Modern conceptions largely reject traditional structures of life, like family. Such perceptions favor modern shapes, such as free symbioses, single mothers, single-parent families and other forms of bonding, which alter the institution of the family, an institution peer of humanity.
So, the relationship between the persons is perceived as a commercial transaction, give and take type….Each contracting party, as long as he fulfills his obligations, he claims his rights and does not see the other person as a person, but as an object.
How, Nevertheless, it is possible to have loving care where the community of feelings is absent, where selfishness demands its legal enshrinement;
Exactly, in this current chaotic reality of intense disputes and constant upheavals, the family, beyond her biological, it is called upon to respond primarily to another function, to assume a single role, to be done, that is, and to give the Testimony of Love, the Testimony of the God of Love.
The family may have lost many of its traditional functions, its structure may have changed radically, her mission, Nevertheless, becomes more important, for that very reason: to plant deeply in the soul of young people what is needed today by humanity overburdened by complacency and selfishness, the love, after first changing itself into a society of love.
But, such a thing cannot happen outside and away from the source of Love, Christ and His Church.
The Church of Christ, away from the expediencies of needs and the expediencies of expediencies, aims at the coincidence of the love of spouses, penetrates the innermost depths of man, to heal and transform.
That is why the Church of love, the love of the Church, it is not dominant, it does not compete and does not exhaust…. She is a minister and a philanthropist!
For the transformation of the world into a kingdom of love, for the elevation of the loving relationship into a mystery, the free response of man to the invitation of God's love is presupposed.
Christ does not impose; he suggests.
Love is freely given!
By the way, it is the greatest insult.
Love is synonymous with sacrifice. This means that it is achieved through practice, it takes a lot of toil and struggle for man to pass from the land of survival to the land of "truly living"!
This exercise helps man to tame his ego, to limit himself to a minimum, to offer the maximum to his/her peer.
In times of profound moral and spiritual crisis, as so many institutions, ideas and perceptions change suddenly or are radically overturned, instead of turning and stoning the initiators or promoters of institutions, in the view of some progressives, where, Nevertheless, they refer us to others, obsolete, pages of human history and culture, what is important is to work for the support and reorganization of the institution of the family, as a basic prerequisite for people to come out of their loneliness, of modern societies from their impasses and the treatment of all phenomena of social pathogenesis, that plague them, they test their cohesion and undermine their foundations.
The Christians, we'll call again, in an environment resembling the testimony of conscience, to assume our prophetic role, to teach and change humanity by our experience and example, bearing witness to our faith and love, like the early Christians…
It is the best answer, the most effective attitude and, at the same time, our highest duty towards all that which worries us so much or alienates us today!
† DOROTHEOS B. of SYRO and MYKON’
("DEMOKRATIA" newspaper, Saturday, 9 January 2016)