Modern goods for the family [UPDATED with link]

Katie van Schaijik | Apr 28, 2015

Some months back Fr. Longenecker posted about things that are killing the family. It's a good list. But I thought it should be balanced by a similar one of things that are strengthening the family. I've been working on it in the background since.

The NCR will publish it soon, and I'll link when it does. (Here it is.) Some of the points will need further developing. All of them, I propose, spring from the same root, viz., a new appreciation of the "the inviolable dignity of the human person" in our age.

From one point of view, the family is falling apart, and society with it. From another—with the eyes of faith—we can see that it is being refounded on firmer footing, theologically, philosophically and experientially.

And what is that new foundation? Kierkegaard says it well:

To build up is to construct something from the ground up. In the simple illustration of a house, a building, everyone knows what is meant by ground and foundation. But spiritually understood, what are the ground and foundation of the life of the spirit which are to bear the building? In very fact it is love; love is the origin of everything, and spiritually understood love is the deepest ground of the life of the spirit.