Postmodern culture poses important challenges for family life: the growing vision of the human being as independent and self-sufficient; the fragility of affective relationships; or the belief that lasting love is an impossible chimera, have become part of the daily way of life of many families, including those that consider themselves Christian. There are hardly any times of common life, moments of sharing a table, celebrations or care for the sick, the elderly and children are neither foreseen nor valued. Spouses often develop parallel professional and social relationships. Thus, in daily practice, authentic family life together becomes distorted.
No one is immune to this influence. There are, however, Christians who think that, because they are believers, their family should be perfect. That difficulties should hardly affect them. And that family problems, when they inevitably come up against them, are solved by praying. There is no doubt that personal faith and the grace of the sacrament of marriage are important elements in being able to give a Christian family witness. But that does not mean that being a good Christian and praying are enough to guarantee an authentic family life.
In these lines I would like first of all to vindicate what we could call, primacy of the human in family life. We all have the capacity to love and the desire to be loved. To be a family is, above all, to know how to love in the midst of the imperfection of daily life. The normal "tensions" of living together, and the difficulties and crises through which every family passes, cannot be solved -only- by praying... it is also necessary to provide human means.
What can we do? First of all, we need to have enough humility and realism to assume that, although we "know the theory" of what the ideal family "should be", the reality is often far from it. Secondly, it is necessary to know how to ask for help and to allow oneself to be helped by those who can provide it. Family support - the support of people who love us and whom we trust - is of paramount importance today. Experience shows that the main reasons why many families break up today are not really irreparable. On many occasions it is a matter of learning to understand the dynamics of growth and maturation of love, with its moments of tranquility and difficulty, in order to understand the difficulty in a positive way, and to be able to initiate a change of attitude.
Moreover, those who have a living faith will have the invaluable help of grace and the Christian virtues (humility, charity, patience, understanding, etc.), which are key to the good development of family life. And they are also an invaluable help in moments of difficulty, to understand one's own and others' frailties, and to know how to forgive from the heart.
Professor at the Faculty of Law of the International University of Catalonia and director of the Institute for Advanced Family Studies. She directs the Chair on Intergenerational Solidarity in the Family (IsFamily Santander Chair) and the Childcare and Family Policies Chair of the Joaquim Molins Figueras Foundation. She is also Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law at UIC Barcelona.
