English
EspañolThe Church is the whole People of God. All the baptized form the Church. The family needs to be placed, within the Church, in the first place, the position which genuinely corresponds to it. Too many important things are at stake in the family, including humanity’s future and the Church itself.
Text
“The Church is a family of families, constantly enriched by the lives of all those domestic churches. “In virtue of the sacrament of matrimony, every family becomes, in effect, a good for the Church. From this standpoint, reflecting on the interplay between the family and the Church will prove a precious gift for the Church in our time. The Church is good for the family, and the family is good for the Church. The safeguarding of the Lord’s gift in the sacrament of matrimony is a concern not only of individual families but of the entire Christian community”. (The Joy of Love, n.87)
Commentary
Sometimes a somewhat clericalized vision of the Church creeps in. It seems very important to restore the family’s place in the Church. To restore it for spouses, as such, and as parents and grandparents, for the education and transmission of faith, hope, and love of charity depend on them. The family lives these realities, from the very start, within the household, that place where unconditional affection and love abound as well as the tenderness of mercy, patience and forgiveness, hope for tomorrow, and the constant affirmation that life is an immense gift from God, which is always worthwhile, and must be corresponded with love thus making fruitful the talents received.
It is apparent that since every family is a primary cell of society and constitutes a domestic church, the duty to preserve its integrity and to cultivate family values becomes extremely urgent in society and the Church. The family, founded on marriage – a sacrament for baptized spouses – with its example of unconditional and lifelong love, is the best antidote to individualistic self-centeredness, relativism, and existential emptiness, with its sadness and vital emptiness.
