Devotion to the Sacraments: parents "the message to be given to children every day"

A personal call

Nobody can claim the title of messenger from another if he has not received the assignment. Even for parents it would be presumptuous to call themselves messengers of God if there were no precise call for them. This official call was made on their wedding day.

The father and mother educate their children to faith, not by an external invitation or by an internal instinct, but because they are called directly by God with the sacrament of marriage. They received an official vocation from the Lord, solemnly before the community, a personal call-to-two, as a couple.

A great mission

Parents are not called to give any information about God: they must be announcers of an event, or rather of a series of facts, in which the Lord makes himself present. They proclaim the presence of God, what he has accomplished in their family and what he is doing. They are witnesses of this loving presence with word and life.

Spouses are witnesses of the faith to each other and to their children and all other family members (AA, 11). They, as messengers of God, must see the Lord present in their home and indicate it to the children with word and life. Otherwise they are unfaithful to their dignity and seriously compromise the mission received in marriage. The father and mother do not explain God, but show him present, because they themselves have discovered and become familiar with him.

With the force of existence

The messenger is one who shouts the message. The strength of the announcement is not to be assessed in the tone of the voice, but it is a strong personal conviction, a penetrating persuasive ability, an enthusiasm that shines through in every form and in every circumstance.

To be messengers of God, parents must have deep Christian beliefs that involve their lives. In this field, goodwill, love itself, are not enough. Parents must acquire, with the grace of God, an ability above all by strengthening their moral and religious convictions, setting an example, reflecting together on their experience, reflecting with other parents, with expert educators, with priests (John Paul II , Speech at the III International Congress of the Family, 30 October 1978).

They cannot therefore pretend to educate their children in faith if their words do not vibrate and do not resonate in unison with their lives. In calling them to become his messengers, God asks parents a lot, but with the sacrament of marriage he ensures his presence in their family, bringing his grace to you.

The message to be interpreted every day to the children

Every message needs to be interpreted and understood continuously. Above all, it must be compared with life situations, because it addresses existence, the deeper aspects of life where the most serious questions arise which cannot be evaded. They are the messengers, in our case the parents, in charge of deciphering it, because they have been granted the gift of interpretation.

God assigns to parents the task of applying the meanings of the message to family life and thus transmitting the Christian sense of existence to their children.

This original aspect of education in the family faith involves the typical moments of every practical experience: learning a code of interpretation, acquiring language and appropriating community gestures and behaviors.