THE FAMILY, A SCHOOL OF VIRTUES

God wanted to be born into a family so that he would have someone to take care of him, protect him, help him and accept him as he was. When Jesus was born into a family, the Son of God has sanctified the human family. But how was the Holy Family? The Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph took care of Jesus, they worked hard and worked so that he would be happy and have a future, as do all parents committed to their children, regardless of their nationality and political and religious beliefs.

With their offer to God, both also sanctified their family and work life. As was customary at that time, children helped their mothers by grinding wheat and carrying water from the well, and their parents in their daily work. In this way, Jesus learned to work and help his family generously. He being Almighty obeyed his human parents, trusted them, helped them and loved them. What teaching Jesus gives us, who could have reigned in the most sumptuous of the palace and being obeyed by all! He, on the other hand, rejected a life of power and luxury and preferred to share an ordinary life with us.

The families of today have in the Holy Family of Nazareth a timeless and beautiful example of virtues such as obedience, love, affection, simplicity, kindness, humility, charity, industriousness, etc. And is that the family is the best school of virtues and values. A beautiful and delicate work that find in love and affection two great allies. “The family is the first community of life and love, the first environment where man can learn to love and feel loved, not only by other people, but also and above all by God (John Paul II,”Encounter with Families”,  Chihuahua 1990) “. Specifically, Pope John Paul II in his Letter to Families tells us that it is necessary for husbands to direct their hearts and thoughts towards God, so that their fatherhood and motherhood find in Him the strength to renew themselves continually in love. Just as the salvation of the world came through the heart of the Holy Family, the future of the peoples also passes today through the heart of the family, an authentic social nucleus and its greatest hope.