From Vicar's Desk
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain."
Psalms 127:1
Dearly beloved in Christ, greetings to you all in the name of the Triune God,
The role of family system is very important in making human life fruitful.
The relationship with family is the relationship that resides at the heart of human life. The family is a divine initiative and purpose to keep the beauty and diversity of divine creation and for the advancement it. Family is a shelter in every crisis. During the Corona period, when public spaces became unsafe, the house became a place of safety for all of us. This
time of crisis was a time to return to home. It is also the time to regain the relevance and meaning of family. However, we live in a world where the nature of the family is being questioned or radically changed. The well-being of the family is critical to the future of the world. Today’s imperative is to focus on family and its changing realities. Social practices
involving marriage, family, and sexuality are undergoing major changes throughout the world. These trends raise several questions. Are these changes real or superficial? What is a family? Do we need to revise our inherited thinking about marriage, family, and sex? If so, can the religions that have determined many of our traditional views on these issues contribute to this renewal and reconstruction? None of these questions can have one-size-fits-all answers. Major trends in socio-cultural change are affecting individuals and family life more than ever before. We cannot turn a blind eye to
these changes, but we need to be able to recognize them and embrace what we need to embrace and creatively understand what we don’t. It is true that families have gained more freedom through equal distribution of duties and responsibilities. More emphasis on personal communication between partners also helps to make family life more vibrant. On the other hand, the rise of an extreme individualism, which weakens family ties and treats each member of the
family as an isolated unit, must also be considered equally. Today’s busy life, work pressure, life’s uncertainty and ambiguity are not able to cope with the excessively individualistic culture. But the right family relationships and visions will enable us to cope with the extraordinary experiences we are going through in these times. The biblical discourses on the family are very meaningful and creative visions not only for this time but for all time. The Bible is rich with families, births, love stories and family crises. The very beginning of the Bible records the depth and crisis of the family relationship. Marking the family as the most beautiful relationship in creation reminds us that it also has the possibility of the most broken (murder- Genesis 4) in itself. The last pages of the Bible conclude by mentioning the wedding preparations and the
feast. (Revelation 21:2, 9). “Every family is a lamp” is one of the main thoughts of the Bible (Matthew 5:15-16). Let us try to be the lamps of the world. We celebrate our family Sunday on fourth Sunday of October. Our Church is a family of
families. Let us take time to rededicate our families and our Church for divine mission. We started our Sunday School in person classes, I urge the parents to give priority to Sunday School and let us try not to avoid Sunday Schools at any cost. As we are entering into another month let us look forward with hope that we can conduct more activities physically in the coming days. Let us also thank God for all the blessings that he extended to us. Let us uphold each other in our prayers.
