No One Changes, If We Don´t Want to Change
Virtues and Values /Virtues and values - Year 1

Por: Salvador Casadevall | Fuente: Catholic.net

From time to time you have to make a stop along the way. We always say it before we start our program.
We have to stand on our feet to think.
To review the fruits of our time lived.

We all have the aptitude for self-criticism, which is one of the deepest expressions of our intelligence. An intelligent man/woman is one who first looks inward and starts by rectifying him/herself.
In doing so, this allows us to straighten courses, attitudes and consciously choose the best for our good and the good of those around us.

It is easy to find the faults of others; not so much to recognize our own. And yet, these are the only ones we can correct. It is in our power to change, it is within our reach to correct them.
Therefore, this pause and reflection is above all wanting to improve; wanting to be better; and this should be done not only from human standards, but in a dimension of my faith. I am a believer: from my creed I must want to be better and do things better.

What is the difference between what I am and what I should be?

Thinking about the freedom I have, on what my calling in life is, and what is my mission in this life, will especially help me to answer the question, without which I cannot progress the conversion towards God; and towards what God expects from me towards my neighbors: spouse, children, relatives, friends, the society as a whole.  

From this meditation some priorities should be chosen: my life with my spouse should come first, as it is with her or him that I am making one path.
In this path there should be a style of married and family life: a style of life that should be consistent with my faith, with what I believe.

Many times we hear that the family is in crisis, when what is in crisis is the patriarchal family model.
Let us remember that the word “crisis” means change; and without a doubt the patriarchal family style is changing.

The current circumstances require the redesign of new roles, both of the father and the mother, inside and outside the home. These circumstances are turning, with certain behaviors, towards the loss of values. And the loss of values ​​leads to the dissolution of many families.
And what does it also bring with it? The emergence of new ways of unions and ways of cohabitation. This is the famous and so fashionable: I'm living with a partner.

But we Christians believe in the sacred mission that God entrusted to marriage from the start, and mutual giving.
Every marriage must be a community of life and mutual surrender.
Every marriage must be in partnership with God in the continuity of life.
Every marriage must be an area of ​​growth in love and holiness, that means no other than to be good.

Human sin, failures, and the distortions in which men and women are falling every day has broken this ideal of marriage. Thus it is necessary to rebuild the relationship of love between the individual and his Creator.

We must stop and think and find paths for this reconstruction that must necessarily be born within each of us.
Nothing changes, nothing varies, if first I do not change and I must be convinced of its worth. I must be firmly convinced that what I do deserves to be done, that change should be done.  
Nobody changes, if he/she do not want to change. And if I do not change, neither my marriage, my family, my neighborhood, nor my city will do so.

Let us change attitudes! Doing it by stopping, thinking and pondering.