The International Day of Families (15^th May) gives us the opportunity to welcome the testimony of a Mexican couple. Rosy and Andrés are members of a CLC (Christian Life Community) and the Ignatian spirituality underlies the daily life of their family.

By Rosy Arcila and Andrés Mayorquín | CLC Mexico

“I, Rosy/Andrés, accept you, Andrés/Rosy, as my spouse, and I promise to be by your side at all times, when there is health and when illness comes upon you; to share your successes and support you in your failures; I want to help you to be a happy professional and a happy father/mother; I promise to be part of your fulfilment as a lay Catholic, but above all to show you the love of God through my daily love, for the rest of my life.”

This is what we promised each other when we got married more than 17 years ago. We started from a conviction that came from our experience of the Spiritual Exercises: we are children of God and He loves us unconditionally. As St Ignatius says, it is about having desires, and our vows expressed the deep desire to be a family that lives the same dynamic of God’s love.

Our personal and family history is full of that unconditional love of God, that is the certainty that brightens our days, helps us in difficulties and makes us committed. Even before we got married we were clear that we wanted to be a family “on the move”.

When we were newly married we had the joy of being invited to a formation workshop for young people in a nearby village and then to be part of a CLC community. There we were able to learn more deeply about self-knowledge, accompaniment, individual and couple discernment, elements that became fundamental in our family experience: to know who I am, who I am with and where I am going, to choose each other day by day and to be true companions on the journey. There is no better companion than the one who knows you and loves your deepest self, with your lights and shadows, giving you the freedom to grow, change and even fail personally, academically, at work, and who can recognise the movements of the Spirit in you, sometimes before you can recognise them yourself.

With Ignatian spirituality we have confirmed that our fullness involves being spouses and parents, so that when we realized that we could not be biological parents, our discernment was crystal clear: adoption was our path. It is with great joy that we can say that, in this family of five, we all chose each other. However, parenthood has not been easy. It has made us reinvent ourselves more than once and spirituality has been a great ally. Striving to live Ignatian indifference has helped us to make complex decisions, choosing what we believe to be the greatest good for the family.

Many times, we have not been the parents we want to be; we recognise our fragility and more than once we have felt overwhelmed. Practising the daily examen has allowed us to recognise our mistakes and to put in place the means to try to correct them, and it has also helped us to teach our children to look at their hearts, and to recognise in them the presence of the Spirit, the invitation to love and serve more, even if it is not always the easiest thing to do.

We have also seen our children behave in a way that we consider wrong. Hearing them say “I will not do it again”, we have been able to understand “Go and sin no more”, - with a fullness of mercy, not as a demand or a condition, - but as a hope and a desire to change, with the awareness that, in their process of growing up, they will surely fail again, and we will be here to forgive and to trust again.

Being a parent means living in uncertainty: are we doing it right or should we have done it differently? We worry about whether we are preparing our children well for their future life, whether they will be able to establish relationships with others and with the world based on love. This raises issues such as dating and sexuality; spirituality and religious practice; sustainability and care for the environment; the way we consume, accumulate and share; diversity and inclusion; vocational training and service to others; the world of politics too, among many others.

In the face of such uncertainty, we are encouraged and hopeful to hear our children speak of God as a loving Father, or to see the youngest one planning her “CLC meeting” while playing. We can only continue to ask God for the grace of inner knowledge of so much blessing received, so that, as a family, we can always keep the desire “to be for others”.