Dear fathers and mothers, a good educative relationship involves tenderness and affection, and at the same time, rationality and authority. Both parents, the father and the mother, should be close to their children and cultivate dialogue with them. Dear fathers and mothers, be generous with your children, without being permissive; be demanding without being severe; be clear with them and do not contradict yourselves; know how to say yes or no in the right moment. Be coherent and given them a good example. Thus you can help your children to mature [with] a balanced personality, constructive and creative, solid and reliable, capable of confronting the challenges and the tests of life, which are never lacking. Formation in human and Christian values requires a family founded in a monogamous matrimony and open to life; it requires a united and stable family. Spouses who, regardless of human weakness, seek with the grace of God to live ever more coherently in love as a total gift of one's life from one to the other, build their house on rock (cf. Matthew 7:24-25); they make of their family a living Gospel; they build up the Church and civil society; they reflect in history the presence and the beauty of God who is one in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit ■ Cardinal Bertone's Homily at Close of Family Meeting