"Honour your father and your mother that you may live long in the land which the Lord is giving you"
(Exodus 20.12).

Inasmuch as we all spring from a common human stock, each of us starts out from a home, however humble or inadequate it may be. We are all interrelated, and each person is born from the prior union of his father and mother. Were it not for the care our parents bestowed on us - cursory or devoted, according to the circumstances of our conception - we would not be alive. Life itself is precious; even when we are bitterly disillusioned with the darkness of existence as in times of pain and loss, we still realize in our better moments how privileged we are to be alive and how wonderful it is to share the glory of humanity, no matter how grievously it is betrayed in our daily actions. The culmination of this glory, to which all human achievement points, is to share in the very being of God, thereby to understand and enter into the mind of the Deity and play our part in the resurrection of the world. The gift of life is God's, but the medium of its transmission is the human organism. Thus the Word itself became flesh through the sacrifice of Mary. In her purity and selflessness she became the bearer of God the Son. Jesus did not spurn the maternal womb, and in his acceptance of incarnate life he lifted up all mortal flesh to the vibrancy of divine transfiguration. His mother grew in that pure humility which is a prerequisite for the unimpeded action of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Church does well to venerate the mother of Christ and to pay special homage to the man Joseph who took on the paternal role. Without their love and protection Jesus might well have succumbed long before the beginning of his ministry.

It is an awesome moment when two people are committed to each other in marital union. Even more awesome is the moment of birth of a child conceived during the most intimate, self-giving moment of that union. When two people love each other in truth, they can lay bare the depths of their souls and become open to each other's vulnerability. Their self-consciousness recedes as their self-awareness expands until it comprehends the entire cosmos. At this moment there can be a divine penetration of the shared consciousness of man and woman, and the Holy Spirit can work his sublime alchemy in the couple. While all conception is effected by the power of that Spirit, the closer the trust and dedication of the couple, the more powerful and perfect is the operation of the Spirit. When we are empty of all desire except the will to give unconditionally of ourselves to God, then, in our poverty, we are filled with the divine grace; the riches that pour out of us show themselves in every good work. The birth of a child is a momentous work of human collaboration with the divine, perhaps the most sublime of all works. But how few of us see the process of birth in this light!

The family is the unit of civilized life. At its least, two people pledge themselves to uphold each other. As each gives of the self, so the other is enriched, and a new organism is established that incorporates the gifts of both partners, while supporting the weaknesses of each by the strength inherent in the other. Such a rudimentary family grows by the addition of children whose nurture extends the responsibility and caring of the parents; at the same time the offspring contribute their collective insights to those of their parents. Each person provides his individual gifts, while his shortcomings and defects broaden the sympathies of those close to him, making them more conversant with the wider problems of life and the ways of coping with them.

But in the family the two primary bastions, the father and the mother, hold a special place of esteem and affection long after the need for their support has waned. They are the symbols of strength and caring, of providence and devotion. Such is the ideal family as portrayed by the great spouses of antiquity: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Elkanah and Hannah, Zechariah and Elizabeth. Each gave birth to a child of promise, and we may be sure their spiritual support remained with their offspring even after their death. The memory of noble affection outlasts the physical form of its agents, strengthening those left behind with a practical ideal of perfection. This ideal assumes a psychic force which can inspire those who remember. It can empower them with superhuman resolve especially during the dark periods of trial and suffering that afflict the lives of most of us who are called to high endeavour. And in the end we are all called though few are chosen, because few can stay the course to the end. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak. The inspiration of the love of those who have preceded us is a vital ingredient of the resolve that strengthens the weak flesh, making it in due course the body of a hero.

To be a parent is a noble calling; it embodies the virtues of faith, hope and love, and its joy is to witness the growth into maturity of a fellow human being. Its sacrifice is the giving of itself without reserve, and without any assurance that the child will either become a mature person or even acknowledge the love bestowed upon it. The two necessary qualities for fulfilled parenthood are devotion and non-attachment. The necessity for devotion is evident; its height is spelled out in Jesus' words, "There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends" (John 15.13). And this devotion, which may demand even the stark death of the lover, also requires the slower death of renunciation, so that the beloved may grow into his own identity unencumbered by the possessive bonds of the lover. The depth of love in renunciation is summed up in St John Baptist's assessment of his relationship with Jesus, "As he grows greater, I must grow less" (John 3.30). No role encompasses this gradual, yet decisive, diminishment more absolutely, and more perfectly, than that of devoted parenthood. In the end the parent may become the helpless child who depends on the love of his adult offspring. This reversal of roles is characteristic of life itself, a paradox illuminated by the sayings of Jesus and more especially by his life. Thus the Son of God becomes the most execrated criminal on the cross of humans' inhumanity. The master is indeed always servant of all, at least while he is alive in the flesh of this world.

Our parents provide us with roots of security. They also mediate our continuity with the human family. They are, in addition, the first people with whom we may establish a close relationship of trust that should blossom into unselfconscious affection. This may eventually mature into love. "We love because God loved us first" (1 John 4.19). The love of God imbues the parents with a love that outlasts all the vicissitudes of life. People with no spiritual pretensions will learn the meaning of that love when they rear their own children. Even our humble mammalian relatives show a touching devotion to their young which can put us at times to shame. Of course, they may also exhibit destructive tendencies, a situation seen sometimes in the human species too. The parent is an especially fine instrument of God's love because his life revolves around his children, at least when they are small. The children in their turn learn about God's love - and I believe there is an innate knowledge of God in the soul of all young children - through the love their parents bestow on them. It is for this reason that the relationship between parent and child is such a crucial one: on it depends the child's love of himself, of God and of his neighbour. Fortunately there are occasions where distant relatives or even strangers are available to take over the place of parents who have proved inadequate or who have been called away by death when their children are still small. The essential requirement is a focus of personal attachment on which the child can rely and to which it can hold fast in times of emergency. If this source of loving support is unfailingly available when we are children, we will learn to value it and eventually love it even when we are adults.

The relationship between parent and child is seldom an easy one. The parent remembers his child when it was a helpless baby, and may continue, albeit unconsciously, to hold on to that image even when the child grows up and has become an adult. On the other hand, the parent easily assumes the image of an insensitive, old-fashioned despot when he frowns upon the vogue enthusiasms of his adolescent offspring and tries to direct them towards more profitable ways of development. If the parent's devotion has been blessed by a non-possessive trust in the inherent good sense of his child, these storms of maturing can be weathered with comparative ease so that finally both child and parent may grow in wisdom through the shared experience of life. At the same time the two will learn to respect each other, so that the parent's love may pass beyond mere possessive concern to a delighted recognition of his offspring's native wisdom and gifts. In the same way, the child may see his parent as not only a provider of sustenance, but also a fellow human being with an emotional life not very different from his own. When one's parents have become real friends, so that one can discuss one's problems openly with them, the relationship has blossomed beyond dependence to a tender love that death itself cannot extinguish. By that time both parent and child will be on terms of deep friendship with many other people.

This indeed is the end of the parent-child relationship, that many other people may be welcomed within its fold. The family unit is the presage of the global family where all will be welcomed and none excluded from its care. In Jesus' very pungent parable of the talents, the servant who has invested his master's money wisely is commended, whereas the one who has let it stand idle is absolutely condemned. "For the man who has will always be given more, till he has enough and to spare; and the man who has not will forfeit even what he has" (Matthew 25.29). The limited relationships we have in our individual families, if pursued with diligence and devotion, will make us more able to relate to the vast concourse of people we encounter in the span of an active life. We should not remain limited to our family, but rather extend the family ideal to those many different types of people around us who are not related by ties of blood. But first we must get our own house in order so that we have something warm into which we can invite other people. On the other hand, if we exclude others from our family life, we remain enclosed in our personal family; as its other members depart from us by the inevitable inroads of change and death, so we will become increasingly isolated until we are completely alone.

While the family is the unit of civilization, it can also be a "little tiger" (to quote William Morris) that is concerned about its own well-being to the exclusion of any charitable impulse towards other people. The family is not an end in itself; like the Sabbath, it was made for man's benefit. Just as the Sabbath can deteriorate into a dreary, legalistic observance devoid of all spiritual joy when it becomes a tool in our hands, so the family may be rarefied into a gathering of the elect that divides people socially and intellectually. Just as the true end of the Sabbath is to extend it to all the days of the week, so the family finds its zenith and its completion when no one is outside its walls.

To return once more to the parable of the talents, the master says to the diligent servant, "Well done, my good and trusty servant, you have proved yourself trustworthy in a small way; I will now put you in charge of something big". When we have dealt well with our parents in their dependence as they grow older, we ourselves qualify better to become parents to others. These may be first of all our own children, but later on that caring can be expended on other people also. The experience of bereavement, once the shock has been assimilated, can open up the life of the one who is left to a heightened compassion for many other people. Indeed, the family unit may need to be exploded by outer circumstances before the sympathy of its individual members can reach the vast mass of people outside its barriers.

Once we have experienced love, we cannot be complete until we give that love to all those around us. Love, furthermore, is unmerited. God has no favourites. This is the essential difference between liking and loving someone. We like a person because of his character; his traits harmonize with our own and we can establish common ground with him. On the other hand, we love a person despite his character. Love knows no bounds, and in its fullness it attempts to embrace everyone, indeed the whole creation. It is prepared to give up its very life for its friend, who in the instance of Christ is everybody. We are all so much a part of each other that there can ultimately be no assured happiness until we all participate in it. People cannot be changed according to our preference. We have to accept them as they are, and by our unremitting love evoke the divinity that lies within them also. This love may be repudiated, as in the instance of Christ among his contemporaries, and therein lies its tragedy. But it never comes to an end. This is surely the most important property of love in St Paul's analysis (1 Corinthians 13.8). This is eminently the nature of a parent's love for its child. This quality establishes love as the most important principle in creation, and it is perpetuated as the children become parents in their due time.

When we honour our parents we are paying homage to the qualities of devotion, sacrifice and integrity. Ultimately our parents become symbols of all that cares personally for us. Until we are acknowledged as persons we cannot function with integrity as individuals in our own right. We can form no stable relationships with others, and our witness becomes unreliable and eventually dishonest. It is the stability of our family background that gives us our first glimpse of personal identity. To be sure, this has to broaden to include our full place in the world, but the point of departure is the family unit of which we are at first the centre. Furthermore, if we honour our parents we are taking the first step in honouring common humanity. As we grow up so we bestow our love on other people also, but the stability and self-sacrifice of the parental relationship is our paradigm for all future ties and commitments. The honour due to a parent is imbued with flashes of thanksgiving. As we have received, so we in our turn can give to others. If, on the other hand, we have been deprived of parental affection, we cannot give loyal affection to others. To love another person requires first of all a love of one's own being, and this comes from God and through him to all in our company and primarily our parents. When we can take ourselves for granted we are immutably fixed in our own identity. Then we can flow out in constant warmth to the world around us. The stability of a loving family group is an ideal basis for this sense of belonging that fixes us in our own identity. To be sure, the identity expands as we grow, but its basis and uniqueness are unchanging.

The situation applies also to the country of our birth, our fatherland. It gave us nurture when we were small and helpless, it shaped the contours of our mind and its history moulded our moral judgements and our spiritual aspiration. Until we have grown to love our place of birth we will never love any other place. Love, in other words, is involved in each minute particular. It is different from mere goodwill which can remain a remote, often theoretical attitude of benevolence devoid of personal commitment. The man of goodwill thinks kindly of others and bears no malice, but he can remain comfortably detached from those who are in trouble while wishing them well. When he can descend to earth and lend a helping hand to his own inconvenience, the element of sacrifice is added. As he works selflessly on behalf of others, so love is kindled in his breast.

We know, of course, of the terrible consequences of undiscriminating patriotism, which is in fact an extension of exclusive family loyalty. All else is consumed in the fire of hatred as war ravages nations and destroys civilizations. Chauvinistic nationalism is the bane of worldwide co-operation, but it will not be cured by a vapid internationalism which refuses to identify itself with any country or people in particular while affecting to support all good causes. When we start to explore our own national heritage we can first begin to identify ourselves with the heroes of our past. We soon realize how interconnected all nations are by their common civilization and the religious traditions that lead them to an encounter with God. The mind and spirit of humanity move effortlessly Godward in the creation of great art and the establishment of scientific truth. When we realize this, we can thank God for the ancestors who made our own country and tradition great while extending that gratitude to the heroes of other countries and traditions also. These cease to be mere intellectual abstractions but become living forces within us. Then at last we can exult in our own tradition with such confidence that we are able to share it with other groups, while ambibing their national riches with equal joy. In this way a patriotic zeal broadens into an international solidarity where the strength of a country is evidenced by its capacity to serve the whole community of nations. In this state of being we are in all things, while the whole is comprehended in our individual witness.

At the same time a positive appreciation of our ancestral roots and national heritage should be balanced by a candid acknowledgement of the less creditable actions committed by our parents and country of birth whether at present or in the past. This sober assessment prevents our gratitude proceeding to family or national pride. Honouring one's roots does not mean glorifying them, let alone deifying them. Praise that is not tempered by discerning criticism merely blinds us to our own less desirable qualities. If our parents are to be honoured, they should in their turn be worthy of honour. They need not be beyond human reproach - none of us attains this degree of perfection - but their sacrifice and loving responsibility should be such as to evoke a loving response from their children, at least when these grow up to a maturity which can view life from a broader perspective. Where no love has been given, none can be expected. In fact, the grace of God works unexpected miracles in the hearts of even the most deprived people who may respond to life with love despite its absence in their own family backgrounds. Nevertheless, the breakdown of family relationships on a large scale is an ominous sign of the disintegration of society: each person fights against his neighbour until the very base of civilization is shattered.

How in fact should we honour our parents? When we are small we do this by the act of obedience. Indeed, if we fail to obey them we will invite punishment. This is an almost reflex response on the part of authority to disobedience. It is a property of love to prevent the beloved endangering itself unnecessarily: a father who spares the rod hates his son, but one who loves him keeps him in order (Proverbs 13.24). In this way the parent brings his child into the protection of the society he is to serve. To obedience is added loyalty as the child grows up and actualizes his own gifts and establishes his own pattern of life. Meanwhile his own insights dawn and his unique identity develops into its full expression. Loyalty, as we have already said, is faithful support illuminated by truth. We should be true to our parents and friends without in any way denying their errors or ignoring their frailties. Thus we can remain loyal to our parents while blazing our own trail, which may be a very different one from that envisaged by them in their fond imagination. Loyalty embraces the qualities of obedience, affection and integrity. Eventually it matures to love, the supreme quality of relationship which transcends any desire, demand or duty. It is a simple, direct contemplative awareness in which there is total giving of oneself in silence to our parents when they are old, decrepit and possibly the victims of senile dementia. We too may one day suffer these indignities of old age, but as we have given service in our time, so will devotion be shown us also.

It is instructive finally to consider Jesus' relationship with his mother; how he loved her yet from an early age showed his independence of her. His primary loyalty was to his heavenly Father, as he made clear in the episode of his debating in the temple with the doctors of the Law when only twelve years old. His attitude to the very natural distress of his parents was incisive and clear, but it showed scant sympathy towards their human frailty. Nevertheless, he went back with them to Nazareth and continued to be under their authority (Luke 2.41-51). When his ministry commenced, his independence was all the greater. When his mother drew his attention to the lack of wine at the marriage-feast in Cana-in-Galilee, he told her not to be over-concerned in the matter: it was his business and his hour was yet to come. Nevertheless, he performed the miracle of turning water into wine, to be seen even more potently as a sign of the transformation of all the creation from insipidity to vibrancy in the presence of the Lord.

On another occasion his mother and brethren came to see him while he was in discourse with a crowd in a house. He dismissed their priority over him by observing that anyone who does God's will is his brother, sister and mother (Mark 3.31-5). Clearly the spiritual relationship we all share equally with God far outdistances even the intimate physical relationship based on ties of blood or marriage we have with special people. In the end all the world is to be brought into that intimate relationship as we grow in the consciousness of God. Nevertheless, when Jesus hung suspended on the cross between two criminals and no one was particularly anxious to be identified as his friend, the three women who remained silent below held vigil for him; in John's account one of these women was his mother whom he entrusted to John himself for care after his own death (John 19.25-7). We therefore see the balance in Jesus' life between obedience and commitment to his parents and a total transcendence of attachment to them. When he was young, he may well have been so absorbed in God that he found human dependence rather irksome. But when his full ministry dawned and he was drawn to common humanity in all its sordid reality and heroic sacrifice, it may well be that he saw his family in a much more sympathetic light. "Son though he was, he learned obedience in the school of suffering" (Hebrews 5.8). This suffering brought him to full perfection, to a complete balance of the divine and human natures. This balance has also to be struck between the love we owe particular people and the love we are to have for all people. In the end the multitude merge with the family, extending it to embrace all creation, while all is brought up to divine participation.