MARFAM’S weekly family e-newsletter 9 July 2025 .

There is a whole lot of hype around about children and technology, but also about technology in general and the negative influence of AI and the digital world.  In an article on Daily Maverick, the question is posed.  “We worry about Bela (Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill) but who is worrying about our kids.” Is the law more concerned about kids’ than parents are?

Kids are vulnerable.   Parents are vulnerable.  Grandparent on the whole are even more vulnerable because we find it most difficult to understand and keep up with the digital world of today, in which we are nomads, newbies, uninformed, misinformed and at times  disinterested.   Many of us don’t know, don’t understand and don’t care.   It’s a mystery to us, – like religious matters e.g. The Trinity – above but not beyond our understanding according to the catechism.  

The generation gap is greatest in this area of technology. Very many kids have smart phones, even poor kids to some extent have access to the internet.   It isn’t just pornography we have to watch out for, but general info on any subject and addiction to spending time. It is recognised that developing the skills for critical thinking can be is impaired.  Isn’t that what they are really supposed to learn  at school?

What real role do grandparents play in the mix, in their grandchildren’s lives?   Is it being gran’s taxi, homework supervisor, money-lender or giver, or passing on of faith and values?   Maybe in this day and age instead of giving or teaching we are the ones that are learning,  giving the young a task to teach us, which to some extent is also giving them control over us, not to mention losing the needed respect for our wisdom and life experience.  

THE GRACE AND MISSION OF GRANDPARENTS. Pope Francis has said, “Old age has a grace and a mission, and one of the testimonies that can come to young people from this period of life is ‘fidelity.’  Society may discard the elderly, but God never discards anyone and calls us to follow him in all stages of life. “ The elderly may have more free time which can be devoted more to a spirituality for this stage.

“Thank God there is the witness of the aged saints!   Grandfathers and grandmothers form the permanent ‘choir’ of a great spiritual sanctuary, where their prayer of supplication and praise supports the community that works and battles on in the field of life. How ugly is the cynicism of an old man who has lost the sense of his witness, despises the young and does not communicate his life’s wisdom! How beautiful, on the contrary, the encouragement that an old man manages to convey to the young man in search of the meaning of faith and life! This really is the mission of grandparents. Their words contain something special for the young. And they know it. I still carry with me the words that my grandmother gave me in writing on the day of my priestly ordination; they’re always in my breviary, I read them often, and they do me good. How I would like—said Francis—a church that challenges the culture of waste with the overflowing joy of a new embrace between the young and the old! This is what I ask the Lord for today: that embrace.”   His special theme for 2025 is “Blessed are those who have not given up hope.”

In a MARFAM booklet for family strengthening called BECOMING ECO-FRIENDLY FAMILIES, which focuses on care of the environment there is a short reflection “Fix Families First.”  Instead of all of us, old and young doing all kinds of good things, or not so good things, out in the world, at school and society I am promoting the need for good communication and building relationships by being and doing, together. My question for today that I will be discussing with our special Radio Veritas guest is “Can Faith Action be a fix?”   Reverend Mathethele Lucas Morena, Archbishop in the Liberating Evangelical Lutheran Church of South Africa and I met and were working together on a programme addressing gender based violence in families.  There too our focus was, “Can Faith Action be the fix?.”   So we pray that the faith and the prayers of the grandparents will be a sign of hope and of love, ours and God’s, for each of our, and all grandchildren in our world.   TR Family weekly 9 July 2025. Check out https://marfam.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GRANDPARENTS-MATTER-resource-booklet.pdf

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.

July 9.   Family feuds. The group was discussing when you do something wrong how often it will come back “to bite you” as May said.  “I’ve seen it happen in our family too, especially with the grandchildren. They think they don’t need anything from anyone but then they wish they were on better terms with their cousins. Like in the story of Joseph and his brothers who had been jealous of him as he was his father’s favourite. They wanted to kill him, but he was rescued and became famous as the governor of Egypt. The brothers then had to humble themselves before him and come begging when there was famine in their land.

Scripture: “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul when he besought us and we would not listen. Therefore is this distress come upon us.” Gen 42:21.   Read the long story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis chapters 37 to 50.   Pope Francis. Family communion can only be preserved and perfected through a spirit of sacrifice. There is no family that does not know how selfishness, discord, tension and conflict violently attack and at times mortally wound its own communion. We recognise that being able to forgive others implies the liberating experience of understanding and forgiving ourselves.  AL 106-7,  JUBILEE.  We, however, by virtue of the hope in which we were saved, can view the passage of time with the certainty that the history of humanity and our own individual history are not doomed to a dead end or a dark abyss, but directed to an encounter with the Lord of glory. As a result, we live our lives in expectation of his return and in the hope of living forever in him. In this spirit, we make our own the heartfelt prayer of the first Christians with which sacred Scripture ends: “Come, Lord Jesus!” ( Rev 22:20).  SNC 19.  Act and pray. For the needs of families, especially grandparents, their grandchildren and the elderly.