Debra Murphy

By Daniel and Debra Murphy

Family cultures come in all sizes and shapes. We’re reminded of this fact often.

Take, for example, the family of a single mother we know. With two young boys (ages six and eight) to raise, this mom manages to work, provide for her sons a parochial school education and find lots of time to read to and otherwise nurture them.This intelligent and hard-working mom even takes time to help her sons understand the computer. “I want them to have the chances I didn’t have. If they don’t know about computers, they can’t understand the world of today,” she says.

When we reflect on this single mother’s dedication and observe the family life she has forged, we’re reminded that families have remarkable inner strength. In her little circle of love, she has managed to provide private schooling, maintain lively conversations with her boys, instill in her sons a great sense of humor, and teacher her children to respect others, even though they are immersed in inner-city violence. This woman teaches us that each family, in spite of certain limitations, can achieve a wonderful, affirmative culture or “common way of life” (the definition of “culture” according to historian Christopher Dawson).

Over and over again we discover in our own family and in others that the family is a two-fold reality: It is both a community and a culture. Few would dispute that the family is the “first community” where persons learn their fundamental outlook toward life. The family is called, according to Pope John Paul II, to become what it is by nature: a community of love in the service of life. The building of the common life of the family is what we might call “family culture.”

Consider the exclamation of St. Irenaeus of Lyons: “The glory of God is man fully alive!” A fully-alive family—one that is alive to the divine and human dimensions and vocations of being a family—likewise gives great glory to God. When we first married, we knew nothing of God’s plan for the family. We were living on scraps, leavings of what fragmented Christian perspective we had inherited. Two years afterward, we experienced a sort of “marital conversion” and turned in earnest to Christ and the Church for direction.

At this juncture in our personal lives, Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on the family (“On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World”; in Latin, Familiaris Consortio) appeared. We were thrilled. Since its publication in 1981, we have read and re-read it.John Paul’s mysterious, almost cryptic words, “Family, become what you are!” intrigued and challenged us, but it took years before we concretely grasped their significance. When we did, we realized that all the attitudes and acts that made up our unique, common way of life were our family’s way of becoming what we are. 

In short, we recognized that we formed a Catholic culture as a family. And our family culture (like every family’s culture), while sharing much with other Catholic and non-Catholic families, was still unique.

What is our family culture like? As you can imagine, every family culture starts with and stems from the “culture” of the couple. Well, as a couple we talk things over a great deal—everything from tight funds to Iago’s subtle manipulations in Shakespeare’s Othello. Having lots of space to explore and relish nature is necessary for us. We fell in love with soprano Jessye Norman, and became addicted opera fans. We pray together, and, of course, we know that the Mass is the source and summit of our love as spouses and as family.

But the couple is changed by the children—really, refined and improved by them. So, children have a big say-so in the family’s culture. In ours, we discuss aspects of religion with our children. We find out time and again that the “higher angels of their natures” (Abraham Lincoln’s image) are more active than ours; we’re always astonished by our children’s insights. Tennis has become a family sport; reading and discussing book characters and plots figures a lot; learning lessons from our vegetable and flower gardens makes us all more aware of our dependence on God and on the natural laws that God has made part of life.

We share these aspects of our family culture to help illuminate the concept. There really is such a thing as family culture. Each one is both real and unique. And, we have found, it needs to be taken seriously and consciously cultivated.

GIFT AND RESPONSIBILITY

Pope John Paul II is fond of putting together the words “gift” and “responsibility.” With each gift comes a responsibility. With the gift of being a couple and a family (hence a community), we have the challenge and responsibility of building a culture of love.A fine Catholic priest once challenged us with the question: “Why do some Catholic families thrive and others don’t, even when they have comparable commitments to the knowledge and practice of the Faith?” Somehow, we stammered to tell him, having the Faith intact is not enough. There must also be a whole “common way of life” that is well-grounded in practical acts of love, not just in abstract statements of truth.

Catholic family culture, we believe, draws on two interconnected sources: divine revelation/grace and authentic human culture. Families in widely diverse societies enjoy the gifts of commitment, appreciation, communication, time together and coping during moments of stress. 

These five traits of strong families were identified by Nick Stinnett and John De Frain in a ten-year University of Nebraska-Lincoln study of 3,000 families in the United States and abroad. The sixth trait, “spiritual wellness,” they found (without looking for it) to be the “cohering force” of families. 

Strong Catholic families take the best of human experience and find that in Christ it becomes “something beautiful for God.” It’s human experience and Christ, not one or the other. Two Catholic psychiatrists, Conrad Baars and Anna Terruwe, identified a syndrome called “deprivation,” which they detected in both spiritual and non-spiritual families. 

Deprivation is the lack of true, affirming love, a love that recognizes and appreciates the beauty of the other person, without trying to “own” or “control” the other. Children from “spiritual” families can experience a lack of true affirmation (what Baars and Terruwe called the "antidote"); children need an incarnate, not a disembodied, love that affirms them deeply.

Such love, which takes the best from human experience and continually draws on the love of Christ as its spring, forms the inner dynamism of family culture. Interestingly, such “alive” families radiate the Gospel, becoming evangelizers of other families. It’s the “something beautiful for God” that people recognize in the family’s common way of life (culture) that attracts others: joy, caring, humor, fun, self-giving, and considerate love. The qualities that emanate from strong families draw others to them and, ultimately, to Christ.

Through a prayerful preparation over a period of thirty days in the home, we believe that families will find strength and renewed identity in reflecting on the Persons of the Holy Trinity as a “Family” and on the members of their earthly reflection: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The act of entrustment includes a conscious self-giving as a family, offering one’s family in joy to the Holy Trinity through the mediation of the Holy Family. It is primarily a way of trusting that the Holy Family will secure the graces and opportunities for our becoming another “holy family.”

Here’s a prayer that summarizes this outlook of entrustment:

A PRAYER FOR FAMILIES

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, help our family to discover anew the truth, goodness and beauty that is ours. You, being Three in one, show us that love grows in a union of persons, a bonding of hearts. From You, Holy Trinity, we receive the grace and the power to become what you have created us to be: a community of persons joined in self-giving love.

In the Holy Family of Nazareth, we behold the perfect earthly image of Your Trinity of Love. May we recognize Jesus in every member of our family, serving Him with the tender and practical love of Jesus and Mary. Strengthen us to become another “holy family” reflecting hope and joy to others. In our small circle of love, may a civilization of love begin. 

We ask this of you, trusting in your unfailing mercy.  Amen.