For families
Love is at the centre of family life just as love is at the centre of Christianity. It is the love that exists between family members that strengthens the bonds that holds a family together.

Family love is often sacrificial – getting up in the middle of the night to care for a sick child, patiently attending to the needs of an elderly relative. At other times it is celebratory – sharing the joy of achievements, new beginnings and togetherness. On occasions it takes the form of compassion, supporting each other in times of sorrow and difficulty and by necessity family love is reconciling for there is no family that does not experience conflict and division.

It is in the ministries of self-sacrifice, celebration, compassion and reconciliation that family members strengthen the bonds of communion within family. It is for this reason that Pope John Paul II remains families that one of their central tasks to be a communion of persons. As it says in A Family Perspective in Church and Society, page 21:

As the basic community of believers, bound in love to one another, the family is the arena in which the drama of redemption is played out. The dying and rising with Christ is most clearly manifested. Here, the cycle of sin, hurt, reconciliation, and healing is lived out over and over again. In family life is found the church of the home; where each day "two or three are gathered" in the Lord's name; where the hungry are fed; where the thirsty are given drink; where the sick are comforted. It is in the family that the Lord's injunction to forgive "seventy times seven" is lived out in the daily reconciliation of husband, wife, parent, child, grandparent, brother, sisters, extended kin.

What is your experience of strengthening the bonds of communion within your family? What stories of sacrificial, celebratory, compassionate or reconciling love do you have to share? This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

For the parish community
Central to building community at parish level is the ministry of welcome and hospitality. What are ways in which your parish community extends a welcome to families? In what ways of is your parish open to including the diversity of family types that exist today? In what ways is your parish community ministering to families across the life cycle?