Family expresses the love and relationship shared by husband and wife, and their children (if they are blessed with children). It is a love that is rich in patience, forgiveness, care and concern for one another. These characteristics also exist when we refer to the Church as the family of God. The Church as family concept is used in theological discourse to express communion in several aspects within the Church. They include the relationship between the Pope and the various Bishops of the world, the Bishops among themselves, the relationships within each local church, between the Bishop and his Priests, the Priests and their Parishioners, and the entire Christian faithful among themselves.
However, the idea of the church as communion is not restricted to her nature but constitutes a central part of her mission in the world (ad extra). We see this in Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, Guadium et Spes. It states that the Church “is to be a leaven and, as it were the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God” (no. 40). It is thus the will of God that the human society be transformed into his family through the instrumentality of the Church.
The human society has the potential to become the family of God because all human life is traceable to God, as creator of all things living. This idea of the common fatherhood of God is what struck me as I was going through today’s Gospel text (Matt 5: 43-48). He is father both to us and our enemies. He grants us forgiveness as a loving father, when we ask for it. He does likewise to those who treat us badly, hinder our progress, hurt us with their words, and see us from a negative perspective. Though He does not like what they are doing, He still loves them because He is love (I Jn 4: 8). He forgives them and expects us to exercise a childlike kind of forgiveness towards them (Matt 18:4), as children within the same family unit would do for one another.
Moreover, the fact that all human life is traceable to God, suggests that there is an aspect of good in the worst of us. That is why Jesus asks us to pray for those who persecute us. Because they are also potential saints. Martin Luther King Junior rightly observes that “Within the best of us there is some evil and within the worst of us, there is some good… Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.”
We see this new attitude in the Old Testament stories of Abram and Lot (Gen 13: 8), Joseph and his brothers (Gen 50:15-26), David and Saul (1 Sam 24:7) and in the many forgiveness stories in the New Testament, like between Jesus and Peter (Jn 21: 15-17). Forgiveness is important because it is an essential tool for the transformation of the world into the family of God. It has a redemptive character. It transforms an enemy into a loving brother. It restores not only the one that receives it but also the one that gives it out. It liberates and energizes us for our future prospects.
May the grace of this Lenten Season strengthen us and give us a new attitude towards our enemies so that we can in this way contribute to making the human society the family of God, where love and peace reign. Amen.
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