Our Family Mission Statement

Love: Reading to brother

While I was in the mode of making a vision statement for our homeschool, I thought maybe I could finally decide on one for our family, much less specific, of course.  I had always had a hard time with this in the past because I am always tempted to have "all the things" in it.  Isn't it all important?  Well, in the Bible it is very clear that one over-arching, all-encompassing virtue is above them all.  One virtue flows into all others.  The Greatest Commandment.  Love.

I have a common thing I say to the children as well which needed to be taken into account.  I say it so frequently that it deserves attention when coming up with this mission statement.  It is important and falls under the the virtue of all virtues.  "People before things."

Being that I have such a great love of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta and she has said so many profound things about love and charity so succinctly.  I turned to her for inspiration here.

After thinking about all those things, this is what I came up with.  My words are in bold and then they are followed by a bunch of citations that inspired me in the writing of this statement.

In our family, we love and serve God by loving and serving the person in front of us. We love that person by treating them the way we want to be treated, by accepting them just the way they are, and by putting their needs ahead of our own.

"The school of Christ is the school of love. In the last day, when the general examination
takes place ... Love will be the whole syllabus." - St. Robert Bellarmine

“Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home. Give love to your children, 

to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor . . . Let no one ever come to you without
leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face,
kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”
-St. Mother Teresa

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love