General Tasks for the family according

to “Familiaris Consortio”

1. forming a community of persons

2. serving life
3. participating in the development of
society
4. sharing in the life and mission of the
Church.
 I. FORMING A COMMUNITY OF PERSONS
The family is a community of persons:
of husband and wife, of parents and
children, relatives and other persons who are
staying together in the same roof. (FC)

Love is the Principle and Power of

Communion
LOVE: ever deeper and more intense
communion is the foundation and soul of the
community of marriage and the family.
 Basis for the Indivisible Unity of Conjugal
Communion:
1. the man and woman "are no longer two but
one flesh”

2. promise of total mutual self-giving.

3. natural complementarity that exists between

man and woman

4. nurtured through the personal willingness of

the spouses to share their entire life-project

5. sacrament of matrimony
 Church fundamental duty:
to reaffirm strongly the doctrine of the
indissolubility of marriage

 conjugal love=Christ its foundation and

strength

 God has manifested in His revelation: He

wills and He communicates
The Broader Communion of the
Family

Christian family constitutes a specific

revelation and realization of ecclesial
communion, and for this reason too it can
and should be called
"the domestic Church.”
 All members of the family have the
grace and responsibility of building
the communion of persons, making
the family "a school of deeper
humanity”

this happens when there is:

1. care and love for the little ones, the sick, the
aged, mutual service every day of sharing goods,
joys and sorrows.
2. educational exchange between parents
and children (give & take)

3. Children: offer specific and irreplaceable

contribution to the construction of the
family

4. parents: service to the human and Christian

well-being of their children, helping them
acquire a truly responsible freedom
5. family communion can only be preserved
and perfected through a great spirit of
sacrifice

6. It requires understanding, to forbearance, to

pardon, to reconciliation.

7. overcomes every division and of moving

towards the fullness of communion willed by
God, responding in this way to the ardent
desire of the Lord: "that they may be one."
 special attention must be devoted to the children
by developing a profound esteem for their
personal dignity, and a great respect and
generous concern for their rights
(Rights of Children)

The elderly in the family takes an active and

responsible part in family; they carry out the
important mission of being a witness to the past and
a source of wisdom for the young and for the future
 II. SERVING LIFE
1.Transmission of life

2.Educating of children
Educating in the Essential Values of Human Life

by begetting in love and for love, a new

person who has within himself or herself
the vocation to growth and development,
parents by that very fact take on the task
of helping that person effectively to live a
fully human life
 parents must trustingly and
courageously train their children in the
essential values of human life

Children must grow up with a correct

attitude of freedom with regard to
material goods

strictly Christian education of children calls upon

them to share in the very authority and love of
God and the Church
The self-givin of husband and wife for each
other is the MODEL and NORM for the self-
giving that must be practiced in the
relationship between brothers and sisters or
children in the family
The communion and sharing that are part of
everyday life in the home at times of joy
difficulty are the most concrete and
effective pedagogy for the active,
responsible and fruitful inclusion of the
children in the wider horizon of society.
Education for chastity is absolutely essential
for children, for it is a virtue that develops
a person’s authentic maturity and makes
him or her capable of respecting and
fostering the “nuptial meaning’ of the
body.
parents should show their children the
depths of significance to which the faith
and love of Jesus Christ can lead

every act of true love towards a human

being bears witness to and perfects the
spiritual tendencies of the family
FOUR working principles in educating the
young for TRUE LOVE:

1. Human sexuality is a sacred mystery and

must be presented according to the
doctrinal and moral teachings of the
Church.
2. Only information proportionate to each
phase of their individual development
should be presented to children and young
people.
3. No material of an erotic nature should be
presented to children and young people
of any age, individually or in a group such
as indecent humor, obscene or coarse
language, visual erotic material and the
likes.

4. No one should be ever invited to act in a

way that could objectively offend against
modesty which could subjectively offend
against his/her own sense of privacy.
 III. Participating in the development
of society

The social subjectivity of the family, both as a

single unit and associated in a group, is
expressed in the demonstrations of solidarity
and sharing in the various forms of participation
in social and political life.
The act of participation happens when the
reality of the family is founded on love:
being born in love and growing in love.

Solidarity belongs to the family as a

constitutive and structural element.

This is a solidarity that can take on the

features of service and opens itself to
acceptance, to guardianship and adoption.
 IV. Sharing in the Life and Mission of
the Church

the fundamental tasks of the Christian

family is its ecclesial task:
to build the Kingdom of God by
participating in the life and mission of the
church.
by proclaiming the word of God:
the church reveals to the Christian family
its true identity

by celebrating the sacraments:

the church enriches and strengthens the

Christian family with the grace of Christ for its
sanctification to the glory of the Father
by the continuous proclamation of the new
commandment of love:
the church encourages and guides the
Christian family to the service of love so
that it may imitate and relive the same
self-giving and sacrificial love that the Lord
Jesus has for the entire human race.
 the Christian family is stands as a
symbol, witness and participant of the
church's motherhood.

 The Christian family is called upon to an

"intimate community of life and love" at
the service of the church and of society.
Love and Life constitute the nucleus
of the saving mission of the
Christian family in the church and
for the church.