Loving our Christian

Family
RECALL - Try to remember as vividly as you can a moment
when members of your family went out of their way to care for
you when you were little.

•Process Question:
•What is it that moves
my parents or
siblings to express
their selfless concern
for me?
Answer?
The Mysterious Force of
Love
Christian View of the Family
• As Christian disciples, we need to more
deeply understand and share with others the
Good News about the human family.
• For the family “to become what is”
(Familiaris Consortio 17), we need to reflect
the nature of the human family guided by
our Christian faith.
• According to Catechism of the Filipino
Catholics 1012 – 1020, the Christian family
can be described in three ways:
• As a Covenant of Relationship
• As a Domestic Church
 The Christian Family as a
Covenant of Relationship, page
185-187
• The very essence of a family, the very glue, which
should hold a family together is love, not financial
status, achievement, looks, intelligence, or anything
else.
Process Questions:
• What sacrifices, big or small, have your parents done to
help you become the best person you can be?

• The love that we are called to share are patterned after

God’s own love for us – a love that is self-sacrificing,
life-giving, and others-centered.
• The love we share within our families and the love of
our parents for one another are images of God’s own
love.
 The Christian Family as a
Domestic Church, pages 187-
188
• The term, domestic church, is an ancient expression
that tells us that parents “by word and example … [are]
the first heralds of the faith with regard to their
children” (Lumen Gentium 11).
• As the Ecclesia Domestica or “Church in the home,”
every Christian family is called to be the foundation of
the whole Church, strengthened by Christ’s teaching
and example.
• The Church nurtures our life of faith by her teaching,
worship, and service, so should the Christian family, a
child’s “first school of discipleship,” nourish the spiritual
lives of its members.
• Thus, Parents are called to introduce their children the
basic truths, prayers, and good acts that they need to
understand and live out as followers of Jesus
Process Question:
• In what way does a family reflect our basic
understanding of the Church as a sacrament of Christ?
 The Christian Family as the
First and Vital Cell of Society,
page 188-189
• The family is the most basic community upon which the
society builds itself.
• This means that the family is the necessary unit through
which citizens are born and grow in number. But more
precisely, a family is the vital cell of society because it is
where persons are nurtured and trained to become good
and productive members of society.
Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can truly
appreciate and fully practice our traditional Filipino values:
• Diligence in work (kasipagan)
• Honesty (katapatan)
• Willingness to cooperate with others (pakikisama)
• Solidarity (pakikipagkapwa-tao)
Process Question:
• How can your family be “the salt of the earth” and “the
 Asynchronous Activity 3.3
• Read the following bible verse that speaks about
the 4th Commandment. Write in your journal your
sincere thoughts or opinions about the following
topics and write them on your journal notebook.
• Does the fourth commandment demand from us
an unquestioning obedience to our parents?
• How else are we called to live out the fourth
commandment?