Family as Domestic Church

“The Family is so to speak, the domestic Church.” Vatican Council II

From the beginning, the Church was formed from believers ‘a their whole household.’ New believers wanted their family to be saved (Acts 18:8). In our modern times (often hostile to religion), religious families are extremely important centres of living faith. They are domestic churches in which the parents are the first heralds of faith (Vatican Council II). In the home, father, mother, and children exercise their baptismal priesthood in a privileged way. The home is the first school of the Christian life where all learn love, repeated forgiveness, and prayerful worship.

Understanding the Domestic Church

1.     The families are not only members of the Church but also as organs and communities of Christ’s Body. Hence, family becomes integral part of the Church. There is not church without families and vice versa.

2.     Domestic Church is not only to marriage but now extended it to the family which proceeds out of marriage and states: ‘It is possible to refer to the Christian family as a small church possessing in itself a sharing (communication) of the very mystery of the union of Christ with the Church.

3.     Parents are consecrated (Consecrati) to their roles. In other words, parents are consecrated or ordained to play their roles Christian parents in the family.

Family in God’s plan: A man and a woman united in marriage, together with their children, form a family. In creating man and woman, God instituted the human family and endowed it with its fundamental constitution. Its members are persons of equal dignity. A family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In procreation and education of children it reflects the Father’s work of creation. It is called to partake of the prayer and sacrifice of Christ.

Family and God: In the context of the family that we first learn who God is and prayerfully seek His will for us. Parents must regard their children as the children of God and respect them as human persons and educate their children to fulfil God’s law. God is the head of the family.

Parents as evangelisers: Through the grace of the Sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are first heralds for their children. The family, hence, truly becomes a holy place for the holy people to dwell. In families, members evangelize each other by way of care and love.

Family as missionary: The basic mission of a family is to bring affinity of feelings, affections and hence, nurture relationships. As a domestic church, the family is to take on the task to be transmitters of faith in their own familial situations. The baptismal and marital promise has to be fulfilled in their day to life. In baptism, the mission is to be priest, prophet and kings. In marriage, a man and a woman vows to conjugal relationship to the good of the spouses and to the procreation of children. This way, a family truly becomes missionary.

The Word of God in the Family: For most of us, the family is the place where the Word of God is first proclaimed, received, and studied. Ideally, a family must read the Bible together, for example, a short selection before the evening meal. Most often, telling the story of Jesus and Mary and the saints proclaims the word much less formally. The family is the true heralds of Good News and promoter of Gospel values.

The Sacraments in the Family: The sacrament of marriage is the foundation to the domestic church. The sacrament that joins a man and a woman in a life-long and indissoluble union that generates new life is the beginning and on-going sustaining force of the Church in the home. The domestic church brings its members to the Church for the celebration of the sacraments. Parents bring their children for baptism and religious education. The sacraments become reality when families live out these sacraments in the families. For example, when a family returns home from the celebration of the Eucharist, they are summoned to live out the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ made present in the Mass and which they carry within themselves in virtue of Holy Communion with him.

Conclusion: Christ is the head of the mystical body, the Church. Each family constitute the organs of this mystical body, the Church. Every members of the family further constitute the organ of the Church. Families are necessary for the Church to continue to be active in the world. The Church’s foundation is built on families, and if families stay or stray from Church, both will collapse. In order for the Church to continue, families must be part of it and in order for the families to live in harmony, Church must help them to be united. Therefore, the Church and family are intertwined and cannot be separated. Without the help of the family, the task of the church becomes onerous.  Most often I tend to think, it is not only because of theologians and learned that the Church is erect but because of a few grey head persons praying rosary in the corner of the church.

The domestic church serves as the hermeneutic by which one comes to know the truth about marriage and family. One might acquire knowledge by reading or preaching about marriage and family but unless one lives this reality, one will be theoretically sound without any concrete experience.

Fr. Jerri Dias SJ

Mother Mary's Labor pains

Apart from Christmas extravaganza, the Catholic Church prays the Christmas Novena (Latin word ‘novem’ means ‘nine’) and most of the parishes pray this devotion early in the morning. This devotion contains singing of 16 stanzas of ‘Bemdita Sejaes’ and Holy Eucharist. Devotees dedicate these nine days reflecting on the scriptures leading up to Christmas. This devotion normally begins on 15 of December and end on 23 to begin the Christmas Eve Mass on 24 night. This devotion helps us to contemplate on the mystery of the Incarnation (God becoming a man). For those of us who are part of this novena, we know the experience of joy and peace of Christ in the cool early morning. It is really a wonderful way to prepare for Christmas.

My experience of Christmas Novena has been wonderful. It is a ‘once a year’ experience of love, peace, and serenity. This devotion helps me to grow in my own spiritual journey alongside other devotees at the novena. The singing of Bemdita Sejaes is truly a reading of the Scripture where we praise God for Mother Mary who becomes a ‘Theotokos’. It is like accompanying our Lady in her days of pregnancy before the childbirth. Every mother would need support as she goes through her labor before the birth of her child. Every father would have to be the side of her to make her labor lighter by supporting her and lending her helping hand. I borrowed this inspiration of following our Lady in labor from tradition followed by Catholics of Madeira whose tradition we have embraced by Portuguese immigration in Guyana.

In Madeira, the Christmas Novena Masses happen early in the morning and their purpose is to celebrate the nine months of Virgin Mary’s pregnancy. The liturgy is meant to make the faithful meditate on each step of Our Lady’s pregnancy, from the Annunciation to labor on the night of December 23. The novena concludes on Christmas Eve with Midnight mass. The early morning Masses are part of a traditional Iberian Marian devotion to Our Lady of Good Labor, represented by a figure of a pregnant Mary.  In Portuguese this Lady is also called Our Lady of the “OH”, recalling the sounds of a mother in labor. When we think of pregnancy we think of the beauty of bringing life into the world.  Mary brought life to the world like no other. Christ our savior was in her womb and through these nine days, the people of Madeira contemplates every moment of that pregnancy to prepare for Christmas (Source: Salt & Light Media).

In Guyana, Christmas Novena has its long history and tradition, which could be traced back to 1861 when Fr. Benedict Schembri celebrated Christmas midnight Mass at the newly constructed Church on Main Street. This Church was basically helped the Portuguese from Madeira who spoke mostly Portuguese. Under the “padroado” (The privilege of patronage extended by the Pope to the King of Portugal) system, initially, Sacred Heart operated as “the Portuguese Church” being the Centre of pastoral activities for the Portuguese community throughout Guiana. Only in 1932 was this status revised and Sacred Heart constituted as a normal parish. The indefatigable Schembri established guilds and charitable associations, organized religious and cultural events and generally strengthened the bonds of fellowship and faith among the Portuguese. Of particular note was the introduction of the Christmas Novena, with a 3;00 am the mass on each of the 9 mornings before Christmas. This practice rapidly became a popular and enduring feature of Catholic churches throughout Guiana. Even the “Bemdita Sajaes” a hymn to Our Lady with words in the Madeiran dialect of Portuguese became a much-loved feature of many an African and East Indian family Christmas.

In conclusion, let us encourage each other to continue this inspiring tradition of accompanying our Lady through these nine days and prepare our hearts and minds for the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we prepare, let us also be the ‘Theotokos’ = God-bearers in our own little ways. It is also a time for our families, to pray together and celebrate together. Let our celebration have Christ in it. Let this Christmas truly be a time of helping each other to bring joy and laughter to the world.

x

Advent: A joyful parousia

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Today is the First day of Advent and it is the day to recognise and accept that love, joy and peace will triumph in this materialistic world. Christ comes to meet us in our usual routine life, such as, our families, work places and church communities. Let us welcome Christ, our eternal guest.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. First Monday of the Advent is the day to pray for others with joy. As the official at the Capernaum seeks Jesus’ help to heal his servant because he recognised and waited for the eternal physician. Pray for the people who you work with for the joyful healing.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Today is the day to work our ego and embrace humility. Christ has revealed Himself to us even though we are unworthy. If Christ, the Son of God, has become a man, why not we too embrace humility and do away with our egoist attitude. Let us ask Lord to give us humility from Christ, who is the epitome of humility.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Christ meets us right where we are now. You might be cooking, working, making children ready for school etc. Christ is right there. Where? Just look at the other person who you are with. Christ met St. Andrew at the shore of Sea of Galilee whilst fishing. We pray for that sense of seeing Christ in each other.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. It is the day to eliminate stupidity and embrace wisdom from the Word of God. There are millions of voices in our world today, many of the lead us astray from the Word of God, and to stupidity. But Word of God will make us wise, hence, we can build our lives on Solid foundation, that is Christ Jesus.

Welcome to Joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. This is the day to eradicate our blindness and follow Christ, our eternal light. What is that blinds us from seeing God, Vengeance, and hatred, past life, ego, attitudes, injustice and so on. Let us ask Lord to heal our blindness so we can see God clearly in our lives.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. On the feast of St. Francis Xavier, we are to focus on our own slackness in life. At times, we are lost sheep and we did not listen to the call of our loving shepherd, Christ. Humans have a tendency to depend on themselves, hence, God is not really in the picture. We ask Christ, our Shepherd to call us in louder voice because the voices in the world overshadow Christ’s own voice.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Second Sunday in Advent must remind us to not only repent but repentance must yield fruits in our lives. One cannot be merely saying, ‘I forgive you’ or ‘do penance’ for the wrong one did, rather and more importantly, one has to show fruits of forgiveness and penance, such as, caring for the forgiven or doing charitable works of mercy. We ask Christ, the eternal lamb may help us to bear fruits from repentance.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Today is the day to think about our own lives and see whether we have victimised or labelled someone or vice versa. Labelling someone as good for nothing, or your worth only so much or how this happen and so on. It hurts and corrupts our relationship with God and the person who is labelled or who is labelling. We ask Christ the healer to help us to take out that label and put on Christ in us.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Today has brought us the message that we are always in the hands of God whether we straying or with God. God will come after us when we stray and bring us back with joy. Our God is good shepherd who wants his sheep to flourish in the green pastures. We pray that we may always stay on the green pastures and not stray to the rugged dry pastures.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Today we seek to lighten our burdens. We need someone to hold our hands and lead us on especially when we frailty of life strike us; frailty of joblessness, frailty of broken families, frailty of illness, frailty of betrayal, frailty of poverty and so on. Jesus tells us today, come to me all who labour and I will give you rest.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Today we ask our God help us in when we are afraid. Mother Mary was afraid when God brought message to her through the angel. But she got her courage back through the Holy Spirit. What is the fear that is keeping you back; fear of future, fear of grades in school, fear of losing someone, fear of violence, fear of crime and so on. It is the time now to hold on to Christ to cast away our fears and put a new spirit in us.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Today is the day to evaluate our own life and mission. Whether I have done my part? Or have I given into temptation of discouragement. Jesus and John the Baptist did their part in the mission and many did not follow their teachings but there were not discouraged rather continued with more zeal. We ask our Lord to give us strength when someone is not listening us or not obeying to us.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Today is to reflect on truth. Truth brings liberation to most and brings hatred to a few. Either way, we, as Christians are expected to speak truth and stand for truth. Jesus paid on the cross for speaking the truth. Christians must follow our Christ’s example and not allow temptations of indifference. We pray that God may give us strength when we are faced with reality of untruthfulness.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. On this 3^rd Sunday of Advent, it is time for us to believe and not doubt. John the Baptist wanted to clarify whether it is the Christ? But then Jesus clarifies his doubt. Doubts come in our lives especially when we are faced with harshness of life such as illness, betrayal, poverty, failure etc. Let us seek to clarify from our Lord when we are faced with difficult situations. Let Christ be our doubt clarifier.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Today is the feast of our Lady of Guadalupe and it is fitting that we celebrate the role of Mother Mary as God bearer, theotokos. Mary bore Jesus in her with joy. This is the day for us to remember that we are also called to be God bearers in our lives especially in a Godless world, in world of secularism, in a world of consumerism. We ask the grace from the Lord to be God bearers in our lives, in other words let us show God in our lives.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. This is the day to remember we are fragile just like to earthen vessels but God will uphold us and make us strong. Despite our fragility and sinfulness, we are helped by God to do his will. As the psalm proclaims, this poor man called and the Lord hear him. Let us not condemn the sinner but sin because in the eyes of God every one is sinner and we have no right to judge others, only God is the judge. We ask Lord to help us when we fall because of our mistakes in life and we also seek God’s assistance when we are tempted to condemn others who make mistakes.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Today is the day to accept and believe that Christ is the expected One, Lamb of God, and Saviour of the universe. Let us not ask, are you the one or we have wait for someone else? We have experience of Christ in our day today affairs especially in most simple and subtle affairs. If you have an experience of Christ, doubt not but believe in Him. We see Christ in each other because we are made in the image and likeness of God. We ask God to give us faith to see Christ in our daily routine especially if our routine is boring.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Christ assures each one of us today that everyone of us is called to be His messengers. By baptism, we are given that duty to be His messengers. Whether we are in fine clothes and luxurious living or rugged and bruised, we are expected to be Christ’s messengers as St. John the Baptist was. By being His messenger, we prepare a way for the Lord, in other words we establish God’s kingdom and not human kingdom. We ask Lord to give us courage and hope when we find ourselves messengers in a society marred by human power, wealth and authority.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Jesus invites us today to give testimony to the truth because truth will ultimately prevail. Our human nature supposed to be truthful, and this must be innate to us humans but we have good and bad in us. Hence, we give testimony to truth when it is convenient to us otherwise we try to evade truth and be mediocre in our dealings with each other. Being truthful brings challenges and even death as Christ died on the Cross for speaking truth. We Lord to give us the grace to give testimony to truth at all times even if the temptation to speak against truth.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. It is the time today to think about our own families especially our elders who have shared their faith and put values in our lives. As we read in our scripture about the genealogy of Jesus, we are reminded that Jesus had a wonderful ancestry and a Holy Family. Today, we see families are broken and division seems to be inevitable in some families. This happens because of various reasons such as pride, hopelessness, poverty, qualifications, profession, misunderstanding and so on. We pray for our own families and we pray for those families which live in hatred, fear and violence.  

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Today is the last Sunday in advent and we are reminded about our own commitment to our families especially commitment towards spouses and children. In our scripture today, the Holy Family is in confusion, Joseph wants to divorce his wife Mary, and Mary would have been confused about pregnancy out of a wedlock. But God was ever present to help them by those beautiful words, Don’t be afraid. Do you have the same situation, situation of confusion, situation of regrets after marriage, situation of infidelity and so on, this is the time to ask Lord to give you strength and be not afraid.

Welcome to Joyful Parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. It is the day to remember that there is nothing impossible to God. It is only we think that something is impossible but for God everything is possible. In the scripture today we hear, Zachariah and Elizabeth, an old couple going to have a child. In the eyes of humans it is impossible but for God it is possible. We pray for those couples who live expecting that God will work a miracle and give them a child. There are couples who might not have children and look forward to God’s intervention in their lives. We pray for those couples that God may grant them the gift of children and double their joy by being co-creators with God.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Today is the time to focus on ourselves and how blessed we are in the eyes of God. Mother Mary is given the message that she is highly favoured and blessed among women. It is time for us to be grateful for the person we are rather than what we are not, what we have rather than we have not. It is our human tendency to compare ourselves with other, such as she is beautiful or he has so much riches. This will make us more worried and anxious to be like someone else, we might forget the moon whilst counting stars. We pause and thank God for the what we are and what we have and ask Lord to give us positive outlook about ourselves.

Welcome to Joyful Parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Advent is the time to share joy with others, not to keep our joy for ourselves for when we share our joy it is doubled. Mother Mary went as quickly as possible to share in the joy of Elizabeth and in turn Elizabeth proclaims that Mary is blessed among women. This is what happens when we share in joys of others. It is a time to keep our jealousy and pride away and go as quickly as possible to join the happiness of others. We ask Lord to give us that sense of joy and sharing.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Today is the day to rejoice in the greatness of God in our lives and in this world. Mary’s magnificat is the reminder to us to be grateful for the Lord has done marvels in our lives. It important that we look back and count our blessings and how many instances where God has come to our refuge and rescue. God’s presence is forever and ever, hence, He will continue to grant the graces to us. But God expects us to rejoice in the graces, be it be small or big. We ask Lord to give us the sense of satisfaction in life and rejoice.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri. Let us focus our attention to our own families especially children and young of our families. People wondered in our scripture today, what will John Baptist turn out to be when he grows up? Some of you may be anxious and worried about your children, what will they grow up to be. You do every effort to make your children grow in good faith and good life. Despite that some children turn out to be bad but be satisfied for you tried your best and did your duty as parents. The only way now is to pray that God may make your child good again. We also ask Lord to take away our anxieties and worries about our family.

Welcome to joyful Parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Today through prophecy of Zachariah, we are reminded the Christ will come to fulfil God’s work of building His kingdom. As we celebrate Christmas tonight, we truly rejoice and glory in the Lord for a Christ is born to be the saviour of you and me. Each one of us so special and unique, hence, we live that uniqueness in our lives. We ask Lord to fulfil His prophecy about us especially to do his will.

Welcome to joyful parousia with Fr. Jerri Dias. Merry Christmas to all of you, may infant Jesus bring light in darkness and peace in the world. Today is the time for us to celebrate with joy because Word has become flesh. Word of God becomes man, a mystery of incarnation. Christ is born in our world. He is born to cast out darkness and bring true light. Christ has come to dwell among us. We accept and believe that Christ is truly born to each one of us and offer our darkness and fears to the Lord, let Him bring true light in our lives, in our families and in our world.

Prayer is a way of life

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:24

Christianity is a way of life and prayer is its fuel. To be a Christian is to pray or be a prayerful person. Christ prayed at all times and he taught His disciples to pray. We pray for each other especially in times of illness or suffering. Most often, we limit prayer only to petition, which is only one way of praying. So what is prayer? Why do we pray?

St. Therese gave herself to a life of prayer and self-emptying love in the Carmel of Lisieux in Normandy. The interesting question centres on how she prayed. She had learned the importance of prayer as a child from the example of her own parents and used to spend some time in the quiet of her room reflecting on the life of Jesus.

In her Story of a Soul, St. Therese reports that she was faithful to community prayer as a nun but often experienced certain dryness in prayer. She was faithful to community prayer such as recitation of the breviary, a daily Eucharist and vocal prayer. She was spent time in personal or private prayer as well. Prayer is the identity of the Carmel sisters.

Prayer, for St. Therese, was a way of walking with God. Whether it was a period of meditative prayer, communal prayer in the chapel with other nuns in the community or the aspirative prayer of lifting her heart to God in short prayers of intercession or praise, she realized that God was with her.

In order to pray, we have to acknowledge an omnipotent God in the reality of human beings, in other words, someone higher being than human being. Human beings become humble before God who is Alpha and Omega. A total dependency is the key to prayer. But sometimes, our prayer might be routine exercise of consoling whilst the need for prayer arises, such as the following,

Ø  An Aspirin Prayer: An aspirin pill is helpful when we are suffering from aches and pains in the hope to alleviating the pain. Likewise, some of us would pray when the need arises, such as, suffering, difficulties, loneliness, sickness etc. There is an element high dependency on prayer only to a particular need.

Ø  A Police Prayer: Prayer becomes a police who is watching and waiting to punish us when we err. If we don’t pray, we will be punished. Hence, we pray in order not to be punished, to remain in good books of God. This indeed limits my freedom to experience prayer as non-punisher.

Ø  A shopkeeper Prayer: Some of us relate to prayer as we relate to a shopkeeper, as you give me this and I pay you this much. Likewise, God you do this favour for me and I will offer prayers, money, service, worship etc. We limit prayer in order fulfil some desires through barter.

Ø  A puppeteer Prayer: We are puppets in the hands of God so we pray. God is there a master who pulls the strings so that we have the movements. An unmoved mover. He moves us in this world. Hence, an element of final judgement, final goal, final end, predestination sets into our lives. Here we limit God to a merely super power who controls us according to His whims. Therefore, we have to please this God in order that he will control our movements properly. This kind of prayer does not allow us to grow in freedom; rather it shrinks our growth because of the fear of God.

Ø  A Laundry Prayer: We see prayer as cleanser, which cleanses us from our sins and wrongdoings as we take our filthy clothes to laundry. We limit prayer to merely satisfy our immediate need. This form of prayer will not help us in the long run because of the negativity of life.  

Ø  Trying my luck prayer: We are not sure, we will get it, and anyway we try our luck. This way of life makes us live a lethargic life because there is not strong believe in one’s own abilities. Sometimes, our prayer could be, I will pray, not sure it will happen. This prayer has kept important component of belief away, hence, our prayer becomes insignificant.

Hence, the important question we need to ask is, ‘who is God for me?’ Only you can ask this question and only you can answer this question based on your experience of God. If we have arrived at an answer to this question, we will also be able to answer the question ‘why do I need to pray?’

God is the unconditional Father of the universe who the integral part of human beings because He has created us in His own image and likeness. We cannot separate God from us. “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” John 10:28-30. If we try to separate God from human being, human being lose their identity; lose the divine image in us, but God does not lose His image because God is omnipotent and omnipresent in the universe. Therefore, we are the losers if we separate ourselves from God. Anytime we are clear about this reality, we become the humble creature whose dependency leads to prayer because prayer builds relationship with God. Hence, in prayer creature and Creator are in dialogue with each other in an intense and intimate way. Prayer helps us to keep this relationship cemented to the end of time. This way prayer becomes ‘A Way of Life’ for us.