English
EspañolEvery marriage and family, all of the loving relationships within them, walk the narrow path, which is replete with difficulties, trials, and evidence of our limitations. No one can claim that his or her marriage or family possesses the complete perfection and fullness of the ideal unless he or she suffers from perfect and complete stupidity. That is why tenderness and mercy towards one another are part of real love.
Text
“Christian marriage, as a reflection of the union between Christ and his Church, is fully realized in the union between a man and a woman who give themselves to each other in a free, faithful and exclusive love, who belong to each other until death and are open to the transmission of life, and are consecrated by the sacrament, which grants them the grace to become a domestic church and a leaven of new life for society. Some forms of union radically contradict this ideal, while others realize it in at least a partial and analogous way. The Synod Fathers stated that the Church does not disregard the constructive elements in those situations which do not yet or no longer correspond to her teaching on marriage.” (The Joy of Love, n.292)
Commentary
I have selected this passage for three reasons that I consider crucial for interpreting Pope Francis in the Joy of Love, especially in chapter eight.
The first reason is that it summarizes the marriage that the Church proposes to spouses very well. As expected, Pope Francis confirms Revelation, Tradition, and the Magisterium on marriage between the baptized and its sacramental dimension. It is worth recalling this magisterial fidelity because of the discernment of “irregular” cases: those that do not seem to respond to the ideal. Pope Francis has been accused of deviating from traditional doctrine and, laxly, of offering different morals, ideals, and solutions à la carte for cases “far from the ideal,” which would go against the “one ideal and true doctrine.” Although there are dozens of them, this passage on marriage serves to refute these accusations.
The second reason is because of the realism of family love. These loving relationships born within a family consist of true love, which does not mean that they are perfect; how could they be if we who love each other are not perfect but rather embellished with many defects? We are well aware of this when, with humble realism, we examine ourselves in our actual and concrete life as spouses, fathers, mothers, children, siblings, grandparents, and grandchildren. It is also true that there are mild cases, some more serious, and others even desperate. God does not love us because we are perfect – He alone is holy and perfect – He loves us because He is infinitely good and a faithful lover. Furthermore, that is the place from where our consolation and the mercy of our hearts stem. In our home, the same rings true, we do not love our spouse, children, siblings, grandchildren, or grandparents because they are perfect. We love them because they are “our most intimate people,” those of our flesh and blood, for we gave ourselves so freely and gratuitously, to belong to each other as this woman´s husband and this man´s wife, or because we share the exact origin as begetters and begotten. Given this profound intimacy between us, we love one another, help one another, lift and rescue one another, accompany and fight for the bonds of our union. We do so with tender, patient, and faithful mercy, without surrendering during the struggles, trials, difficulties, and limitations. For, when it comes to love, victory among those of us who are pretty full of defects and malice boils down to fighting without ever giving up.
The third reason is that assuming that no one is perfect and that we suffer from many and diverse limitations to a greater or lesser extent, the discovery that mercy is an essential dimension of the truth of our conjugal and familial love shines forth. It constitutes an essential dimension of fidelity. If we love, we cannot be predators, scavengers, or “hunters” of our neighbors, that is, use their imperfections to marginalize them, tear them apart, neglect them, humiliate them and drive them away. These are not examples of good love, but the opposite, to use the “ideal doctrine” as the weapon with which we terminate and condemn them because they do not fulfill it in their lives.
If Jesus Christ were “mercilessly and relentlessly just” with us, without ever looking at us with his infinitely loving and compassionate heart, we would all be condemned. This is a great consolation for our imperfections. Why? Because it is a direct and intense revelation, constant throughout the Gospel, of what kind of “real” love we are to give one another as a family: that of tender mercy, that of embrace, trust, closeness and intimate companionship, that of unconditional assistance in fortune and misfortune, health or sickness, in “good times and bad.” If the Samaritan in the Gospel cared for a stranger whom he found severely wounded on the margins of life, thousand times more so should we be Samaritans to our spouses and relatives, who are our intimate ones, in whatever may happen to them during their lives. The easiest thing is to excuse ourselves, as the Levite and the lawyer did, and the hardest thing is to get personally involved because that takes time, perseverance, much patient effort, and great hope that, at some point, our wounded or lost loved one will recover.
