My family, my identity: To which family do I belong?

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This is the theme that we have Chosen as Mapeera team members, in correspondence to this week’s readings, especially to this Sunday’s readings. It is simply suggested as an object of our reflection for this week. It is meant to help us refresh our memories and bring our families to our consciousness. Families here, I mean, our families back at home (for this purpose let’s call them individual families), our family here; Lavigerie House, and definitely Our PCJ family.
Lord, May your Joy and Peace reign in our families, now and always, Amen.

Just to come into grips with what we would mean by family is that: it is a basic societal unit; it is a school of life, where each one of us finds a sense of identity and a sense of belonging. It is precisely where we find our nourishment. It assumes primacy of influence in each one of us. To say that one belongs to family is to implicitly assert that he/she is a relational being; we are profoundly persons in a relationship wherever we are.  Our relations in our different rooms, teams, community, pastoral work, and in PCJ is about family.

As we reflect, let us remember this; a family may either fosters joy or sorrow, love or hatred, unity or disunity, patience or impatience, negativity or positivity, exclusion or inclusion… and there is also a possibility of all these aspects of life permeate our living, simply because of the complexity found in it, especially when it is a big one. A community like ours is typical of a large family.

In here, we have momentarily established ourselves in Lavigerie house; we have basically formed a family. We should, therefore, strive to make this family continue to be a place where each one of us is dully accepted as a member, where we positively influence one another, where we confide on each other, where we are not ruled by fear, hypocrisy, prejudice, and malice. A family centered on Jesus, whose cross is our identity.

Conclusively, an excerpt from Pope Francis’s Homily on the occasion of the family day 27th/10/2013:

"... True joy, he says, comes from a profound harmony between persons, something which we all feel in our hearts and which makes us experience the beauty of togetherness, of mutual support along life’s journey.  But the basis of this feeling of deep joy is the presence of God, the presence of God in the family and his love, which is welcoming, merciful, and respectful towards all.  And above all, a love which is patient: patience is a virtue of God and he teaches us how to cultivate it in family life, how to be patient, and lovingly so, with each other. To be patient among ourselves. A patient love.  God alone knows how to create harmony from differences.  But if God’s love is lacking, the family loses its harmony, self-centredness prevails and joy fades.  But the family which experiences the joy of faith communicates it naturally.  That family is the salt of the earth and the light of the world, it is the leaven of society as a whole."


Nicholas Iwuala, Mapeera Team

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