"Working to support the family, founded on marriage as the basic element of life and of society's development, means ensuring the future of humanity and contributing to renewal of society, by laying the foundation that the entire population and each person need in order to accomplish themselves as such." With these words, on the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Archbishop of Madrid, Msgr. Carlos Osoro Sierra, reiterated the importance of the family unit's solidity for the whole of human society, in a context where it is so strongly challenged by the dominant culture. "Precisely the Holy Family of Nazareth—said the Archbishop in his homily in Almudena's Cathedral—is the icon in which we can contemplate the beauty of the family." The family is where the " encounter culture" is built, because it is a place of coexistence between generations; but not only that: it is also a "sanctuary of love and life," because in the family we are taught and we learn to live in the perspective that exalts the human person, who is God himself, and "in the family we acquire and develop the virtues essential for life." In this perspective—Msgr. Osoro Sierra added—the Holy Family is "the prototype of all Christian families," called "to accomplish their vocation and mission of being a living cell not only of society, but also of the Church." It is therefore "urgent and necessary to look with confidence to the Holy Family of Nazareth."