proverbs reminds, “. . . the precept is a lamp, the teaching is a light; correction and discipline are the way of life.” (Proverbs 6:23). Elders ever remind the young of the need for mastery over self because there is no such thing as absolute freedom before a choice between good and bad, between God and what is evil. "The more one does good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin.” So the teaching of the Church says, (CCC 1733). And thus the parents will teach their children.

It is true that humans are free but their freedom must stop before the moral law given by God. Law must not be seen as in conflict with, or restricting freedom, nor freedom ought to be considered as forever grappling with the law. The truth is that “human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfillment precisely in the acceptance of that law … God’s law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom; rather, it protects and promotes that freedom (SV 35).

In the family young people are taught to appreciate restraint and are encouraged to practice self-discipline. If parents can talk of making personal sacrifice for the needs of the family, or doing difficult things because of concern for others, then they also can and must elevate motivation and include the love of God when mastery of self is also called for.

No matter how true it is that values begin in the family, still the family does not create values. Truth and goodness, love, honesty and compassion, these are not made in the home. Not even one’s wish or freedom can create values. (SV 35). Like gold that is discovered, mined (dug from the bowels of the earth) and then purified through fire, truth and goodness, love, honesty and compassion, simplicity and humility and the rest of the virtues are discovered, discerned, enhanced and encouragingly practiced in the family. In Christian families values are encouraged to surface, to develop and to be lived by members mutually supporting each other.

Conversations, stories and experiences are interestingly exchanged and shared in the home making possible personal and family commitment to virtues. This is the reason why we say that values rightly begin to be discovered primarily and only in the family, because in the family admonitions and reminders, examples and models, weaknesses and strength, sadness and joy, failure and success are perceived to complement each other.

The Family Must Succeed: No Other Choice

The Fourth World Meeting of Families held in Manila in January 2003 reiterated in its Concluding Statement that the natural place for the education of the young is the Family. It is in the family, the community of life and love, that the young are formed as members of Christ’s Church. It is in the family where, while honoring and loving their parents, they can enrich the lives of all members of the wider family.

As the family goes so goes society. “The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life. Authority, stability and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security and fraternity within society. The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God, make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society.” So we believe and so teach and live under the guidance of the Church. (CCC 2207).

This is how important the family is to society in the teaching of the Church. The same truth is expressed in the old saying, “Any success in the world cannot compensate for failure in the family.” In effect, we declare that we are trying to solve the ills of society by first saving the family.

Thank you and God bless!

+GAUDENCIO B. CARDINAL ROSALES
Archbishop of Manila