Therefore, to live healthily, learn to build your life with family, so that the family builds your life fully
It is worth talking about the family aspect in the priest’s life.
The time comes when it is time to face the natural evolution of your own family and the fact of having left “houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children or land” for Jesus becomes vivid.
But that same Lord, for whom we left everything, is the one who knows how to make all things new.
Let us review the elements that, with the grace of God, allow us to build a family.
1. Desert: in this journey of the priest there is always a phase, the family phase. Because it is here when the priest discovers over time that he is left alone in an intra-family way, to assume a new relationship outside the family. As time goes by, parents pass away, brothers and sisters start their own families, and nieces and nephews begin to build up their lives. It is at this point that the priest begins to feel the lack and loss; when he may not know where to spend Christmas, or he waits for an invitation from someone, since his loved ones have taken other paths or changed.
It is then when priests face their family desert and when the parents die, there is a before and after. This desert must be faced with reality and maturity, learning that there are changes in his life and in his family. And it is understanding that, he must make a decision.
2. Sharing: this is when the priest goes from an intra- family to an extra-family relationship. When he begins to generate ties with families or specific people. It is beginning to generate an intimate circle where he can feel like a brother, son, and friend. He needs family support and to form close relationships where he can simply be a person without an institution; where he can show his identity without the sacraments.
where he can simply be Luis, Marcelo or José. He needs a place where he can understand that he will not be judged if he talks about anything or simply plays a game. This process implies affective and spiritual maturity.
3. Changes: Your family may change and you, the priest, may also change together with your family. But the need for introspection requires that you learn to see yourself both as a man and a priest, that you know that there are times when you need to express in your spiritual direction, your family path and who your family members are today. Because that is where crisis appear strongly and can lead you to take refuge in one person instead of in a family. Beyond speaking of one person with affection, affections can be reduced to one person, generating dependency, and that dependency can generate obsession. Therefore, to live healthily, learn to build your life with family, so that the family builds your life fully.
Please pray for us!
Something good is on the way!
