The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the risks that a focus on personal pleasure and independence poses to family life, leading to selfishness.
Pope John Paul II underscores the threat posed to family relationships by societal values that prioritize individual pleasure, comfort, and freedom over collective well-being. In such a context, individuals may become emotionally distant and less willing to engage with their loved ones, ultimately jeopardizing the integrity and warmth that are foundational to strong family bonds.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of family during a community event.
True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.
Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration before the ineffable mystery which. was accomplished here... In This Child - the Son who is given to us - we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails - the Eucharistic Bread foreshadowed even in the name of this town: Bethlehem, the house of bread. God lies hidden in the Child; divinity lies hidden in the Bread of Life
And everything else will then turn out to be unimportant and inessential except this: father, child, and love. And then, looking at the simplest things, we will all say, Could we have not learned this long ago? Has this not always been embedded in everything that is?
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
Man matures through work which inspires him to difficult good.
United with the angels and saints of the heavenly Church, let us adore the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. Prostrate, we adore this great mystery that contains God's new and definitive covenant with humankind in Christ.
Parenting is the most important thing to many of us, and so it's also the place we're most vulnerable. We're all a little afraid we're doing it wrong.
I regret not taking my 83-year-old mother to the Oscars the year I won. She deserved the Oscar for giving up so much for me.
Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.
My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive-a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a family that has extended now into grandchildren who adore her; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made his sacrifices, too-but who amongst us lives without sacrifice?
There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
My mother was a powerful influence. She made me toe the line. If I didn't have a perfect report card, she showed her disappointment.
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