English
EspañolWhat type of love do children want to enjoy in their home? Which love gives them the most security? Their parents´ immense love, who are faithful to each other while always remaining together as a couple.
Text
“After the love that unites us to God, conjugal love is the “greatest form of friendship.” It is a union possessing all the traits of a good friendship: concern for the good of the other, reciprocity, intimacy, warmth, stability and the resemblance born of a shared life. Marriage joins to all this an indissoluble exclusivity expressed in the stable commitment to share and shape together the whole of life … Lovers do not see their relationship as merely temporary … do not expect there excitement to fade … Children not only want their parents to love one another, but also to be faithful and remain together.” (The Joy of Love, n.123)
Commentary
The loving union of their parents, which is their genealogical origin, is the source of stability and emotional security for the children. The foundation of their identity and personal growth. The school where they will learn to love.
Married life implies an effort of both man and woman‘s effort to grow constantly in conjugal love, sharing everything in common, communicating two lives in only one, our life. It is not easy, but it is possible. It has its difficulties, but overcoming them is good; it is excellent. For Christians, there is tremendous help: the special forces required to be and grow as a loving union, which theologians call graces appropriate to the “married state”; and the mercies, which are lights and impulses to overcome frictions, routines, and wounds, through openness to mutual reconciliation and forgiveness.
In the document, Pope Francis stresses the importance of taking care of the joy of love, which can be lived even amid the pain. In married life, love must manifest itself and grow through small details. Great occasions can present themselves as a hundred ordinary everyday life little things. The conjugal union´s growth, the “two being as one,” is not achieved by each one on their own instead, they must work together helping one another mutually and reciprocally. In this struggle for their union, spouses have the opportunity to open themselves to a fascinating scenario, which is their friendship; a special friendship of intimate comrades. Furthermore, with its struggle to preserve and restore itself, this union is an enormous good that projects itself to their children and society.
