English
EspañolFecundity and the power to vivify are the same. Conjugal love possesses this fruitfulness. A power to engender, vivify, radiate and resurrect. It gives life to the types of love that coexist in a family: spouses, parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, friends. It radiates to their friends, their surroundings, to the whole society.
Text
“Large families are a joy for the Church. They are an expression of the fruitfulness of love.” (The Joy of Love, n.167)
Commentary
One of my cousins has ten children; quite a daring thing for any era, even more so in this time and age. It is a great joy when we manage to get together. Parents and children radiate a great light. They are a living testimony of generosity and how love, far from being distributed and divided with the arrival of each member, multiplies, expands, and brings them closer. It is not easy, but it is excellent and glorious.
Large families are a real and concrete manifestation of the fruitfulness of love. Of course, this fruitfulness includes begetting new lives, raising and educating them, and giving them a warm and loving home. However, the fruitfulness of love does not end with children, even though parenthood lasts until death from old age.
It makes their persons grow, more capable of loving and being loved. It enlivens their virtues, tests them, makes them real and more human. It sustains the heartbeat of those loving relationships, not for a season but a lifetime. It matures them so that, when the time comes, they can give life to new families and make those life-long relationships of love grow.
