In the first part of this series, we reflected on Pope Leo XIV’s invitation to embrace our limitations and to build a culture of peace through our words.
Here are four more practical ways families can live out Magnifica Humanitas at home, strengthening relationships through hospitality, truth, shared memory and purposeful work.
Be champions of hospitality
Pope Leo encourages us to resist settling for the “de facto solidarity” created by digital networks. Humans are wired for tangible encounter, and while being connected online has its benefits, it can never replace the effort of actually showing up in person.
Simple actions include being intentional about learning a person’s name, taking your coffee to the front yard and inviting your neighbours to join you, dropping off a meal to someone who is grieving, sick or has just had a baby, or offering to look after children of friends so that the parents can enjoy a much-needed date night.
A text or an email is better than nothing, but our world needs people willing to go the extra mile. In doing so we will acquire “an attitude that seeks to forge bonds of fraternity built on listening, an open demeanor, making time for each other and even wasting time together” (220).
Cultivate shared memory and storytelling
Historically, humans have always gained a sense of self through storytelling. However, with every advance of technology, convenience and isolation has usurped the passing down of shared memory.
On a global level, Pope Leo states that this has caused “a disconcerting loss of historical memory” leading to “a selective or distorted rewriting of the past” (191).
In the context of the home, this may look like mobile devices at family gatherings, a lack of time invested in listening to the experiences of parents and grandparents, and a gradual loss of traditions passed down from cultural backgrounds.
It is within our families and communities that we also have access to those whom Pope Leo calls “martyrs of everyday life.”
When we take the time to listen to their stories, we are reminded of our potential and feel anxiety begin to dissipate as we are surrounded by people of joyful resilience who create trusted roadmaps of a life well lived.
Most importantly, a culture of shared memory allows for greater discernment of online narratives, resisting the temptation to receive all information as gospel.
Be truth tellers and truth seekers
“When people come to believe that nothing is genuinely true and that principles are hollow words, then the fuse in their hearts is lit for new eruptions of intolerance and aggression” (207).
Part of the allure of AI is instant access to “truth.” It is in this light that spouses and parents must be people of integrity. Empty words, broken promises and actions which are incongruous with professed values create deep familial wounds and a sense of confusion and instability among children.
Wounding another with dishonesty requires much effort to heal. The alternative is a gradual loss of faith in humanity and the seeking of refuge in the clear-cut, sanitised answers provided by AI. Secrecy and deception form gnarly entangled roots in the dark depths, and when the trees of these roots eventually surface (as they always do) there is no good fruit to be found, only tangled branches and thorns that ensnare and injure the people we care about the most.
This can only be healed by the One who is the way, the truth and the life. As St Thomas Aquinas would put it, “Truth itself speaks truly, or there’s nothing true.”
Our children need to be shown how to speak the truth and seek the truth, even when it costs them. In this way, the trees that spring up along the paths they walk will always bear good fruit.
Engage in shared projects
“The speed and ease with which answers or summaries can be obtained risk extinguishing the desire to ask questions, which is a process that bears fruit only over time” (140).
When married couples engage in shared projects with each other and with their children, they re-humanise the task of seeing a challenging task through to its completion. Our children need to learn how to work through an idea via numerous drafts, how to receive feedback, and how to walk away when frustrated and come back when they have a new spark of inspiration.
There are also several free experiences which can help teach children to associate learning and creation with a sense of adventure, such as local libraries, art galleries and museums. While an AI summary may be convenient, it does not form core memories or allow a child to grow in self-efficacy and mental stamina. It is only through the effort of learning that one discovers that immediacy is the enemy of wonder and the thief of the dignity of work.
Consider the way St Joseph would have patiently taught the child Jesus his trade of carpentry, and the way they would have bonded as they carefully worked towards a finished piece.
Even the God of the universe, the only one who truly knows all things and can do all things, saw the value in the slow and patient process of learning and creating in communion with others.
