Rubio

In answering the question about the purpose of the family, I liked Rubio’s (2003) reference to the Catholic tradition of encouraging families to ask: “What, ultimately, are we about?”(p. 185). Rubio then goes to discuss two important types of love. She refers to the love between family members as intimate passion, and the sentiment towards justice in the world as social passion. Research supports the common belief that feeling lonely is damaging to the human being. In a theoretical and empirical review of the consequences of loneliness, Hawkey and Cacioppo (2010), detail the serious emotional and physical consequences of loneliness, including earlier mortality. We need other human beings in order to survive. As Christians, we believe that part of what sets us apart from other species, is our relational nature. From the beginning God says “It is …show more content…
Secure bonds provide numerous health benefits, including the potential to soothe us when feeling threatened and distressed (Johnson et al., 2013). Early on, the family provides the infant with the needed resources to survive, and later, it holds the potential to provide the emotional support that enhances our ability to develop and survive despite difficulties and hostility that we face living in a broken world. Rubio discusses another important role of the family, the importance of sharing the love with the larger community and society. According to Hawkey and Cacioppo, social connections with a partner, family, and a community fosters altruism. I agree with Rubio that as Christians, our commitment transcends our immediate family, to serve and empower the community at large. However, as we see from Howekey and Cacioppo, it is first important to experience that connection and service ourselves in order to build us up to the degree that we are capable of extending the love with the larger