You have families. Man should be as a priest in the family. He has responsibility for his wife and children. Then he will have grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Think of Abraham – he believed and God gave a blessing to all his descendants. Each of you bears responsibility. Family is your diocese, your parish. You are responsible above all for the souls, and not only for yourselves. Husband should be the head of his wife, the head of the family. He has a certain responsibility before God. God also gives man a kind of authority. Man should learn true wisdom. He needs to learn to fight against lies, to manage his family wisely and to protect it. This is not simple. It does not mean just to give orders but to be on the cross many times. Often you cannot force the truth on others, you need to learn to respect in certain situations that people are not yet mature. E.g. children rebel, are manipulated by the spirit of the world and soak it up… When you try to instil into them sound Christian principles, they don’t like it. Think e.g. of the way of clothing. Maybe you have daughters. Girls are very fond of dressing up, and you must say: “You can’t dress like this.” She takes offence: “You don’t understand it!”, and conflicts arise. The only salvation for you to endure the fight is community. A community of people who have a sound spirit and sound teaching, because the pressure of the world which destroys Christianity is very strong. In order to withstand, you need to learn to think properly. Men have a tendency to philosophize. At the present time, they need to grow in true wisdom, to be true fighters, to fight against evil and lies. They must point to true life and promote the way of truth. Today it requires heroism and strength. One person will not stand. The systems of lies ridicule you, threaten you. You can see a seismic shift in thought over the past 20 years. The world has turned topsy-turvy. All moral principles are undermined.

How to preserve eternal life for you and your family? Just like the early Christians. You need practical theology, i.e. you need to put God’s Word into practice, to live it and not just to know it theoretically, because the more inessential information you have, the more you soak it up and you lose the essence.

You have children. The modern world puts such strong pressure on children that there is a danger that you bring them up and the world will spoil them. Children are exposed to pressures not only at school, from the very first year, but even in kindergartens, and through friends as well. The infection of evil and sin, spiritual leprosy, spreads nowadays through school, through the street, television, obscene billboards, internet, pornography, promotion of homosexual perversion – this all influences the youngest children. To preserve children from all these things is a miracle of miracles! Therefore men – fathers – need wisdom in order to know how to bring up their children and how to protect them from this spiritual infection. Fathers need to pray and have a living faith to protect their children and family. Man should be as a priest in the family – he must see what is essential, i.e. salvation of his children.

Many women – mothers – come and talk about insolvable problems with their children. What advice to give them? “Pray and share your suffering with Jesus until death, sacrifice this suffering for your son or daughter that they may find God at least in the hour of death. And even if your son was an alcoholic or drug addict, persevere in faith and pray to God for him not to be condemned. The situation which he is in cannot be solved by human means any more, the devil has led him into a trap, but God can lead him out!” You need to strengthen their faith and say to them: “You must carry this burden all your life, fight for all your family, sacrifice yourself, humble yourself and pray to God, and even if they spit at you or beat you, simply be faithful to Jesus and God will do what He promised: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and God will save your entire household.”

Download: Practical spiritual advice /3/ – The role of man in the family