Through its ambiguity, the term ‘passion’ clearly shows the relationship between love and suffering, desire and sacrifice, life and death, so characteristic not only for Christian faith but also anthropology and philosophy. Universalism of Christianity, its modus vivendi, described as early as in the New Testament, and then by the Church Fathers, as the ‘way’, is a contravention of the exclusivity of cognitive ways of ancient philosophy and gnosis. The truth turns out to be accessible not only through enlightenment of the chosen ones but through a free choice – a consent to passion. It shows its uniqueness and royalty. A Christian is invited to co-participate in the passion of life through co-participation in the Passion of Christ, the King, in His suffering and death, since these two are God’s participation in the passion of humanity. J. Ratzinger/Benedict XVI convinces that cognition, passion, freedom – the greatest existential issues of a man – are accessible only in humble consent to such suffering. It makes them happen in real life and constitutes a guarantee of their reality (truth).

An analogy between marriage and the Trinity was developed almost from the beginning of Christian theological thought, although it was not always accepted even by the greatest thinkers (as for example Augustine or Thomas Aquinas). This theological tradition is continued by pope Francis who uses the comparison of marriage to the Trinity. Similarity between marriage and the triune God should be expressed in unity, openness towards the others (mostly towards offspring) and mutual respect: in absolute equality of a wife and a husband and maintenance of their specific identity as a woman and a man.

The article synthetically presents multiple involvement of John Paul II in favour of the family. The first part of the article presents existential roots of the Pope’s concern for the family and his pastoral activity. In the further parts the article discusses the most important topics in the papal teaching about the family. The Pope describes the family as a community of life and love, built on the indissoluble marriage, as a community whose particular members are called to sanctity and this sanctity can be achieved especially thanks to the family life.

An issue which is of particular importance in the teaching of pope Francis is the reflection on the role of the family in the process of evangelization and the formation of faith. The starting point here is a proper anthropology (the complementarity of man and woman, the appropriate roles in the family) and theological foundations (the experience of God, family rooted in the grace of the sacrament of matrimony). The awareness of this foundation is indispensable in the context of the difficulties and dangers affecting contemporary families. These negative influences include, above all, consumerism, materialism, a godless lifestyle, modern idols, social and economic problems, as well as ideologies attacking the family and affecting the social shape of reality. From such a perspective, it becomes even
more necessary to highlight the key challenges facing the family. It is therefore a school of humanity, spiritual and ecclesial life, social life and evangelization. The family should be supported in a multidimensional way by the whole Church in the implementation of this mission. Catholic movements and societies are especially helpful in this regard.

In the old church song repertoires in the Upper Silesia one may find a distinct group of songs connected with the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony. There are not many of them and they are usually labelled as songs before vows and after vows. The theological content of these songs generally concentrates on the topic of unity and indissolubility of the marital covenant. They also take the form of singing supplications for God’s help for the newlyweds. As far as the music is concerned, these songs often use melodies borrowed from other popular songs in the form of contrafactum, but there are also some melodies specially composed. Nowadays, the songs performed and instrumental music played at the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony are not always chosen in accordance with the spirit of liturgy; and often lay music permeates church ceremonies. This is why there is a need for new works in this field of church chant; a need for songs closely related to the wedding ceremonies.

The present article is based on the analysis of Pope Francis’ teaching on the situation of the elderly and ill people in the post – modern society. It presents the Pope’s concern for these people. The article consists of five sections. The first one contains the Pope’s reflections on the fear of diseases and old age. The second section shows his thoughts about increasing differences in treating healthy and sick people in the consumer societies. The third section presents the Pope’s warnings against promoting in everyday life only healthy and young people. The fourth and fifth section contain Pope Francis’ comment, in which he warns against excluding the elderly
and sick people from everyday life and treating them as the second- or third- class people.

One of the features of the anticulture, which may be observed today, are attacks on marriage and family. Their point is to negate the institution of family and possibly destroy it. The article presents main sources of these destructive influences. The content of the first section shows some misleading philosophies of the human being and utopian ideas which are devastating the family. The article discusses philosophical humanistic models. They include justification of the need of a proper formation to responsibility in personal and family life. Philosophical pragmatic models are also presented. Mainly they do not concern the needs of family life and they do not try to hamper directly its development. The second paragraph describes the attacks on family and marriage focusing on deformation and legal manipulation. The content of the third paragraph are the media. They are also able to cause a serious harm to family by showing improper or even distorted vision of life, religion and morality. During the transmission of information it is needed to respect the truth and dignity of a human being. In the fourth paragraph the author presents the assaults on Christian upbringing. They are a part of the antipedagogy. They are also a manifestation of the attacks on Christianity. In Poland the same situation relates to the catholic family and upbringing.

The article presents the value of the family in times of modern transformations. Among these transformations it mentions: mass migration, social acceptance of divorce, decisions to postpone marriage, formation of single-parent families, patchwork families, hybrid families, appearance of alternative forms of marriage and family life. In this context, the author emphasizes that a happy and successful marriage can be, and for many actually is, one of the most important life goals. What is more, such marriage can be a basis for the creation of a mature family, in which it is possible to form relationships harmoniously and live in a sense of mutual closeness.

When changes affecting contemporary culture are taken into consideration, one may observe that the family undergoes significant transformations and is staring to lose its privileged place within the structures of the social world. The contemporary culture is willing to place its bets on an individual, rather than on the family.

One of the most basic values of the family life is trust, which constructs normative standards of social relations. Our research shows that Slovakian families are emotionally integrated by mothers.

When social relations in the generations of parents and children are considered, mothers are the most essential when it comes to forming trust-based  relationships. Since mothers are granted the biggest capital of trust, the Slovak family is centered upon the figure of mother. Trust has woman’s face.

In the article the author analyses relations between parents and adult children in the light of the developmental task theory of Robert Havighurst. Parents of a child who founded his or her own family have a developmental task – to establish a good relation with the child and his or her spouse. Success in this field assures satisfaction, whereas lack of the success brings the contrary – frustration or ven depression. T he sources of this task are as follows: physical changes, cultural expectations (pressure), and values, individual aspirations. It is emphasized that today wedding is the only ceremony changing the status of young people. The author specifies the difficulties experienced by the parents to fulfill the role of the parents-inlaw. Some proposals to overcome these difficulties are presented. The author underlines, however, that the process may be difficult, especially in the Western culture characterized by egocentrism, the young generation’s lack of gratitude towards the ageing parents and low fertility rates of Europeans.

People involved in crises and marital or family conflicts often require special assistance. Therefore, the aim of this article is an attempt to present family counselling as a form of support for marriage and the family. The characteristics of the social support, m arriage a nd family counselling is considered. The article discusses the benefits of using various forms of support, including family counselling, which is supported by both state institutions and the church ones. It indicates the need
for a multidimensional approach and involvement of the specialists in the process of supporting marriage and family.

The following article is an attempt to integrate different approaches to the Family Assistant’s work models. As a new job in the social care it is supposed to help the families which have a lot of problems with their care and educational duties. The Family Assistant’s practice shows that there is a necessity of the systematization and reflection on this kind of work. The article tries to answer the basic questions: is it possible to choose the best model of helping families? Or rather must the
Family Assistant accommodate his type of work to the current conditions? The author reviews three basic models: tutoring, crisis intervention and solution focused brief therapy.

The article concerns conditions for the development of religiousness. One of the factors in the religious growth is a participation in the life of religious communities. Currently the Families Covenant Community „Mamre” is a very popular religious group among Catholics. Due to the fact that it is a relatively new group, in the literature we note the lack of studies attempting to verify empirically the nature of its impact. Taking it into consideration, a project has been performed whose aim was to answer if people belonging to the Families Covenant Community „Mamre” have a higher religiousness level than those who do not belong to this religious group. The hypothesis concerning the existence of differences in religiousness between those belonging and not belonging to this movement has been assumed. The study involved 110 people aged from 19 to 59 years (M=38.55, SD =11.22). Measurement of the respondents’ religiousness was taken using the Religious Meaning System Scale by D. Krok. The results obtained allowed to confirm the formulated hypothesis.

Only in 2011 were family studies acknowledged as a scientific discipline. However, as a field of study it has had a longer history. Studying this discipline at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Silesia in Katowice is quite popular. The didactic proposal includes undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate studies. The process of teaching is connected with an intensive scientific research. The article shows both the history of family studies in Katowice since 2009 and scientific activity of the Department of Family Studies. The forthcoming development perspectives of research and didactic offer are presented as well.

This article is an attempt to find an answer to the question of a place of psychology in the preaching the Word of God. Firstly, elements of psychology occurring in the formation of future preachers of the Word of God are analysed. The paper draws one’s attention to the need of formation of therapeutic competence among contemporary homilists (preachers) and a danger of the phenomenon of psychologism. What is more, it includes an analysis of the influence of psychology on the process of creation of specific units of preaching the Word of God, on their content and formal elements.

The major conclusion which can be drawn from the article is that psychology and homiletics should cooperate and be complementary for each other.