Building a Culture of the Family: The Language of Love

From the title page onward, Msgr. Livio Melina rightly speaks of a 'culture of the family.' The family is always the fundamental unit of human society. The family is where almost all of us receive our first lessons in living with others. In the family we learn to give and take. In the family we learn to discipline our desires for the sake of peaceful coexistence. In the family we learn to love. The culture draws its life and identity from the family. When the culture is healthy, you can attribute its vitality to healthy family life. A healthy culture will, in turn, nurture continued health in the family home. Yet the opposite is also true. When a culture turns decadent, individualistic, consumerist, and cruel, you can bet that it is rotting from the inside -- inside its families. To say all that is simply to state the obvious. But Msgr. Melina goes beyond a description of the relationship between family and culture. He examines why this is so, and he proposes answers that take us into the eternal life of God