My last column looked at the first theme of Catholic social teaching: “the dignity of the human person.” Expanding upon that theme is the second: “the call to family, community and participation.” 

 

Being made in the image and likeness of God, among other things, means that as humans we are social beings made for relationships. Christians confess that God is fundamentally a relationship of persons united in love — a relationship we call the Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — three divine persons in such perfect communion with each other so as to be one God. As people who bear that image, we are likewise made for relationships of love. 

 

Living a life of authentic love is the only way we can truly manifest God’s own life and love, ultimately fulfilling our life’s purpose and reaching our destiny. Part of being made in God’s image and likeness means that we have free will, and while that can be used to reject God if we choose, it is also the necessary prerequisite for being able to love — both God and others — since love cannot exist without freedom. 

 

People sometimes ask the question, “If God didn’t want us to sin, why did He give us free will?” The answer is simple: “God gave us free will not so that we could sin, but so that we could love.” How we choose to use our freedom is what sets us on the path either closer to Him or further away.

 

This is where the second theme of Catholic social teaching really gets its framework. 

 

Naturally, the first relationships any person has in this life is with those with whom they live. For this reason, the Church is very concerned about families. 

 

It is from our family that we learn essential lessons about relationships. For example, about what the relationship between a mother and father should be and about what it means to be in relationship with others ourselves. We learn through both our observations and our experiences. These lessons form us and our ability to enter other relationships outside those first ones. 

 

While not limiting us entirely, those initial relationships will nevertheless provide us with the skills we will use as we attempt to enter other relationships. Therefore, the better a family is at modeling and showing genuine love, the better chance a person from that family has at coming to understand what love is, as well as how to show and receive it. 

 

Given the fact that we live in a good, but broken world, this simple formula can be fraught with many challenges. A “healthy family” requires more than simply staying intact externally or being well provided for materially. It must be truly living God’s love as fully as possible despite the struggles that might also exist in it. It must be one that isn’t limiting or harming a member’s ability to love, but fostering and growing it. 

 

For this reason, even though ideally the family would exhibit all the characteristics we tend to think of regarding a “healthy family,” the real test is how well God’s love is being lived, experienced and taught. Hence, with the help of God’s grace, even when someone comes from a less than “ideal” family background, there is always hope that those essential lessons of love will be lived and passed on. 

 

In a similar fashion, the fact that someone comes from what would appear to be an ideal family background is no guarantee that those essential lessons are actually being inculcated. 

 

The Church sees family life as so critical to its social teaching because of the unique opportunity that families are given to be the first place where love and relationship is experienced and taught. What happens in the family will impact the next components of this theme, community and participation, which will be discussed in the next column.