Are we complying with our family duty?

Which family are we a member of? Who is its head and what is he asking of us?

 A wise and rich man built a fortress outside a run down city, with all the comfort there could be, and invited all the people who wanted to go live with him. He created a big family of all the ones who accepted the invitation and liked it there. The only requirement was to have a loving feeling toward each other; they had to live in community with one another despite their differences. The owner gave tasks to everyone to keep up the place and to practice the generosity and hospitality he had shown them. Some of the tasks included construction work and maintenance to accommodate new comers. Others were   harvesting and providing  food; therefore everyone did his or her part to be able to have a perfect worry free community. But in spite of the good weather they enjoyed, the wise man knew a great catastrophe would hit them. That would be the destruction of all who lived around them, precariously, and had not come yet to their fortress to get the benefits he was offering. He then made a calling to the family who was with him and asked them to please go, for the sake of love, and bring all who did not want to perish. Many excused themselves for they had no time due to their other responsibility or because they did not have what it takes to convince anybody that with such a “good weather” there could be  a great calamity as it was prognosticated.

Everyone is NOT a son or daughter of God as I have heard some people say. We are all his creatures, yes, but the only ones who belong to his family are the ones who have professed the Faith on him and decided to follow the teachings and rules He established as the head of the family. And what are those rules? The word of God says: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and  with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10:27 NIV) It doesn’t say to love the one, who thinks as you do, or the one who goes to your same church or belongs to the same religion as you do, or the one who is from your country of birth or that has something in common with you. It simply says to love YOUR NEIGHBOR. And to define who this is, Jesus told the Good Samaritan story, there in the same chapter of Luke. But in the famous Sermon of the Mountain which He starts with the Beatitudes, He included the enemies: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your father in heaven. (Mathew 5:44-45) Thus our duty is to Love as God did and gave himself in the form of his Son Jesus, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16b)

And to fully comply with our family duty we should do what he asked of us: Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. (Mark 16:15), which does not mean you have to literally take a plane and travel around to speak to communities. If we could, it would be great, but what He meant was for us to witness the good news to others, in the way we live everyday, wherever we are . The only way we can counter attack the great catastrophe we are being victims of in different ways, since man chose to disobey God, is to comply with our family duty, through LOVE. And, Jesus assures us in his Word: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:1-3)