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the family and their children’s education through schools. Fourth, Christian
families participate in the missionary role of the Church. It is important that
the members learn together to invoke God in regular prayer in a communion
2
of faith and love. The Southist community customs and practices underline
and ritualize these missions.

The co-operation of the couple in the divine work of creation and the
love which inspires and helps them to understand the sacred character of
procreation strengthen the orientation of their love to transmitting life.
Through this love the family makes God’s presence experienced in their
home. Therefore, not only each Christian considered individually, but the
whole family as such, is called to witness to the life, love and unity which
the Church possesses as properties deriving from her nature as a sacred
community, constituted and living in Christ’s love. The Southist family
embraces this witness to life.

Pope John Paul II also recognised the challenges to the transmission
of life in modern society. The concept of the baptized “to be married in the
3
Lord”, the institutional and traditional family arrangements, and the attitude
towards maternity and child-bearing have undergone significant changes.
The increasing propaganda of contraception and the lost sense of the gravity
of abortion and euthanasia are also threats to the transmission of life. The
Southist community faces these same challenges with mixed success.

To have life abundantly (Jn. 10, 10) does not only have a
demographic or numerical sense but also a qualitative sense. It is “fullness
of life” by formation and education. “As families go, so goes the church,
4
and so goes human society as a whole”. These words of Pope John Paul II
remind all of the fundamental role of families in the transmission and
formation of life. These words also show the importance of faith formation,
forming the conscience, moral formation, and all other education that helps
a human being to become an authentic person who manifests “the image and
likeness of God”. This mission is called the “Transformation of life”. This
fundamental role of families is implied in the already-existing traditions of
the Southist family.

2 Cf. JOHN PAUL II, “Family is Safeguarded of Truly Free Society”, in L’Osservatore
Romano, English Edition, 31 December, 1997, p.2.
3 Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, no.7, 22 November,
1981, in AAS 74, 1982, pp. 81-191.
4 JOHN PAUL II, “Families, be Faithful to your Vocation”, in L’Osservatore Romano,
English Edition, 8 October, 1997, p.1.

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