In homily given on 30 December 2007, the founder of the Heralds of the Gospel, Monsignor John Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP, is wary of demonstrating the supernatural end to which God destined the family institution, even though the secularized society of our days consider the family from an entire and exclusively natural point of view.
Watch the excerpt:
They follow the very words of Monsignor John Claudia.
Homily excerpt of December 30, 2007:
The family is the mother cell of society. And the well-constituted family, the one that aims to have offspring and educate the offspring for holiness, this is a holy family, the family that aims to imitate Joseph, Mary, in the education of their children. […]
The family does not have a purely social goal, but above all religious. The family is an institution that is fixed more supernaturally, which is fixed more divinely, more divinely, thus linked to God and to God's designs in the New Testament, with Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ elevates the family to the category of sacrament, is one of the sacraments. There are seven sacraments of the Church; one of them is the sacrament of Marriage. And God wanted to elevate the family to this degree of sacrament because He wants the constitution of the family and wants the family to have very clear before him the religious goal she possesses.
We see establish, in the New Testament, this Religious Order, that Religious Order, and we see a florism of religious vocations born here, there and there. And at one point, the idea that the family does not have a religious goal is created, the family has a purely social and exclusively social goal, which is not true. When we analyze the history of a Religious Order and see that it develops, develops, reaches a fullness, we, to understand well the basis of where this flowering of the Religious Order is born, we pay attention at one point and then we see the source : "Seek the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and the rest will be given to you by addition" (cf. Mt 6, 33). […]
The main concern must be to seek the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and holiness. The family exists to raise offspring, raise their sons — sons, daughters –, educate these children within wisdom, and direct them to eternal life, because we are in this life of passage, and therefore the referral that must be made of children is to prepare them to face the problems of this life with a view to eternity. That's the concern. It must be the first concern in moral formation, in the religious formation of children.
And that's the big problem even of religious orders. They, when they grow up and when they develop and when they become increasingly fortified, is because the main concern lies in the search for the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. And the rest comes to him in addition. Come in addition! Without there being a direct concern with maintenance, maintenance ends up reaching the hands. And Our Lord himself will say in the Gospel that the Father does not even let a bird starve, let alone a direct son of Him. Because baptized, son of Him, therefore. And in the fa[é]mily the same thing; that is, what exists in a religious order is what exists in a family.
In fact, the family is practically a tiny religious order, but it is, there is a relationship between father, mother and children that is a relationship based on God. Says São Paulo: "… Love is the bond of perfection…" And so, therefore within family life there must be this intense love, but it cannot be a purely sensitive love, it cannot be a purely sentimental love, it cannot be a purely romantic love; it has to be a love that goes over the vicissitudes, difficulties, temperamental problems, even ideological difficulties, goes over, and it is a love that aims at sanctification of the other spouse and the sanctification of sons and daughters.