Everyday For Life Canada: Family Day 2013: make it truly a special ...

On February 18, 2013, it's Family Day again in Canada, at least it is for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. Why not make it a special day since this the Year of Faith? But whether you're a Christian or you follow another religion or have no faith at all, Family Day is a great opportunity for parents to remind?themselves that a good family life is central to the make-up of a healthy, functioning society. You may ask, what I can do with my family to make it truly a wonderful family experience? Begin with this first step: make the decision to spend the entire day with your family. Tell your children that you plan to do that and share your intention with them so they too can offer some suggestions as to what to do together.

When parents spend time together with the family, the children know and feel that you're doing that because you care for them, you love them, and this is the best gift that parents can give. This gift of time which is truly a gift of life cannot be bought at any price. There's no such thing as quality time with children. All family time together is quality time and the more time spent together gives parents a better opportunity to build stronger and closer relationships. This will help to insure that ?children will have better, happier and more successful lives. They will have the necessary preparation to live the Commandment to "Honour your father and your father."

You may wish to take you family to a museum, go out for a walk together, go skating at an indoor or outdoor rink, eat together as a family, find some time to pray, go visit somebody who is sick or a grandparent in a retirement home, play board games or do some kind of arts and crafts activity. The idea is to get the whole family involved and re-connect with one another.?This what more families in the past used to do on Sunday.?With our busy and hectic everyday city lives, Family Day is a chance to realize that what counts the most are the simple things in life: sharing and being together. Get away from the virtual reality of the computer, the television screen, the expensive video games, and the movies and spend the time with real people to create real experiences. When was the last time you told your children that you loved them? Teenagers need to hear this positive message as well. It's simple, but it has to be done, and done with charity, for it to be effective.

Canada's roots, with the exception of the Aboriginal peoples of the First Nations,, are mostly Christian. There's over 400 years of rich Christian history in Canada. Christians have shaped every aspect of Canadian culture: hospitals, schools, street names, church life, art, literature, music, architecture, laws, universities and other institutions including the Government of Canada. On Family Day it would be wise to reflect on the Christian values that have made Canada a great nation. Values like the love of God, of neighbour, of good stewardship and of building the common good. We can be certain that the early hard working pioneers would have appreciated a holiday to spend it with the family. So, we owe it to them in memory of their scarifies to continue the tradition to build strong, caring families. Those of us who are Christians, have the added responsibility to pass the faith to our children.

Just think for a moment of the significance a good family life made in your life. When mothers and fathers work together to make sure children get what they need, our whole society benefits because the future generation will have a better chance of being happy, productive and well-adjusted adults. Permit me to share this personal experience with you. I worked for nearly 11 years with children in a care and treatment program. The Catholic Children's Aid Society, the Toronto Catholic District School Board and Clifton House, a group home facility, had formed a partnership to teach students who couldn't attend a regular school. As the teacher, I can tell you that every student in our alternative program came from a broken family. Some students were Crown wards in search of legal parenthood. In fact during those years, I never met even one parent to talk to about how their child could be helped. Without exception, every student that enrolled was depressed, spiritually broken and generally unhappy. I learned this from that assignment: a good and strong family is no guarantee that we can avoid all future problems with our children, but it does insure a higher level of success. Good mothers and fathers make an enormous difference in shaping the future lives of their children for the better. If parents and grandparents protect, provide and love their children, God will take care of the rest.

Finally, in the Catechism we find this guiding and instructive statement: "The importance of the family for the life and well-being of society?entails a particular responsibility for society to support and strengthen marriage and the family. Civil authority should consider it a grave duty to acknowledge the true nature of marriage and the family, to protect and foster them, to safeguard public morality, and promote domestic prosperity." (2210)

So, what are you planning to do this coming Monday for Family Day? Happy Family Day 2013!

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Source: http://everydayforlifecanada.blogspot.com/2013/02/family-day-2013-make-it-truly-special.html

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