In the past week, the country’s ambassadors and high commissioners were back home to attend a six-day “vision conference”, all part of moves by Government to reorient and improve the presence of our country abroad. From press reports, the plan also includes work on the infrastructure of these diplomatic offices.

The value of steps of this kind can hardly be questioned. Quite apart from the advantages that a well-run mission brings to the country at the political and business levels, every citizen of this country living abroad appreciates finding a diplomatic office that is helpful and well appointed.

The Government sees its work in this area as all part of a plan “to achieve developed country status by the year 2020”. If, however, the objective of “Vision 2020” is to be achieved, it is not only at the diplomatic level that matters must be reassessed; it has to be done externally and internally – and consistently.

Making pretty our image abroad, however, shows up inconsistencies at home. More than policies on the particular issues that arise, Government needs a point of focus that touches the lives of its citizens here at home.

It was heartening to hear President George Maxwell Richards recently urging the nation to restore the place of the family in the society. The little children require this, as do our youth, he said, “and as adults we must accept our responsibility to lead by example in this critical aspect of the development of our nation.”

Changes in society and culture

The family has been deeply affected, in positive and negative ways by changes in society and culture. On the one hand, there is today a greater awareness of the rights of the individual, promotion of the dignity of women and attention given to the education of children.

On the other, these rapid changes have led to the obscuring and erosion of fundamental values. Sadly, our adults are too often not prepared to be the critical conscience that the present situation requires. Further, too many of our families lack the means necessary to live in the dignity which ought to be theirs.

“The future of humanity,” Pope John Paul II says in his apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, “passes by the way of the family.” In that document the Pope urges the family to become more and more what it is: an “intimate community of life and love”. But he also asks that a “special love” be shown to the family.

To love the family, he says “means being able to appreciate its values and capabilities, fostering them always. Loving the family means identifying the dangers and evils that menace it, in order to overcome them. Loving the family means endeavouring to create for it an environment favourable for its development.”

The President resisted the temptation to talk about the ills of the society but he must have felt prompted to speak about the family because of those very ills. Too many of our families are failing to rise to the challenges which today’s culture presents.

The Church invites us to listen intently in this Advent season for the voice of the Lord who desires to speak in and through us. This Sunday’s gospel in which St Luke situates the call of John the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness, amidst the political and religious situation of his time provides a most useful backdrop.