Welcome to Family Life Apostolate! Guided by the conviction that the family is the primary vehicle for spiritual growth, the Family Life Apostolate (FLA) was designed to explore the dynamics of faith growth and faith sharing in Catholic families, and to develop new initiatives for promoting faith maturity in families throughout the entire family cycle. This is a unique community effort to create new pastoral and faith-based approaches to fostering spiritual growth in families.
The FLA believes that:
- the family is a community of life and love in service to God's kingdom with a specific identity and mission.
- the family is the primary context for faith growth and faith sharing, profoundly shaping the religious identity among its members.
- the family is a privileged locale for encountering God in everyday life experiences and in the Christian Tradition/Story.
- the family life cycle stages provide a framework for faith growth in the entire family system.
The mission of the family as a domestic church, a community of life and love in service to God's kingdom in history, is realized through 4 every specific tasks. One of the primary goals of the FLA is to empower families to undertake and realize these tasks as well as to assist the other various ministries and their leaders in the work of empowering families. These 4 tasks provide the nucleus around which the FLA is built upon. Each resource seeks to promote the development of these following 4 tasks in the lives of families.
*Task 1: The family is an intimate community of persons. Its sense of community is manifested in mutual self-giving by the members of the family throughout its life together. This community also calls for the respect of its family member's uniqueness and dignity.
*Task 2: The family serves life in its transmission, physically, by bringing children into the world, and spiritually, by handing on values and traditions as well as developing the potential of each member at every age. It is the duty of parents to create a family atmosphere inspired by love and devotion to God and their fellow persons, and to promote an integrated, personal, and social education of the child. It is the responsibility of all members of the family to promote the development and potential of each member at every age.
*Task 3: The family participates in the in the development of society by becoming a community of social training, hospitality, and political involvement and activity. How family members learn to relate to each other with respect, love, caring, fidelity, honesty, and commitment becomes their way of relating to others in the world.
*Task 4: The family shares in the life and mission of the Church by becoming a believing and evangelizing community in dialogue with God, and a community in the service of humanity. As the basic community of believers, bound together in love to one another, the family is the arena where the drama of redemption is played out. The dying and rising with Christ is most clearly manifested. Here, the cycle of sin, hurt, reconciliation, and healing is lived out over and over again. In family life is found the church of the home: where each day "two or three are gathered" in the Lord's name; where the hungry are fed; where the thirsty are given drink; where the sick are comforted. Everyday, ordinary happenings often provide the richest childhood recollections and will become part of our children's history, their foundation, and their lives.
The Family Encounter Weekend is one of the highlights of the BLD Community's various activities. It offers the family a chance to rekindle and affirm each family member's love and relationship with one another. To some family who has been broken by maligned ideas of our corrupt society, this weekend could be the beginning of a healing for a lifetime. For those whose relationships have been alienated by pressing circumstances, this could be the time to attain that pristine and wholesome need to reach out to loved ones and mend their differences and begin a life full of hope and love. Let us all remember the Word of God: "Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ."
Ephesians 4:7, 12-13
*Task 1: The family is an intimate community of persons. Its sense of community is manifested in mutual self-giving by the members of the family throughout its life together. This community also calls for the respect of its family member's uniqueness and dignity.
*Task 2: The family serves life in its transmission, physically, by bringing children into the world, and spiritually, by handing on values and traditions as well as developing the potential of each member at every age. It is the duty of parents to create a family atmosphere inspired by love and devotion to God and their fellow persons, and to promote an integrated, personal, and social education of the child. It is the responsibility of all members of the family to promote the development and potential of each member at every age.
*Task 3: The family participates in the in the development of society by becoming a community of social training, hospitality, and political involvement and activity. How family members learn to relate to each other with respect, love, caring, fidelity, honesty, and commitment becomes their way of relating to others in the world.
*Task 4: The family shares in the life and mission of the Church by becoming a believing and evangelizing community in dialogue with God, and a community in the service of humanity. As the basic community of believers, bound together in love to one another, the family is the arena where the drama of redemption is played out. The dying and rising with Christ is most clearly manifested. Here, the cycle of sin, hurt, reconciliation, and healing is lived out over and over again. In family life is found the church of the home: where each day "two or three are gathered" in the Lord's name; where the hungry are fed; where the thirsty are given drink; where the sick are comforted. Everyday, ordinary happenings often provide the richest childhood recollections and will become part of our children's history, their foundation, and their lives.
The Family Encounter Weekend is one of the highlights of the BLD Community's various activities. It offers the family a chance to rekindle and affirm each family member's love and relationship with one another. To some family who has been broken by maligned ideas of our corrupt society, this weekend could be the beginning of a healing for a lifetime. For those whose relationships have been alienated by pressing circumstances, this could be the time to attain that pristine and wholesome need to reach out to loved ones and mend their differences and begin a life full of hope and love. Let us all remember the Word of God: "Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ."
Ephesians 4:7, 12-13
Invitation to Family Encounter Weekend
For more information, contact: Family Life Apostolate Coordinator
