Daily Meditation: Friday, March 5, 2004

Family - must not be understood as a goal, but as a point of departure

03/05/2004

Each of us must do what we can to preserve the bonds that unite us to the members of our family. But the family is not an end in itself; it is only a point of departure, a base designed to provide us with a form of stability. Those who concentrate on their family and who work for it alone, who forget others or even fight them in order to better protect their parents or children, do not realize that they are creating the conditions for misunderstanding and hostility among all families, which in the end resembles clan or tribal warfare. But worst of all, in this state of mind they do not even contribute to the happiness of their own family. The proof of this is that today more and more families are falling apart. After a period of time, parents separate to form ties elsewhere, and the children find themselves with a father on one side, a mother on another, and half-brothers, half-sisters, and so on. So, where is the stability that the family is meant to provide? And this family life, is it truly a happy one?