“We should be apostles who go into homes to give witness to the Lord”
Lima, 15/05/14 (Sodalit News – Peru). This past 14th of May the second session of the Cycle of Conferences, The joy of living and proclaiming the Gospel,” was put on by Gonzalo Flores. In this session he spoke on the topic of the, “Promotion and Evangelization of Families.”
Gonzalo Flores introduced this theme citing a famous phrase from the apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio: “Families, be what you really are!” He emphasized the identity and mission of families today, centered on the Plan of God. “In salvation history, God constantly teaches us the unlimited love that He has for man. And man responds and arrives at a covenant with God; God wanted marriage between a man and a woman to be, precisely, a reflection of this covenant between God and man,” he explained.
Afterwards, speaking on the family from a legal standpoint, Flores highlighted that, “there is a large consensus that the family accomplishes a mission which cannot be substituted, which we cannot put aside and which we should encourage so that families can really be families and society can reap the benefits.” In this way he pointed out the importance that society has for the family and vice versa.
“In Peru, the great majority of people entrust the education of their children to their schools,” Flores mentioned as an example of the distortion that exists in today’s families. “Nowadays, families feel incapable of educating their children and we find that many parents transfer this responsibility instead to their children’s schools.”
After talking about some of the most dangerous threats that today’s world presents to the family, Gonzalo Flores emphasized that, “we should be apostles who enter homes to give witness to the Lord, and in this way help the family to rediscover its identity and mission, which will in turn strengthen its auto esteem. This is the only path to recuperate the humanizing potential that the family has and which is part of its very nature.” He also pointed out that Christian families should work in, “ministries that promotes communion, strengthen family relationships and encourage an apostolate in which the family is the focus.”
Flores concluded his conference responding to various questions, which gave the attendees an opportunity to understand more deeply the challenges facing the family in our times.
The Christian Life Movement (CLM) is an ecclesial movement with its own unique spirituality and style, and within the communion of the Church. It is an International Association of Faithful of Pontifical Right, a community open to encountering the Lord Jesus where each person seeks to live an authentic and committed Christian life. Its apostolic accents are: the evangelization of families, evangelization of the young, solidarity with the poor, the evangelization of the culture and the promotion of the life, dignity and rights of the human person.