During the first General Congregation at the Synod of Bishops on the Family, held on Monday of this week, and during the third General Congregation held on Tuesday (6 October), testimonials were presented by two couples who are auditors at the Synod. On Monday, the Synod Fathers heard from Andrés Galindo López and Gertrudiz Rubio de Galindo (Mexico) and on Tuesday, it was Meshack Jabulani Nkosi and his wife Buysile Patronella NKOSI (South Africa) who spoke.
We are a married couple, composed of Andrés and Clara Galindo from Mexico.
Forty-five years ago, we created the Galindo-Rubio family.
God has given us two children who are now married and we have four grandchildren.
We began our life, like many couples, with great enthusiasm, with many illusions, but also with both positive and negative moments based on emotions and economics.
The first years were not easy mainly because of some pressure from some relatives that did not lead us to much success in the new life we were starting, to the extent that the economic problems that we had caused us to seek a separation. And one day a family came to our house with documents prepared for us to sign – our divorce.
Despite the insistence that we faced at that moment, Andrés and I decided to face the imbalance that had caused this event and work on our marriage and the family that was beginning to take shape, although this decision was without a clear sense of what the Sacrament of Marriage really meant.
Shortly afterwards, thank God we had the opportunity to live an experience of Catholic Marriage Encounter, where we learned to communicate, to know how to forgive, but especially to seek out God's plan for us as a married couple and as a family . And so we fight for our relationship, but now with a little more awareness according to God's plan.
Some time later we experienced another very difficult period of our life when Andrés had lost his job and our economic situation was depleted, a dear friend asked us to accompany him to the Basilica of Guadalupe, where took the opportunity to ask our dear Father God and our Mother, to help us solve our problems and we promised that we would do what they asked of us.
Leaving the Basilica, we were invited to collaborate within the Family Ministry and our first thought was to say no: first, we had to solve our economic problems. But thank God and Our Lady, we reconsidered and accepted the invitation to serve our Church in the Family Ministry.
During our time of service to our Church, both in Mexico and in Central America, we have been able to corroborate on various courses, assemblies, congresses etc. and have discovered that the major problems that families are facing are caused by social, cultural, political, educational, economic and religious challenges, and marriage and family are weakened and fragile, and their own power needs to be rescued through training and teaching of their identity and mission.
Pastoral work with families today, the pastoral work of the third millennium, is important because there are small and large attacks from some governmental and civil institutions towards marriage, family and life.
We need Pastors who are in love with God, to model and to teach a pastoral approach to families that is born out of the love of a Pastor, so that families can be guided, accompanied and taught to live their identity and mission according to the plan of God.
The Discernment of the Family Vocation
My name is Jabu Nkosi and this is my wife Buyi. We have been married for only 35 years and are blessed with 5 children and 8 grandchildren. Three of our children are married in the church, all of them with non-Catholics and are walking in two faiths but one love. One of our sons-in-law and our daughter in-law want to become Catholics and we are looking forward to the Easter of 2016 when we will be welcoming them into the Catholic family as full members.
In the past 33 years we have accompanied many young people with whom we have shared our life experience, the word of God and the Church teachings, giving them an opportunity to make choices for their lives. We pass on the Good News of the love of God for us through His Son Jesus Christ and we in our life, every day try through God's grace to become good news to each other and to young couples and the world. This is made possible by letting the Word of God, Christ Himself, be our compass. We have and have had our numerous challenges, of perhaps not seeing things the same way or hurting each other in one way or another but our redemption has always been to try to be humble enough to say I am sorry, as in the words of the Holy Father, pardon me, thank you and may I please are indispensable words if we are to live in peace and harmony in our family. It is important to remember to say I love you to each other and to the children. Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate emphasizes the importance of love as the principle of life in society, the place where a person learns common good since the family is the first place where, a new person learns to love, to forgive, experiences forgiveness and learns to share about God and the Church as the family is the first school of Love and Humanity.
The choice we made 35 years ago is the choice we continue to make every day to care for each other in the family and to be faithful to each other as we committed to love forever. Modern society which unfortunately has developed a throwaway culture, this kind of commitment seems to be utter foolishness and is ridiculed and discouraged. Young people then tend to be afraid to get married and to look at this commitment as a burden. Part of our calling is to encourage them to enter into the journey of Holy Matrimony looking at Christ as their new hope.
We have experienced new life being born, and have seen our parents giving us support in raising our children. We have also seen them getting older, more frail and have taken care of them until they passed on. We have seen our children develop to parenthood themselves and us assuming a supportive role for them and their families. We continue to pass on our faith, all the Christian values and the culture of Ubuntu- humaneness. This brings joy and fulfilment and has made our lives richer and fuller through the grace of God.
Testimony of Andrés Salvador Galindo López and Gertrudiz Clara Rubio de Galindo
Mister Galindo López is the Executive Secretary of the Episcopal Commission for the Family
Episcopal Conference of Mexico, and
Secretary of CELAM for the Mexico-Central America Zone
We are a married couple, composed of Andrés and Clara Galindo from Mexico.
Forty-five years ago, we created the Galindo-Rubio family.
God has given us two children who are now married and we have four grandchildren.
We began our life, like many couples, with great enthusiasm, with many illusions, but also with both positive and negative moments based on emotions and economics.
The first years were not easy mainly because of some pressure from some relatives that did not lead us to much success in the new life we were starting, to the extent that the economic problems that we had caused us to seek a separation. And one day a family came to our house with documents prepared for us to sign – our divorce.
Despite the insistence that we faced at that moment, Andrés and I decided to face the imbalance that had caused this event and work on our marriage and the family that was beginning to take shape, although this decision was without a clear sense of what the Sacrament of Marriage really meant.
Shortly afterwards, thank God we had the opportunity to live an experience of Catholic Marriage Encounter, where we learned to communicate, to know how to forgive, but especially to seek out God's plan for us as a married couple and as a family . And so we fight for our relationship, but now with a little more awareness according to God's plan.
Some time later we experienced another very difficult period of our life when Andrés had lost his job and our economic situation was depleted, a dear friend asked us to accompany him to the Basilica of Guadalupe, where took the opportunity to ask our dear Father God and our Mother, to help us solve our problems and we promised that we would do what they asked of us.
Leaving the Basilica, we were invited to collaborate within the Family Ministry and our first thought was to say no: first, we had to solve our economic problems. But thank God and Our Lady, we reconsidered and accepted the invitation to serve our Church in the Family Ministry.
During our time of service to our Church, both in Mexico and in Central America, we have been able to corroborate on various courses, assemblies, congresses etc. and have discovered that the major problems that families are facing are caused by social, cultural, political, educational, economic and religious challenges, and marriage and family are weakened and fragile, and their own power needs to be rescued through training and teaching of their identity and mission.
Pastoral work with families today, the pastoral work of the third millennium, is important because there are small and large attacks from some governmental and civil institutions towards marriage, family and life.
We need Pastors who are in love with God, to model and to teach a pastoral approach to families that is born out of the love of a Pastor, so that families can be guided, accompanied and taught to live their identity and mission according to the plan of God.
Testimony of Buysile Patronella Nkosi and Meshack Jabulani Nkosi
Members of the Advisory Committee for the National Family Desk
of the Southern African Episcopal Catholic Bishops' Conference
The Discernment of the Family Vocation
My name is Jabu Nkosi and this is my wife Buyi. We have been married for only 35 years and are blessed with 5 children and 8 grandchildren. Three of our children are married in the church, all of them with non-Catholics and are walking in two faiths but one love. One of our sons-in-law and our daughter in-law want to become Catholics and we are looking forward to the Easter of 2016 when we will be welcoming them into the Catholic family as full members.
In the past 33 years we have accompanied many young people with whom we have shared our life experience, the word of God and the Church teachings, giving them an opportunity to make choices for their lives. We pass on the Good News of the love of God for us through His Son Jesus Christ and we in our life, every day try through God's grace to become good news to each other and to young couples and the world. This is made possible by letting the Word of God, Christ Himself, be our compass. We have and have had our numerous challenges, of perhaps not seeing things the same way or hurting each other in one way or another but our redemption has always been to try to be humble enough to say I am sorry, as in the words of the Holy Father, pardon me, thank you and may I please are indispensable words if we are to live in peace and harmony in our family. It is important to remember to say I love you to each other and to the children. Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate emphasizes the importance of love as the principle of life in society, the place where a person learns common good since the family is the first place where, a new person learns to love, to forgive, experiences forgiveness and learns to share about God and the Church as the family is the first school of Love and Humanity.
The choice we made 35 years ago is the choice we continue to make every day to care for each other in the family and to be faithful to each other as we committed to love forever. Modern society which unfortunately has developed a throwaway culture, this kind of commitment seems to be utter foolishness and is ridiculed and discouraged. Young people then tend to be afraid to get married and to look at this commitment as a burden. Part of our calling is to encourage them to enter into the journey of Holy Matrimony looking at Christ as their new hope.
We have experienced new life being born, and have seen our parents giving us support in raising our children. We have also seen them getting older, more frail and have taken care of them until they passed on. We have seen our children develop to parenthood themselves and us assuming a supportive role for them and their families. We continue to pass on our faith, all the Christian values and the culture of Ubuntu- humaneness. This brings joy and fulfilment and has made our lives richer and fuller through the grace of God.
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