Life is a mystery that shines before us when children are born and we see them for the first time with our own eyes; at that moment, something greater than us towers over us. That boy or girl is the evidence of a mystery of life that depends on us only in part and that we loved even before we knew it.
Although we are all different, we are all children, and therefore a fundamental identity unites us. No one chooses to be born. Each of us owes our existence and life to a mother and a father. We cannot give ourselves life; we can only receive it and cherish it. 
There is also a form of being children that comes from being created, which is why God is the Father of all: we were all created by him. With the coming of the Son, we are called to become children in him and therefore, through grace, to be incorporated into the Church, which is the community of God’s children—not in an exclusive sense, but an inclusive one.

We all need others

When children are young, they need us. Their daily lives depend on us: food, clothing, bodily care, communicating, and learning how to live in the world. Even as adults, however, we all experience dependence on something and someone. We live in an age in which self-referentiality prevails: we tend to focus on ourselves and look after our own little patch, but we need to welcome and integrate one another, walk together, and be brothers and sisters. In our fragility and vulnerability, we all need others. We are always in need of help, love, and forgiveness!
What lies behind this truth?

Loved before birth

“I thought of you even before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born, I had already chosen you” (Jer 1:5). God the Father thought of each of us as a unique being and loved us even before we were born. God loved us first, desired us, and called us to life, and our parents opened themselves to welcome this gift.
In everyday life, we experience how terrible and distressing it is to feel unnecessary, even simply not to be chosen or to be chosen last, as though we were a fallback option. But if we think that we have always been chosen and called, then being in God’s heart frees us from anguish, assuring us that we have always been rooted in a love that comes “before” everything else.
“It is the beauty of being loved first: children are loved before they arrive” (Pope Francis, General Audience, February 11, 2015). This tells us that the necessary condition for entering the Kingdom of God consists “in not considering ourselves self-sufficient, but in need of help, love, and forgiveness” (Pope Francis, General Audience, March 18, 2015), all things to which children, especially when they are young, constantly remind us.

Living in fraternity

We are called personally, then, but together with others. If we are children, we are also all brothers and sisters (Fratelli tutti, 279), and the family is the first place where we learn to live the fraternity to which, as children of one Father, we are all called.
Our differences are not a harm or a danger; they are a source of richness. It is like an artist who wants to make a mosaic: it is better to have tiles of many colors available than just a few! Family experience teaches us this: among brothers and sisters, we differ from one another, and we do not always get along, but there is an unbreakable bond that unites us, and our parents’ love helps us love one another.

Ideas for reflection as a couple/in the family

We are all always in need of help, love, and forgiveness!
• How do we feel when we feel helped, loved, and forgiven?
• From whom have we felt helped, loved, and forgiven?
• Every person we meet carries in their heart the desire to feel helped, loved, and forgiven. Our presence can therefore be important alongside every person. Let us think about these past few days: whom have we made happy, and whom have we found it difficult to love?
• Let us accept Pope Francis’s invitation: “Let each of us think in our heart about our own children - if we have any - […] And let us all think about our parents and thank God for the gift of life” (Pope Francis, General Audience, February 11, 2015).