THIS feast definitely reminds us about the very crucial role the family plays in the development of a person and of society in general. In fact, it plays a truly important role in the development of the Church.

Because of this, we need to realize that there’s a certain urgency to make the family today an effective center of formation. With all the growing developments and complicated challenges of our times, we cannot afford to sit pretty and just allow blind fate to take its course. We have to take the bull by the horns.

We cannot deny the fact that many people have inadequate, if not erroneous understanding of what the family and its closely related institution of marriage are. In the US today, for example, they are now legalizing and are openly promoting the so-called same-sex marriage and open marriages.

It’s no wonder that we have many broken marriages and dysfunctional families nowadays with matching complicated consequences. Of course, the recourse to divorce does not solve the problem. It can even make things worse.

Everything has to be done to address this fundamental problem. And all the subsidiary institutions and offices—the Church, government, schools, NGOs, etc.—should lend a hand.
Continuing formation and evangelization about marriage and family has to be pursued without letup. Of course, the Church can take the lead in this, but this can be done also by many other people in the secular field. In this regard, the laity should also take a lot of initiative, since this matter concerns them more than the clergy, and they have the experience and the competence to talk about this matter.

For one, couples planning to marry should be made to realize clearly that their marriage brings with it the duty to make their family the basic center of formation for their children. They should be prepared and equipped to carry out this delicate duty.

As the basic center for formation, the family that is led by the parents should know how to lay the foundations of the human virtues and the life of faith and piety of the children. It should be well-versed with the doctrine of faith and the traditions of piety so that as early as possible the children would have the right attitudes and outlook in life.

Parents, for example, should know how to distinguish the different characters and temperaments of their children as well as how to motivate each one of them as he or she is. For this, parents may need some basic training themselves which can be offered by the parishes and schools, and even public and private offices.

Parents should be ready by acquiring the necessary competence to face the modern challenges of raising children, especially the teen-agers, today. They must know how to run a home, how to be good administrators of money and the things of the house, how to understand the character of the children, how to get the children improve in their individual behaviours, etc.

Parents should know how to inspire their children to pray and work, to develop virtues and the skills in dealing with pressures and temptations around. A clear plan of formation should be articulated with due diligence such that in time a certain healthy family life and culture are established.

Parents should realize that their own formation is also something they should take care of. They have to update themselves regarding marriage and family life through an ongoing plan of formation. In this, they can also take initiatives, with the help of other parents and other experts, to organize classes, talks and chats for this purpose.

The important thing to remember is that the family is made an effective basic center of formation for the children.

We do not know who and where the idea of collecting round fruits for luck in every new year emanated. The practice of collecting such round fruits, in some places thirteen kinds while in other places of a different number, is widespread across the socio-economic strata. Rich and poor are afflicted with the belief that good fortune is bound to come to those who are able to collect for display those round fruits. Practically, it is really tough finding round fruits in all its strictest sense since most fruits are either oblong, oval or in some cases pointed and elongated far from round. But those in the practice had the tolerance of seeing fruits to be round even if they are actually not. In the haste of completing the number of kinds, people take even the not round fruits as acceptably round.

If there is good luck in the practice, it is chiefly to the fruit vendors who take the opportune time to increase their sales volume as well as their profit margin due to the high demand. In some cases, the buyers who are duped into the belief are forced to take fruits that are not only not round but are not mature and not ripe and are not for human consumption as well. Such fruits are truly for display in the passing of year and never for consumption by the person who bought such fruits. These unripe and immature fruits are later to be found in the waste bin or compost pit, for luck that this writer would never be able to understand how.

Good manners is always towards not wasting food as the fruits are, they being graces from God. It is mind boggling how people who could hardly eat or afford a good meal for the family can spend so much on an unfounded belief, buying overpriced round fruits that are not even for consumption but for mere display as the gods of superstitions tell through mongering out of nowhere. There is nothing wrong just taking the belief as passed on by word of mouth those who are into the practice would justify. But spending so much on overpriced fruits that are not really round as mandated at the expense of significant things like basic food for the family is just so grave a wrong by any measure.

Those who had been at it had surely remained wishing for that same good luck that every new year brings. Doing the ritual every year is an indication that the good luck of the past years never came true as the round fruits collected in those years were believed to have brought about. Only the opportunist sellers of overpriced fruits that look like or as if round are getting the goodness of that promise, by raking in a good fortune from the sales of such fruits every start of the year.

If anything, such belief departs from our belief in God who grants us all the graces and blessings we need. We do not know how accurate the belief is or if the same had really some goodness brought for the new year. Nothing had ever been recorded as resulting from such belief of collecting round fruits every new year. We had just been following what some consider as tradition, one whose beginnings we are unsure of. A belief whose foundations are as unfounded as its founders are except that money brings prosperity to those who sell round fruits to people who had somehow been captive in the belief of roundedness.
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