Homily pronounced in the Eucharistic Celebration in Santa Clara's Diocese
January 22, 1998

1. "The words that I tell you today will be in your minds; you will repeat them to your children and you will speak of them being at home and going on the way" (Dt 6, 6-7). We have met in the Sports field of the Manuel Fajardo Cultural Sports Higher Superior Institute, converted today like in an immense opened temple. In this encounter we want to give thanks God for the great gift of the family.

Already in the first page of the Bible the sacred author presents us this institution: "God created man to his image and made them male and female (Gn 1, 27). In this sense, human people in their duality of sexes are, as God himself and for his will, source of life: Grow and Multiply (Gn 1, 28). therefore, the family is called to cooperate in the plan of God and in its creative work by means of the alliance of spousal love between the man and the woman and, as San Pablo will tell us, this alliance is also sign of Christ's union with its Church (cf. Ef 5,32).

2. Dear siblings and sisters: it pleases me to greet with great affection to Mons. Fernando Prego Casal, Bishop of Santa Clara, to the Gentlemen Cardinals and other Bishops, to the priests and deacons, to the members of the religious communities, to all you, faithful lay. I also want to direct a deferential greeting to the civil authorities. My words go to the families very especially here present, which want to proclaim the firm purpose of carrying out in their life the saving project of the Lord...

3. The family institution in Cuba is receiver of the rich patrimony of virtues that distinguished to the Creole families of last times, whose members insisted so much in the diverse fields of the social life and forged the Country without repairing in sacrifices and setbacks. Those families, been founded compactly in the Christian principles, as well as in their sense of family solidarity and respect for the life, were true communities of mutual affection, of joy and party, of trust and security, of serene reconciliation. They were also characterized -like many of today homes - for the unity, the deep respect to the adults, the high sense of responsibility, the sincere observance of the paternal and maternal authority, the happiness and the optimism, as much in the poverty as in the wealth, the desires to fight for a better world and, above everything, for the great faith and trust in God.

Today, the families in Cuba are also affected by the challenges that suffer so many families at the moment in the world. Numerous are the members of these families that have fought and dedicated their life to conquer a better existence, in which are guaranteed the indispensable human rights: working, feeding, housing, health, education, social security, social participation, freedom of association and to choose the own vocation. The family, fundamental cell of the society and guarantee of its stability, suffer the crises that can affect to the same society however. This happens when the marriages live in economic or cultural systems that, under the false appearance of freedom and progress, they promote or they even defend an anti-birth mentality, inducing from that way to the husbands to appeal to methods of control of the natality that don't agree with the human dignity. It is even arrived to the abortion, which is always, besides an abominable crime (cf. Const. past. Gaudium et spes, 51), the person's absurd impoverishment and of the same society. Before it the Church teaches that God has trusted the men the mission of transmitting the life in a way worthy of the man, fruit of the responsibility and of the love among the husbands.

The maternity is, sometimes, presented as a setback or a limitation of the woman's freedom, distorting this way its true nature and its dignity. The children are presented not as what they are -a great gift of God -, but as something against what it is necessary to defend. The social situation that has been lived in this dear Country has also carried not few difficulties to the family stability: the material lacks -as when the wages are not enough or they have a very limited purchasing power -, the dissatisfactions for ideological reasons, the attraction of the consumption society. These, together with certain labor measures or of another gender, they have caused a problem that crawls in Cuba for years: the mandatory separation of the families inside the Country and the emigration that has torn apart to whole families and it has sowed pain in the population's considerable part. Experiences, not always accepted and sometimes traumatic, are the separation of the children and the substitution of the role of the parents because of the studies that are carried out far from the home in the age of the adolescence, in situations that give for sad result the proliferation of the promiscuity, the ethical impoverishment, the vulgarity, the pre-marital relationships to early age and the easy way out to the abortion. All this leaves deep and negative prints in the youth that is called to embody the authentic moral values for the consolidation of a better society.

4. The road to conquer these wrongs is not another that Jesus Christ, its doctrine and its example of total love that saves us. No ideology can substitute its infinite wisdom and power. For that reason it is necessary to recover the religious values in the family and social environment, fomenting the practice of the virtues that formed the origins of the Cuban Nation, in the process of building their future with all and for the well of al, like José Martí requested. The family, the school and the Church should form an educational community where the children from Cuba can grow in humanity. not to be afraid, open the families and the schools to the values of Jesus Christ Gospel that is never a danger for any social project.

5. The Angel of the Lord appeared in dreams to José and told him: Get up and take the boy and his mother" (Mt 2, 13). The revealed Word shows us how God wants to protect to the family and to preserve it of all danger. For that reason the Church, lively and illuminated by the Holy Spirit, tries to defend, and to propose their children and all the men of good will the truth about the fundamental values of the Christian marriage and of the family. Also, it proclaims, as unavoidable duty, the sanctity of this sacrament and its moral demands, to safeguard the dignity of all human people.

The marriage, with its character of exclusive and permanent union, is sacred because has its origin in God. The Christians, when receiving the sacrament of the marriage, participate in the creative plan of God and receive the grace they need to complete their mission, to educate and to form the children, and to respond to the call to the sanctity. It is an union different from any other human union, because it is founded in the delivery and the husbands' mutual acceptance with the purpose of ending up being a single flesh (Gn 2, 24), living in a community of life and love whose vocation is to be sanctuary of the life (cf. Evangelium vitae, 59). With its faithful and persevering union, the husbands contribute to the good of the family institution, and they manifest that the man and the woman have the capacity to be given forever each other, without the voluntary and perennial donation annuls the freedom, because in the marriage each personality should remain unaffected, and to develop the great law of the love: to be given each other to surrender together to the task that God commends them. If the human person is the center of all social institution, then the family, first socialization environment, should always be a community of free and responsible people that take the marriage like a project of love ahead, perfectionable always that contributes with vitality and dynamism to the civil society.

6. In the matrimonial life the service to the life is not drained in the conception, but rather is prolonged in the education of the new generations. The parents, when having given the life to the children, have the serious obligation of educating to the offspring and, consequently, they should be recognized as the first and main educators of their children. This task of the education is so important that, when it lacks, difficultly it can be replaced (cf. Decl. Gravissimun educationis, 3). It is a duty and of a right non-replaceable and inalienable character. It is true that in the environment of the education to the public authority concerns to grant rights and duties, since it has to serve to the very common one; however, this doesn't give it the right to substitute the parents. Therefore, the parents, without waiting that other replaces them in what is their responsibility, they should be able to choose for their children the pedagogic style, the ethical and civic contents and the religious inspiration in those that they want to form them integrally. Don't hope everything comes given to. Assume their educational mission, looking for and creating the spaces and means adapted in the civil society.

It must be offered, also, to the families a worthy house and a united home, so that they can enjoy and to transmit an ethical education and a favorable atmosphere for the cultivation of the high ideals and the perseverance of the faith.

7. Dear siblings and sisters, dear husbands and parents, dear children: I have wanted to remember some essential aspects of the project of God on the marriage and the family to help you to live with generosity and giving the way to sanctity to which many are called. Welcome with love the Word of the Lord proclaimed in this Sacrament. In the responding Psalm we have listened: Blissful the one that fears to the Lord and follows his roads... your children like renewed olive trees, around your table... This is the man's blessing that fears to the Lord.

Very big it is the vocation to the matrimonial and family life, inspired by the Word of God and according to the pattern of the Sacred Family of Nazareth. Dear Cubans: (Be faithful to the divine word and this model! Dear husbands and women, parents and mothers, families of the noble Cuba: (Conserve in your lives that sublime pattern, helped by the grace that has been given in the sacrament of the marriage! That God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, inhabit your homes. This way, the Catholic families of Cuba will contribute decisively to the great divine cause of the man's salvation in this blessed earth that is your Homeland and your Nation. Cuba: take care of your families so that you conserve healthy your heart!

That the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, Mother of all the Cubans, Mother in the Home of Nazareth, intercede for all the families of Cuba so that, renovated, vivified and helped in her difficulties, live in serenity and peace, overcome the problems and difficulties, and all their members reach the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ, Lord. of the history and of the humanity. To Him the glory and the power for the centuries of the centuries. Amen.