Pope John Paul II
Given on February 2 and released
on February 22 at the Vatican.
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. The family - way of the Church
3. The Year of the Family
4. Prayer 5. Love and concern for all families
I. THE CIVILIZATION OF LOVE
6. "Male and female he created them"
7. The marital covenant
8. The unity of the two
9. The genealogy of the person
10. The common good of marriage and the family
11. The sincere gift of self
12. Responsible fatherhood and motherhood
13. The two civilizations
14. Love is demanding
15. The fourth commandment: "Honour your
father and your mother"
16. Education
17. Family and society
II. THE BRIDEGROOM IS WITH YOU
18. At Cana in Galilee
19. The Great Mystery
20. Mother of Fairest Love
21. Birth and Danger
22. "You welcomed me"
23. "Strengthened in the inner man"
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Dear Families!
1. The celebration of the Year of the
Family gives me a welcome opportunity to knock
at the door of your home, eager to greet you
with deep affection and to spend time with you.
I do so by this Letter, taking as my point of
departure the words of the Encyclical Redemptor
Hominis, published in the first days of my ministry
as the Successor of Peter. There I wrote that
man is the way of the Church.[1]
With these words I wanted first of all to evoke
the many paths along which man walks, and at
the same time to emphasize how deeply the Church
desires to stand at his side as he follows the
paths of his earthly life. The Church shares
in the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anxieties[2]
Of people's daily pilgrimage, firmly convinced
that it was Christ himself who set her on all
these paths. Christ entrusted man to the Church;
he entrusted man to her as the "way"
of her mission and her ministry.
THE FAMILY - WAY OF THE CHURCH
2. Among these many paths, the family
is the first and the most important. It is a
path common to all, yet one which is particular,
unique and unrepeatable, just as every individual
is unrepeatable; it is a path from which man
cannot withdraw. Indeed, a person normally comes
into the world within a family, and can be said
to owe to the family the very fact of his existing
as an individual. When he has no family, the
person coming into the world develops an anguished
sense of pain and loss, one which will subsequently
burden his whole life. The Church draws near
with loving concern to all who experience situations
such as these, for she knows well the fundamental
role which the family is called upon to play.
Furthermore, she knows that a person goes forth
from the family in order to realize in a new
family unit his particular vocation in life.
Even if someone chooses to remain single, the
family continues to be, as it were, his existential
horizon, that fundamental community in which
the whole network of social relations is grounded,
from the closest and most immediate to the most
distant. Do we not often speak of the "human
family" when referring to all the people
living in the world?
The family has its origin in that same love
with which the Creator embraces the created
world, as was already expressed "in the
beginning", in the Book of Genesis (1:1).
In the Gospel Jesus offers a supreme confirmation:
"God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son" (Jn 3:16). The only-begotten
Son, of one substance with the Father, "God
from God and Light from Light", entered
into human history through the family: "For
by his incarnation the Son of God united himself
in a certain way with every man. He laboured
with human hands... and loved with a human heart.
Born of Mary the Virgin, he truly became one
of us and, except for sin, was like us in every
respect".[3] If in fact Christ "fully
discloses man to himself",[4] he does so
beginning with the family in which he chose
to be born and to grow up. We know that the
Redeemer spent most of his life in the obscurity
of Nazareth, "obedient" (Lk 2:51)
as the "Son of Man" to Mary his Mother,
and to Joseph the carpenter. Is this filial
"obedience" of Christ not already
the first expression of that obedience to the
Father "unto death" (Phil 2:8), whereby
he redeemed the world?
The divine mystery of the Incarnation of the
Word thus has an intimate connection with the
human family. Not only with one family, that
of Nazareth, but in some way with every family,
analogously to what the Second Vatican Council
says about the Son of God, who in the Incarnation
"united himself in some sense with every
man".[5] Following Christ who "came"
into the world "to serve" (Mt 20:28),
the Church considers serving the family to be
one of her essential duties. In this sense both
man and the family constitute "the way
of the Church."
THE YEAR OF THE FAMILY
3. For these very reasons the Church
joyfully welcomes the decision of the United
Nations Organization to declare 1994 the International
Year of the Family. This initiative makes it
clear how fundamental the question of the family
is for the member States of the United Nations.
If the Church wishes to take part in this initiative,
it is because she herself has been sent by Christ
to "all nations" (Mt 28:19). Moreover,
this is not the first time the Church has made
her own an international initiative of the United
Nations. We need but recall, for example, the
International Year of Youth in 1985. In this
way also the Church makes herself present in
the world, fulfilling a desire which was dear
to Pope John XII, and which inspired the Second
Vatican Council's Constitution Gaudium et Spes.
On the Feast of the Holy Family in 1993 the
whole ecclesial community began the "Year
of the Family" as one of the important
steps along the path of preparation for the
Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, which will mark
the end of the second and the beginning of the
third Millennium of the Birth of Jesus Christ.
This Year ought to direct our thoughts and our
hearts towards Nazareth, where it was officially
inaugurated this past 26 December at a Solemn
Eucharistic Liturgy presided over by the Papal
Legate.
Throughout this Year it is important to discover
anew the many signs of the Church's love and
concern for the family, a love and concern expressed
from the very beginning of Christianity, when
the meaningful term "domestic church"
was applied to the family. In our own times
we have often returned to the phrase "domestic
church", which the Council adopted[6] and
the sense of which we hope will always remain
alive in people's minds. This desire is not
lessened by an awareness of the changed conditions
of families in today's world. Precisely because
of this, there is a continuing relevance to
the title chosen by the Council in the Pastoral
Constitution Gaudium et Spes in order to indicate
what the Church should be doing in the present
situation: "Promoting the dignity of marriage
and the family".[7] Another important reference
point after the Council is the 1981 Apostolic
Exhortation Familiaris Consortio. This text
takes into account a vast and complex experience
with regard to the family, which among different
peoples and countries always and everywhere
continues to be the "way of the Church".
In a certain sense it becomes all the more so
precisely in those places where the family is
suffering from internal crises or is exposed
to adverse cultural, social and economic influences
which threaten its inner unity and strength,
and even stand in the way of its very formation.
PRAYER
4. In this Letter I wish to speak not
to families "in the abstract" but
to every particular family in every part of
the world, wherever it is located and whatever
the diversity and complexity of its culture
and history. The love with which God "loved
the world" (Jn 3:16), the love with which
Christ loved each and every one "to the
end" (Jn 13:1), makes it possible to address
this message to each family, as a living "cell"
of the great and universal "family"
of mankind. The Father, Creator of the Universe,
and the Word Incarnate, the Redeemer of humanity,
are the source of this universal openness to
all people as brothers and sisters, and they
impel us to embrace them in the prayer which
begins with the tender words: "Our Father".
Prayer makes the Son of God present among us:
"For where two or three are gathered in
my name, I am there among them" (Mt 18:20).
This Letter to Families wishes in the first
place to be a prayer to Christ to remain in
every human family; an invitation to him, in
and through the small family of parents and
children, to dwell in the great family of nations,
so that together with him all of us can truly
say: "Our Father"! Prayer must become
the dominant element of the Year of the Family
in the Church: prayer by the family, prayer
for the family, and prayer with the family.
It is significant that precisely in and through
prayer, man comes to discover in a very simple
and yet profound way his own unique subjectivity:
in prayer the human "I" more easily
perceives the depth of what it means to be a
person. This is also true of the family, which
is not only the basic "cell" of society,
but also possesses a particular subjectivity
of its own. This subjectivity finds its first
and fundamental confirmation, and is strengthened,
precisely when the members of the family meet
in the common invocation: "Our Father".
Prayer increases the strength and spiritual
unity of the family, helping the family to partake
of God's own "strength". In the solemn
nuptial blessing during the Rite of Marriage,
the celebrant calls upon the Lord in these words:
"Pour out upon them [the newlyweds] the
grace of the Holy Spirit so that by your love
poured into their hearts they will remain faithful
in the marriage covenant".[8] This "visitation"
of the Holy Spirit gives rise to the inner strength
of families, as well as the power capable of
uniting them in love and truth.
LOVE AND CONCERN FOR ALL FAMILIES
5. May the Year of the Family become
a harmonious and universal prayer on the part
of all "domestic churches" and of
the whole People of God! May this prayer also
reach families in difficulty or danger, lacking
confidence or experiencing division, or in situations
which Familiaris Consortio describes as "irregular".[9]
May all families be able to feel the loving
and caring embrace of their brothers and sisters!
During the Year of the Family, prayer should
first of all be an encouraging witness on the
part of those families who live out their human
and Christian vocation in the communion of the
home. How many of them there are in every nation,
diocese and parish! With reason it can be said
that these families make up "the norm",
even admitting the existence of more than a
few "irregular situations". And experience
shows what an important role is played by a
family living in accordance with the moral norm,
so that the individual born and raised in it
will be able to set out without hesitation on
the road of the good, which is always written
in his heart. Unfortunately various programmes
backed by very powerful resources nowadays seem
to aim at the breakdown of the family. At times
it appears that concerted efforts are being
made to present as "normal" and attractive,
and even to glamourize, situations which are
in fact "irregular". Indeed, they
contradict "the truth and love" which
should inspire and guide relationships between
men and women, thus causing tensions and divisions
in families, with grave consequences particularly
for children. The moral conscience becomes darkened;
what is true, good and beautiful is deformed;
and freedom is replaced by what is actually
enslavement. In view of all this, how relevant
and thought-provoking are the words of the Apostle
Paul about the freedom for which Christ has
set us free, and the slavery which is caused
by sin (cf. Gal 5:1)!
It is apparent then how timely and even necessary
a Year of the Family is for the Church; how
indispensable is the witness of all families
who live their vocation day by day; how urgent
it is for families to pray and for that prayer
to increase and to spread throughout the world,
expressing thanksgiving for love in truth, for
"the outpouring of the grace of the Holy
Spirit,[10] for the presence among parents and
children of Christ the Redeemer and Bridegroom,
who "loved us to the end" (cf. Jn
13:1). Let us be deeply convinced that this
love is the greatest of all (cf. 1 Cor 13:13),
and let us believe that it is really capable
of triumphing over everything that is not love.
During this year may the prayer of the Church,
the prayer of families as "domestic churches",
constantly rise up! May it make itself heard
first by God and then also by people everywhere,
so that they will not succumb to doubt, and
all who are wavering because of human weakness
will not yield to the tempting glamour of merely
apparent goods, like those held out in every
temptation.
At Cana in Galilee, where Jesus was invited
to a marriage banquet, his Mother, also present,
said to the servants: "Do whatever he tells
you" (Jn 2:5). Now that we have begun our
celebration of the Year of the Family, Mary
says the same words to us. What Christ tells
us, in this particular moment of history, constitutes
a forceful call to a great prayer with families
and for families. The Virgin Mother invites
us to unite ourselves through this prayer to
the sentiments of her Son, who loves each and
every family. He expressed this love at the
very beginning of his mission as Redeemer, with
his sanctifying presence at Cana in Galilee,
a presence which still continues.
Let us pray for families throughout the world.
Let us pray, through Christ, with him and in
him, to the Father "from whom every family
in heaven and on earth is named" (Eph 3:15).
I. THE CIVILIZATION OF LOVE
"MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM"
6. The universe, immense and diverse
as it is, the world of all living beings, is
inscribed in God's fatherhood, which is its
source (cf. Eph 3:14-16). This can be said,
of course, on the basis of an analogy, thanks
to which we can discern, at the very beginning
of the Book of Genesis, the reality of fatherhood
and motherhood and consequently of the human
family. The interpretative key enabling this
discernment is provided by the principle of
the "image" and "likeness"
of God highlighted by the scriptural text (Gen
1:26). God creates by the power of his word:
"Let there be...!" (e.g., Gen 1:3).
Significantly, in the creation of man this word
of God is followed by these other words: "Let
us make man in our image, after our likeness"
(Gen 1:26). Before creating man, the Creator
withdraws as it were into himself, in order
to seek the pattern and inspiration in the mystery
of his Being, which is already here disclosed
as the divine "We". From this mystery
the human being comes forth by an act of creation:
"God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created him; male and female
he created them" (Gen 1:27).
God speaks to these newly-created beings and
he blesses them: "Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen
1:28). The Book of Genesis employs the same
expressions used earlier for the creation of
other living beings: "multiply". But
it is clear that these expressions are being
used in an analogous sense. Is there not present
here the analogy of begetting and of fatherhood
and motherhood, which should be understood in
the light of the overall context? No living
being on earth except man was created "in
the image and likeness of God". Human fatherhood
and motherhood, while remaining biologically
similar to that of other living beings in nature,
contain in an essential and unique way a "likeness"
to God which is the basis of the family as a
community of human life, as a community of persons
united in love (communio personarum).
In the light of the New Testament it is possible
to discern how the primordial model of the family
is to be sought in God himself, in the Trinitarian
mystery of his life. The divine "We"
is the eternal pattern of the human "we",
especially of that "we" formed by
the man and the woman created in the divine
image and likeness. The words of the Book of
Genesis contain that truth about man which is
confirmed by the very experience of humanity.
Man is created "from the very beginning"
as male and female: the life of all humanity--whether
of small communities or of society as a whole--marked
by this primordial duality. From it there derive
the "masculinity" and the "femininity"
of individuals, just as from it every community
draws its own unique richness in the mutual
fulfillment of persons. This is what seems to
be meant by the words of the Book of Genesis:
"Male and female he created them"
(Gen 1:27). Here too we find the first statement
of the equal dignity of man and woman: both
in equal measure, are persons. Their constitution,
with the specific dignity which derives from
it, defines "from the beginning" the
qualities of the common good of humanity, in
every dimension and circumstance of life. To
this common good both man and woman make their
specific contribution. Hence one can discover,
at the very origins of human society, the qualities
of communion and of complementarity.
THE MARITAL COVENANT
7. The family has always been considered
as the first and basic expression of man's social
nature. Even today this way of looking at things
remains unchanged. Nowadays, however, emphasis
tends to be laid on how much the family, as
the smallest and most basic human community,
owes to the personal contribution of a man and
a woman. The family is in fact a community of
persons whose proper way of existing and living
together is communion: communio personarum.
Here too, while always acknowledging the absolute
transcendence of the Creator with regard to
his creatures, we can see the family's ultimate
relationship to the divine "We". Only
persons are capable of living "in communion".
The family originates in a marital communion
described by the Second Vatican Council as a
"covenant", in which man and woman
"give themselves to each other and accept
each other".[11]
The Book of Genesis helps us to see this truth
when it states, in reference to the establishment
of the family through marriage, that "a
man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves
to his wife, and they become one flesh"
(Gen 2:24). In the Gospel, Christ, disputing
with the Pharisees, quotes these same words
and then adds: "So they are no longer two
but one flesh. What therefore God has joined
together, let not man put asunder" (Mt
19:6). In this way, he reveals anew the binding
content of a fact which exists "from the
beginning" (Mt 19:8) and which always preserves
this content. If the Master confirms it "now",
he does so in order to make clear and unmistakable
to all, at the dawn of the New Covenant, the
indissoluble character of marriage as the basis
of the common good of the family.
When, in union with the Apostle, we bow our
knees before the Father from whom all fatherhood
and motherhood is named (cf. Eph 3:14-15), we
come to realize that parenthood is the event
whereby the family, already constituted by the
conjugal covenant of marriage, is brought about
"in the full and specific sense".[12]
Motherhood necessarily implies fatherhood, and
in turn, fatherhood necessarily implies motherhood.
This is the result of the duality bestowed by
the Creator upon human beings "from the
beginning".
I have spoken of two closely related yet not
identical concepts: the concept of "communion"
and that of "community". "Communion"
has to do with the personal relationship between
the "I" and the "thou".
"Community" on the other hand transcends
this framework and moves towards a "society",
a "we". The family, as a community
of persons, is thus the first human "society".
It arises whenever there comes into being the
conjugal covenant of marriage, which opens the
spouses to a lasting communion of love and of
life, and it is brought to completion in a full
and specific way with the procreation of children:
the "communion" of the spouses gives
rise to the "community" of the family.
The "community" of the family is completely
pervaded by the very essence of "communion".
On the human level, can there be any other "communion"
comparable to that between a mother and a child
whom she has carried in her womb and then brought
to birth?
In the family thus constituted there appears
a new unity, in which the relationship "of
communion" between the parents attains
complete fulfillment. Experience teaches that
this fulfillment represents both a task and
a challenge. The task involves the spouses in
living out their original covenant. The children
born to them--and here is the challenge should
consolidate that covenant, enriching and deepening
the conjugal communion of the father and mother.
When this does not occur, we need to ask if
the selfishness which lurks even in the love
of man and woman as a result of the human inclination
to evil is not stronger than this love. Married
couples need to be well aware of this. From
the outset they need to have their hearts and
thoughts turned towards the God "from whom
every family is named", so that their fatherhood
and motherhood will draw from that source the
power to be continually renewed in love.
Fatherhood and motherhood are themselves a
particular proof of love; they make it possible
to discover love's extension and original depth.
But this does not take place automatically.
Rather, it is a task entrusted to both husband
and wife. In the life of husband and wife together,
fatherhood and motherhood represent such a sublime
"novelty" and richness as can only
be approached "on one's knees".
Experience teaches that human love, which naturally
tends towards fatherhood and motherhood, is
sometimes affected by a profound crisis and
is thus seriously threatened. In such cases,
help can be sought at marriage and family counselling
centres, where it is possible, among other things,
to obtain the assistance of specifically trained
psychologists and psychotherapists. At the same
time, however, we cannot forget the perennial
validity of the words of the Apostle: "I
bow my knees before the Father, from whom every
family in heaven and on earth is named".
Marriage, the Sacrament of Matrimony, is a covenant
of persons in love. And love can be deepened
and preserved only by Love, that Love which
is "poured into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit which has been given to us"
(Rom 5:5). During the Year of the Family should
our prayer not concentrate on the crucial and
decisive moment of the passage from conjugal
love to childbearing, and thus to fatherhood
and motherhood? Is that not precisely the moment
when there is an indispensable need for the
"outpouring of the grace of the Holy Spirit"
invoked in the liturgical celebration of the
Sacrament of Matrimony?
The Apostle, bowing his knees before the Father,
asks that the faithful "be strengthened
with might through his Spirit in the inner man"
(Eph 3:16). This "inner strength"
is necessary in all family life, especially
at its critical moments, when the love which
was expressed in the liturgical rite of marital
consent with the words, "I promise to be
faithful to you always... all the days of my
life", is put to a difficult test.
THE UNITY OF THE TWO
8. Only "persons" are capable
of saying those words; only they are able to
live "in communion" on the basis of
a mutual choice which is, or ought to be, fully
conscious and free. The Book of Genesis, in
speaking of a man who leaves father and mother
in order to cleave to his wife (cf. Gen 2:24),
highlights the conscious and free choice which
gives rise to marriage, making the son of a
family a husband, and the daughter of a family
a wife. How can we adequately understand this
mutual choice, unless we take into consideration
the full truth about the person, who is a rational
and free being? The Second Vatican Council,
in speaking of the likeness of God, uses extremely
significant terms. It refers not only to the
divine image and likeness which every human
being as such already possesses, but also and
primarily to "a certain similarity between
the union of the divine persons and the union
of God's children in truth and love".[13]
This rich and meaningful formulation first
of all confirms what is central to the identity
of every man and every woman. This identity
consists in the capacity to live in truth and
love; even more, it consists in the need of
truth and love as an essential dimension of
the life of the person. Man's need for truth
and love opens him both to God and to creatures:
it opens him to other people, to life "in
communion", and in particular to marriage
and to the family. In the words of the Council,
the "communion" of persons is drawn
in a certain sense from the mystery of the Trinitarian
"We", and therefore "conjugal
communion" also refers to this mystery.
The family, which originates in the love of
man and woman, ultimately derives from the mystery
of God. This conforms to the innermost being
of man and woman, to their innate and authentic
dignity as persons.
In marriage man and woman are so firmly united
as to become to use the words of the Book of
Genesis--"one flesh" (Gen 2:24). Male
and female in their physical constitution, the
two human subjects, even though physically different,
share equally in the capacity to live "in
truth and love". This capacity, characteristic
of the human being as a person, has at the same
time both a spiritual and a bodily dimension.
It is also through the body that man and woman
are predisposed to form a "communion of
persons" in marriage. When they are united
by the conjugal covenant in such a way as to
become "one flesh" (Gen 2:24), their
union ought to take place "in truth and
love", and thus express the maturity proper
to persons created in the image and likeness
of God.
The family which results from this union draws
its inner solidity from the covenant between
the spouses, which Christ raised to a Sacrament.
The family draws its proper character as a community,
its traits of "communion", from that
fundamental communion of the spouses which is
prolonged in their children. "Will you
accept children lovingly from God, and bring
them up according to the law of Christ and his
Church?", the celebrant asks during the
Rite of Marriage.[14] The answer given by the
spouses reflects the most profound truth of
the love which unites them. Their unity, however,
rather than closing them up in themselves, opens
them towards a new life, towards a new person.
As parents, they will be capable of giving life
to a being like themselves, not only bone of
their bones and flesh of their flesh (cf. Gen
2:23), but an image and likeness of God--a person.
When the Church asks "Are you willing?",
she is reminding the bride and groom that they
stand before the creative power of God. They
are called to become parents, to cooperate with
the Creator in giving life. Cooperating with
God to call new human beings into existence
means contributing to the transmission of that
divine image and likeness of which everyone
"born of a woman" is a bearer.
THE GENEALOGY OF THE PERSON
9. Through the communion of persons
which occurs in marriage, a man and a woman
begin a family. Bound up with the family is
the genealogy of every individual: the genealogy
of the person. Human fatherhood and motherhood
are rooted in biology, yet at the same time
transcend it. The Apostle, with knees bowed
"before the Father from whom all fatherhood
[and motherhood] in heaven and on earth is named",
in a certain sense asks us to look at the whole
world of living creatures, from the spiritual
beings in heaven to the corporeal beings on
earth. Every act of begetting finds its primordial
model in the fatherhood of God. Nonetheless,
in the case of man, this "cosmic"
dimension of likeness to God is not sufficient
to explain adequately the relationship of fatherhood
and motherhood. When a new person is born of
the conjugal union of the two, he brings with
him into the world a particular image and likeness
of God himself: the genealogy of the person
is inscribed in the very biology of generation.
In affirming that the spouses, as parents,
cooperate with God the Creator in conceiving
and giving birth to a new human being,[15] we
are not speaking merely with reference to the
laws of biology. Instead, we wish to emphasize
that God himself is present in human fatherhood
and motherhood quite differently than he is
present in all other instances of begetting
"on earth". Indeed, God alone is the
source of that "image and likeness"
which is proper to the human being, as it was
received at Creation. Begetting is the continuation
of Creation.[16]
And so, both in the conception and in the birth
of a new child, parents find themselves face
to face with a "great mystery" (cf.
Eph 5:32). Like his parents, the new human being
is also called to live as a person; he is called
to a life "in truth and love". This
call is not only open to what exists in time,
but in God it is also open to eternity. This
is the dimension of the genealogy of the person
which has been revealed definitively by Christ,
who casts the light of his Gospel on human life
and death and thus on the meaning of the human
family.
As the Council affirms, man is "the only
creature on earth whom God willed for its own
sake"[17] Man's coming into being does
not conform to the laws of biology alone, but
also, and directly, to God's creative will,
which is concerned with the genealogy of the
sons and daughters of human families. God "willed"
man from the very beginning, and God "wills"
him in every act of conception and every human
birth. God "wills" man as a being
similar to himself, as a person. This man, every
man, is created by God "for his own sake".
That is true of all persons, including those
born with sicknesses or disabilities. Inscribed
in the personal constitution of every human
being is the will of God, who wills that man
should be, in a certain sense, an end unto himself.
God hands man over to himself, entrusting him
both to his family and to society as their responsibility.
Parents, in contemplating a new human being,
are, or ought to be, fully aware of the fact
that God "wills" this individual "for
his own sake".
This concise expression is profoundly rich
in meaning. From the very moment of conception,
and then of birth, the new being is meant to
express fully his humanity, to "find himself"
as a person.[18] This is true for absolutely
everyone, including the chronically ill and
the disabled. "To be human" is his
fundamental vocation: "to be human"
in accordance with the gift received, in accordance
with that "talent" which is humanity
itself, and only then in accordance with other
talents. In this sense God wills every man "for
his own sake". In God's plan, however,
the vocation of the human person extends beyond
the boundaries of time. It encounters the will
of the Father revealed in the Incarnate Word:
"God's will is to lavish upon man a sharing
in his own divine life. As Christ says: "I
came that they may have life and have it abundantly"
(Jn 10:10).
Does affirming man's ultimate destiny not conflict
with the statement that God wills man "for
his own sake"? If he has been created for
divine life, can man truly exist "for his
own sake"? This is a critical question,
one of great significance both for the beginning
of his earthly life and its end: it is important
for the whole span of his life. It might appear
that in destining man for divine life God definitively
takes away man's existing "for his own
sake".[19] What then is the relationship
between the life of the person and his sharing
in the life of the Trinity? Saint Augustine
provides us with the answer in his celebrated
phrase: "Our heart is restless until it
rests in you".[20] This "restless
heart" serves to point out that between
the one finality and the other there is in fact
no contradiction, but rather a relationship,
a complementarity, a unity. By his very genealogy,
the person created in the image and likeness
of God, exists "for his own sake"
and reaches fulfillment precisely by sharing
in God's life. The content of this self-fulfillment
is the fullness of life in God, proclaimed by
Christ (cf. Jn 6:37-40), who redeemed us precisely
so that we might come to share it (cf. Mk 10:45).
It is for themselves that married couples want
children; in children they see the crowning
of their own love for each other. They want
children for the family, as a priceless gift.[21]
This is quite understandable. Nonetheless, in
conjugal love and in paternal and maternal love
we should find inscribed the same truth about
man which the Council expressed in a clear and
concise way in its statement that God "willed
man for his own sake". It is thus necessary
that the will of the parents should be in harmony
with the will of God. They must want the new
human creature in the same way as the Creator
wants him: "for himself". Our human
will is always and inevitably subject to the
law of time and change. The divine will, on
the other hand, is eternal. As we read in the
Book of the Prophet Jeremiah: "Before I
formed you in the womb I knew you, and before
you were born I consecrated you" (Jer 1:5).
The genealogy of the person is thus united with
the eternity of God, and only then with human
fatherhood and motherhood, which are realized
in time. At the moment of conception itself,
man is already destined to eternity in God.
THE COMMON GOOD OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
10. Marital consent defines and consolidates
the good common to marriage and to the family.
"I, N., take you, N., to be my wife/husband.
I promise to be true to you in good times and
in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love
you and honour you all the days of my life".[22]
Marriage is a unique communion of persons, and
it is on the basis of this communion that the
family is called to become a community of persons.
This is a commitment which the bride and groom
undertake "before God and his Church",
as the celebrant reminds them before they exchange
their consent.[23] Those who take part in the
rite are witnesses of this commitment, for in
a certain sense they represent the Church and
society, the settings in which the new family
will live and grow.
The words of consent define the common good
of the couple and of the family. First, the
common good of the spouses: love, fidelity,
honour, the permanence of their union until
death--"all the days of my life".
The good of both, which is at the same time
the good of each, must then become the good
of the children. The common good, by its very
nature, both unites individual persons and ensures
the true good of each. If the Church (and the
State for that matter) receives the consent
which the spouses express in the words cited
above, she does so because that consent is "written
in their hearts" (Rom 2:15). It is the
spouses who give their consent to each other
by a solemn promise, that is by confirming the
truth of that consent in the sight of God. As
baptized Christians, they are the ministers
of the Sacrament of Matrimony in the Church.
Saint Paul teaches that this mutual commitment
of theirs is a "great mystery" (Eph
5:32).
The words of consent, then, express what is
essential to the common good of the spouses,
and they indicate what ought to be the common
good of the future family. In order to bring
this out, the Church asks the spouses if they
are prepared to accept the children God grants
them and to raise the children as Christians.
This question calls to mind the common good
of the future family unit, evoking the genealogy
of persons which is part of the constitution
of marriage and of the family itself. The question
about children and their education is profoundly
linked to marital consent, with its solemn promise
of love, conjugal respect, and fidelity until
death. The acceptance and education of children--two
of the primary ends of the family--are conditioned
by how that commitment will be fulfilled. Fatherhood
and motherhood represent a responsibility which
is not simply physical but spiritual in nature,
indeed, through these realities there passes
the genealogy of the person, which has its eternal
beginning in God and which must lead back to
him.
The Year of the Family, as a year of special
prayer on the part of families, ought to renew
and deepen each family's awareness of these
truths. What a wealth of biblical reflections
could nourish that prayer! Together with the
words of Sacred Scripture, these prayerful reflections
should always include the personal memories
of the spouses-parents, the children and grandchildren.
Through the genealogy of persons, conjugal communion
becomes a communion of generations. The sacramental
union of the two spouses, sealed in the covenant
which they enter into before God, endures and
grows stronger as the generations pass. It must
become a union in prayer. But for all this to
become clearly apparent during the Year of the
Family, prayer needs to become a regular habit
in the daily life of each family. Prayer is
thanksgiving, praise of God, asking for forgiveness,
supplication and invocation. In all of these
forms the prayer of the family has much to say
to God. It also has much to say to others, beginning
with the mutual communion of persons joined
together by family ties.
The Psalmist asks: "What is man that you
keep him in mind?" (Ps 8:4). Prayer is
the place where, in a very simple way, the creative
and fatherly remembrance of God is made manifest:
not only man's remembrance of God, but also
and especially God's remembrance of man. In
this way, the prayer of the family as a community
can become a place of common and mutual remembrance:
the family is in fact a community of generations.
In prayer everyone should be present: the living
and those who have died, and also those yet
to come into the world. Families should pray
for all of their members, in view of the good
which the family is for each individual and
which each individual is for the whole family.
Prayer strengthens this good, precisely as the
common good of the family. Moreover, it creates
this good ever anew. In prayer, the family discovers
itself as the first "us", in which
each member is "I" and "thou";
each member is for the others either husband
or wife, father or mother, son or daughter,
brother or sister, grandparent or grandchild.
Are all the families to which this Letter is
addressed like this? Certainly a good number
are, but the times in which we are living tend
to restrict family units to two generations.
Often this is the case because available housing
is too limited, especially in large cities.
But it is not infrequently due to the belief
that having several generations living together
interferes with privacy and makes life too difficult.
But is this not where the problem really lies?
Families today have too little "human"
life. There is a shortage of people with whom
to create and share the common good; and yet
that good, by its nature, demands to be created
and shared with others: bonum est diffusivum
sui: "good is diffusive of itself".[24]
The more common the good, the more properly
one's own it will also be: mine - yours - ours.
This is the logic behind living according to
the good, living in truth and charity. If man
is able to accept and follow this logic, his
life truly becomes a "sincere gift".
THE SINCERE GIFT OF SELF
11. After affirming that man is the
only creature on earth which God willed for
itself, the Council immediately goes on to say
that he cannot "fully find himself except
through a sincere gift of self".[25] This
might appear to be a contradiction, but in fact
it is not. Instead it is the magnificent paradox
of human existence: an existence called to serve
the truth in love. Love causes man to find fulfillment
through the sincere gift of self. To love means
to give and to receive something which can be
neither bought nor sold, but only given freely
and mutually.
By its very nature the gift of the person must
be lasting and irrevocable. The indissolubility
of marriage flows in the first place from the
very essence of that gift: the gift of one person
to another person. This reciprocal giving of
self reveals the spousal nature of love. In
their marital consent the bride and groom call
each other by name: "I... take you... as
my wife (as my husband) and I promise to be
true to you... for all the days of my life".
A gift such as this involves an obligation much
more serious and profound than anything which
might be "purchased" in any way and
at any price. Kneeling before the Father, from
whom all fatherhood and motherhood come, the
future parents come to realize that they have
been "redeemed". They have been purchased
at great cost, by the price of the most sincere
gift of all, the blood of Christ of which they
partake through the Sacrament. The liturgical
crowning of the marriage rite is the Eucharist,
the sacrifice of that "Body which has been
given up" and that "Blood which has
been shed", which in a certain way finds
expression in the consent of the spouses.
When a man and woman in marriage mutually give
and receive each other in the unity of "one
flesh", the logic of the sincere gift of
self becomes a part of their life. Without this,
marriage would be empty; whereas a communion
of persons, built on this logic, becomes a communion
of parents. When they transmit life to the child,
a new human "thou" becomes a part
of the horizon of the "we" of the
spouses, a person whom they will call by a new
name: "our son...; our daughter...".
"I have gotten a man with the help of the
Lord" (Gen 4:1), says Eve, the first woman
of history: a human being, first expected for
nine months and then "revealed" to
parents, brothers and sisters. The process from
conception and growth in the mother's womb to
birth makes it possible to create a space within
which the new creature can be revealed as a
"gift": indeed this is what it is
from the very beginning. Could this frail and
helpless being, totally dependent upon its parents
and completely entrusted to them, be seen in
any other way? The newborn child gives itself
to its parents by the very fact of its coming
into existence. Its existence is already a gift,
the first gift of the Creator to the creature.
In the newborn child is realized the common
good of the family. Just as the common good
of spouses is fulfilled in conjugal love, ever
ready to give and receive new life, so too the
common good of the family is fulfilled through
that same spousal love, as embodied in the newborn
child. Part of the genealogy of the person is
the genealogy of the family, preserved for posterity
by the annotations in the Church's baptismal
registers, even though these are merely the
social consequence of the fact that "a
man has been born into the world" (cf.
Jn 16:21).
But is it really true that the new human being
is a gift for his parents? A gift for society?
Apparently nothing seems to indicate this. On
occasion the birth of a child appears to be
a simple statistical fact, registered like so
many other data in demographic records. It is
true that for the parents the birth of a child
means more work, new financial burdens and further
inconveniences, all of which can lead to the
temptation not to want another birth.[26] In
some social and cultural contexts this temptation
can become very strong. Does this mean that
a child is not a gift? That it comes into the
world only to take and not to give? These are
some of the disturbing questions which men and
women today find hard to escape. A child comes
to take up room, when it seems that there is
less and less room in the world. But is it really
true that a child brings nothing to the family
and society? Is not every child a "particle"
of that common good without which human communities
break down and risk extinction? Could this ever
really be denied? The child becomes a gift to
its brothers, sisters, parents and entire family.
Its life becomes a gift for the very people
who were givers of life and who cannot help
but feel its presence, its sharing in their
life and its contribution to their common good
and to that of the community of the family.
This truth is obvious in its simplicity and
profundity, whatever the complexity and even
the possible pathology of the psychological
make-up of certain persons. The common good
of the whole of society dwells in man; he is,
as we recalled, "the way of the Church".[27]
Man is first of all the "glory of God":
"Gloria Dei vivens homo", in the celebrated
words of Saint Irenaeus,[28] which might also
be translated: "the glory of God is for
man to be alive". It could be said that
here we encounter the loftiest definition of
man: the glory of God is the common good of
all that exists; the common good of the human
race.
Yes! Man is a common good: a common good of
the family and of humanity, of individual groups
and of different communities. But there are
significant distinctions of degree and modality
in this regard. Man is a common good, for example,
of the Nation to which he belongs and of the
State of which he is a citizen; but in a much
more concrete, unique and unrepeatable way he
is a common good of his family. He is such not
only as an individual who is part of the multitude
of humanity, but rather as "this individual".
God the Creator calls him into existence "for
himself"; and in coming into the world
he begins, in the family, his "great adventure",
the adventure of human life. "This man"
has, in every instance, the right to fulfil
himself on the basis of his human dignity. It
is precisely this dignity which establishes
a person's place among others, and above all,
in the family. The family is indeed--more than
any other human reality--the place where an
individual can exist "for himself"
through the sincere gift of self. This is why
it remains a social institution which neither
can nor should be replaced: it is the "sanctuary
of life".[29]
The fact that a child is being born, that "a
child is born into the world" (Jn 16:21)
is a paschal sign. As we read in the Gospel
of John, Jesus himself speaks of this to the
disciples before his passion and death, comparing
their sadness at his departure with the pains
of a woman in labour: "When a woman is
in travail she has sorrow (that is, she suffers),
because her hour has come; but when she is delivered
of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish,
for joy that a child is born into the world"
(Jn 16:21). The "hour" of Christ's
death (cf. Jn 13:1) is compared here to the
"hour" of the woman in birthpangs;
the birth of a new child fully reflects the
victory of life over death brought about by
the Lord's Resurrection. This comparison can
provide us with material for reflection. Just
as the Resurrection of Christ is the manifestation
of Life beyond the threshold of death, so too
the birth of an infant is a manifestation of
life, which is always destined, through Christ,
for that "fullness of life" which
is in God himself: "I came that they may
have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn
10:10). Here we see revealed the deepest meaning
of Saint Irenaeus's expression: "Gloria
Dei vivens homo".
It is the Gospel truth concerning the gift
of self, without which the person cannot "fully
find himself", which makes possible an
appreciation of how profoundly this "sincere
gift" is rooted in the gift of God, Creator
and Redeemer, and in the "grace of the
Holy Spirit" which the celebrant during
the Rite of Marriage prays will be "poured
out" on the spouses. Without such an "outpouring",
it would be very difficult to understand all
this and to carry it out as man's vocation.
Yet how many people understand this intuitively!
Many men and women make this truth their own,
coming to discern that only in this truth do
they encounter "the Truth and the Life"
(Jn 14:6). Without this truth, the life of the
spouses and of the family will not succeed in
attaining a fully human meaning.
This is why the Church never tires of teaching
and of bearing witness to this truth. While
certainly showing maternal understanding for
the many complex crisis situations in which
families are involved, as well as for the moral
frailty of every human being, the Church is
convinced that she must remain absolutely faithful
to the truth about human love Otherwise she
would betray herself. To move away from this
saving truth would be to close "the eyes
of our hearts" (cf. Eph 1:18), which instead
should always stay open to the light which the
Gospel sheds on human affairs (cf. 2 Tim 1:10).
An awareness of that sincere gift of self whereby
man "finds himself" must be constantly
renewed and safeguarded in the face of the serious
opposition which the Church meets on the part
of those who advocate a false civilization of
progress.[30] The family always expresses a
new dimension of good for mankind, and it thus
creates a new responsibility. We are speaking
of the responsibility for that particular common
good in which is included the good of the person,
of every member of the family community. While
certainly a "difficult" good ("bonum
arduum"), it is also an attractive one.
RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD
12. It is now time, in this Letter to
Families, to bring up two closely related questions.
The first, more general, concerns the civilization
of love, the other, more specific, deals with
responsible fatherhood and motherhood.
We have already said that marriage engenders
a particular responsibility for the common good,
first of the spouses and then of the family.
This common good is constituted by man, by the
worth of the person and by everything which
represents the measure of his dignity. This
reality is part of man in every social, economic
and political system. In the area of marriage
and the family, this responsibility becomes,
for a variety of reasons, even more "demanding".
The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes rightly
speaks of "promoting the dignity of marriage
and the family". The Council sees this
"promotion" as a duty incumbent upon
both the Church and the State. Nevertheless,
in every culture this duty remains primarily
that of the persons who, united in marriage,
form a particular family. "Responsible
fatherhood and motherhood" express a concrete
commitment to carry out this duty, which has
taken on new characteristics in the contemporary
world.
In particular, responsible fatherhood and motherhood
directly concern the moment in which a man and
a woman, uniting themselves "in one flesh",
can become parents. This is a moment of special
value both for their interpersonal relationship
and for their service to life: they can become
parents--father and mother-- by communicating
life to a new human being. The two dimensions
of conjugal union, the unitive and the procreative,
cannot be artificially separated without damaging
the deepest truth of the conjugal act itself.[31]
This is the constant teaching of the Church,
and the "signs of the times" which
we see today are providing new reasons for forcefully
reaffirming that teaching. Saint Paul, himself
so attentive to the pastoral demands of his
day, clearly and firmly indicated the need to
be "urgent in season and out of season"
(cf. 2 Tim 4:2), and not to be daunted by the
fact that "sound teaching is no longer
endured" (cf. 2 Tim 4:3). His words are
well known to those who, with deep insight into
the events of the present time, expect that
the Church will not only not abandon "sound
doctrine", but will proclaim it with renewed
vigour, seeking in today's "signs of the
times" the incentive and insights which
can lead to a deeper understanding of her teaching.
Some of these insights can be taken from the
very sciences which have evolved from the earlier
study of anthropology into various specialized
sciences such as biology, psychology, sociology
and their branches. In some sense all these
sciences revolve around medicine, which is both
a science and an art (ars medica), at the service
of man's life and health. But the insights in
question come first of all from human experience,
which, in all its complexity, in some sense
both precedes science and follows it.
Through their own experience spouses come to
learn the meaning of responsible fatherhood
and motherhood. They learn it also from the
experience of other couples in similar situations
and as they become more open to the findings
of the various sciences. One could say that
"experts" learn in a certain sense
from "spouses", so that they in turn
will then be in a better position to teach married
couples the meaning of responsible procreation
and the ways to achieve it.
This subject has been extensively treated in
the documents of the Second Vatican Council,
the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, the "Propositiones"
of the 1980 Synod of Bishops, the Apostolic
Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, and in other
statements, up to the Instruction Donum Vitae
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith. The Church both teaches the moral truth
about responsible fatherhood and motherhood
and protects it from the erroneous views and
tendencies which are widespread today. Why does
the Church continue to do this? Is she unaware
of the problems raised by those who counsel
her to make concessions in this area and who
even attempt to persuade her by undue pressures
if not even threats? The Church's Magisterium
is often chided for being behind the times and
closed to the promptings of the spirit of modern
times, and for promoting a course of action
which is harmful to humanity, and indeed to
the Church herself. By obstinately holding to
her own positions, it is said, the Church will
end up losing popularity, and more and more
believers will turn away from her.
But how can it be maintained that the Church,
especially the College of Bishops in communion
with the Pope, is insensitive to such grave
and pressing questions? It was precisely these
extremely important questions which led Pope
Paul VI to publish the Encyclical Humanae Vitae.
The foundations of the Church's doctrine concerning
responsible fatherhood and motherhood are exceptionally
broad and secure. The Council demonstrates this
above all in its teaching on man, when it affirms
that he is "the only creature on earth
which God willed for itself", and that
he cannot "fully find himself except through
a sincere gift of himself".[32] This is
so because he has been created in the image
and likeness of God and redeemed by the only-begotten
Son of the Father, who became man for us and
for our salvation.
The Second Vatican Council, particularly conscious
of the problem of man and his calling, states
that the conjugal union, the biblical "una
caro", can be understood and fully explained
only by recourse to the values of the "person"
and of "gift". Every man and every
woman fully realizes himself or herself through
the sincere gift of self. For spouses, the moment
of conjugal union constitutes a very particular
expression of this. It is then that a man and
woman, in the "truth" of their masculinity
and femininity, become a mutual gift to each
other. All married life is a gift; but this
becomes most evident when the spouses, in giving
themselves to each other in love, bring about
that encounter which makes them "one flesh"
(Gen 2:24).
They then experience a moment of special responsibility,
which is also the result of the procreative
potential linked to the conjugal act. At that
moment, the spouses can become father and mother,
initiating the process of a new human life,
which will then develop in the woman's womb.
If the wife is the first to realize that she
has become a mother, the husband, to whom she
has been united in "one flesh", then
learns this when she tells him that he has become
a father. Both are responsible for their potential
and later actual fatherhood and motherhood.
The husband cannot fail to acknowledge and accept
the result of a decision which has also been
his own. He cannot hide behind expressions such
as: "I don't know", "I didn't
want it", or "you're the one who wanted
it". In every case conjugal union involves
the responsibility of the man and of the woman,
a potential responsibility which becomes actual
when the circumstances dictate. This is true
especially for the man. Although he too is involved
in the beginning of the generative process,
he is left biologically distant from it; it
is within the woman that the process develops.
How can the man fail to assume responsibility?
The man and the woman must assume together,
before themselves and before others, the responsibility
for the new life which they have brought into
existence.
This conclusion is shared by the human sciences
themselves. There is however a need for more
in-depth study, analyzing the meaning of the
conjugal act in view of the values of the "person"
and of the "gift" mentioned above.
This is what the Church has done in her constant
teaching, and in a particular way at the Second
Vatican Council.
In the conjugal act, husband and wife are called
to confirm in a responsible way the mutual gift
of self which they have made to each other in
the marriage covenant. The logic of the total
gift of self to the other involves a potential
openness to procreation: in this way the marriage
is called to even greater fulfillment as a family.
Certainly the mutual gift of husband and wife
does not have the begetting of children as its
only end, but is in itself a mutual communion
of love and of life. The intimate truth of this
gift must always be safeguarded. "Intimate"
is not here synonymous with "subjective".
Rather, it means essentially in conformity with
the objective truth of the man and woman who
give themselves. The person can never be considered
a means to an end; above all never a means of
"pleasure". The person is and must
be nothing other than the end of every act.
Only then does the action correspond to the
true dignity of the person. In concluding our
reflection on this important and sensitive subject,
I wish to offer special encouragement above
all to you, dear married couples, and to all
who assist you in understanding and putting
into practice the Church's teaching on marriage
and on responsible motherhood and fatherhood.
I am thinking in particular about pastors and
the many scholars, theologians, philosophers,
writers and journalists who have resisted the
powerful trend to cultural conformity and are
courageously ready to "swim against the
tide". This encouragement also goes to
an increasing number of experts, physicians
and educators who are authentic lay apostles
for whom the promotion of the dignity of marriage
and the family has become an important task
in their lives. In the name of the Church I
express my gratitude to all! What would priests,
Bishops and even the Successor of Peter be able
to do without you? From the first years of my
priesthood I have become increasingly convinced
of this, from when I began to sit in the confessional
to share the concerns, fears and hopes of many
married couples. I met difficult cases of rebellion
and refusal, but at the same time so many marvellously
responsible and generous persons! In writing
this Letter I have all those married couples
in mind, and I embrace them with my affection
and my prayer.
THE TWO CIVILIZATIONS
13. Dear families, the question of responsible
fatherhood and motherhood is an integral part
of the "civilization of love", which
I now wish to discuss with you. From what has
already been said it is clear that the family
is fundamental to what Pope Paul VI called the
"civilization of love",[33] an expression
which has entered the teaching of the Church
and by now has become familiar. Today it is
difficult to imagine a statement by the Church,
or about the Church, which does not mention
the civilization of love. The phrase is linked
to the tradition of the "domestic church"
in early Christianity, but it has a particular
significance for the present time. Etymologically
the word "civilization" is derived
from "civis" - "citizen",
and it emphasizes the civic or political dimension
of the life of every individual. But the most
profound meaning of the term "civilization"
is not merely political, but rather pertains
to human culture. Civilization belongs to human
history because it answers man's spiritual and
moral needs. Created in the image and likeness
of God, man has received the world from the
hands of the Creator, together with the task
of shaping it in his own image and likeness.
The fulfillment of this task gives rise to civilization,
which in the final analysis is nothing else
than the "humanization of the world".
In a certain sense civilization means the same
thing as "culture". And so one could
also speak of the "culture of love",
even though it is preferable to keep to the
now familiar expression. The civilization of
love, in its current meaning, is inspired by
the words of the conciliar Constitution Gaudium
et Spes: "Christ... fully discloses man
to himself and unfolds his noble calling".[34]
And so we can say that the civilization of love
originates in the revelation of the God who
"is love", as John writes (1 Jn 4:8,
16); it is effectively described by Paul in
the hymn of charity found in his First Letter
to the Corinthians (13:1-13). This civilization
is intimately linked to the love "poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which
has been given to us" (Rom 5:5), and it
grows as a result of the constant cultivation
which the Gospel allegory of the vine and the
branches describes in such a direct way: "I
am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he
takes away, and every branch that does bear
fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit"
(Jn 15:1-2).
In the light of these and other texts of the
New Testament it is possible to understand what
is meant by the "civilization of love",
and why the family is organically linked to
this civilization. If the first "way of
the Church" is the family, it should also
be said that the civilization of love is also
the "way of the Church", which journeys
through the world and summons families to this
way; it summons also other social, national
and international institutions, because of families
and through families. The family in fact depends
for several reasons on the civilization of love,
and finds therein the reasons for its existence
as family. And at the same time the family is
the centre and the heart of the civilization
of love.
Yet there is no true love without an awareness
that God "is Love" and that man is
the only creature on earth which God has called
into existence "for its own sake".
Created in the image and likeness of God, man
cannot fully "find him- self" except
through the sincere gift of self. Without such
a concept of man, of the person and the "communion
of persons" in the family, there can be
no civilization of love; similarly, without
the civilization of love it is impossible to
have such a concept of person and of the communion
of persons. The family constitutes the fundamental
"cell" of society. But Christ--the
"vine" from which the "branches"
draw nourishment--is needed so that this cell
will not be exposed to the threat of a kind
of cultural uprooting which can come both from
within and from without. Indeed, although there
is on the one hand the "civilization of
love", there continues to exist on the
other hand the possibility of a destructive
"anti-civilization", as so many present
trends and situations confirm.
Who can deny that our age is one marked by
a great crisis, which appears above all as a
profound "crisis of truth"? A crisis
of truth means, in the first place, a crisis
of concepts. Do the words "love",
"freedom", "sincere gift",
and even "person" and "rights
of the person", really convey their essential
meaning? This is why the Encyclical on the "splendour
of truth" (Veritatis Splendor) has proved
so meaningful and important for the Church and
for the world--especially in the West. Only
if the truth about freedom and the communion
of persons in marriage and in the family can
regain its splendour, will the building of the
civilization of love truly begin and will it
then be possible to speak concretely--as the
Council did--about "promoting the dignity
of marriage and the family".[35]
Why is the "splendour of truth" so
important? First of all, by way of contrast:
the development of contemporary civilization
is linked to a scientific and technological
progress which is often achieved in a one-sided
way, and thus appears purely positivistic. Positivism,
as we know, results in agnosticism in theory
and utilitarianism in practice and in ethics.
In our own day, history is in a way repeating
itself. Utilitarianism is a civilization of
production and of use, a civilization of "things"
and not of "persons", a civilization
in which persons are used in the same way as
things are used. In the context of a civilization
of use, woman can become an object for man,
children a hindrance to parents, the family
an institution obstructing the freedom of its
members. To be convinced that this is the case,
one need only look at certain sexual education
programmes introduced into the schools, often
notwithstanding the disagreement and even the
protests of many parents; or pro- abortion tendencies
which vainly try to hide behind the so- called
"right to choose" ("pro-choice")
on the part of both spouses, and in particular
on the part of the woman. These are only two
examples; many more could be mentioned.
It is evident that in this sort of a cultural
situation the family cannot fail to feel threatened,
since it is endangered at its very foundations.
Everything contrary to the civilization of love
is contrary to the whole truth about man and
becomes a threat to him: it does not allow him
to find himself and to feel secure, as spouse,
parent, or child. So-called "safe sex",
which is touted by the "civilization of
technology", is actually, in view of the
overall requirements of the person, radically
not safe, indeed it is extremely dangerous.
It endangers both the person and the family.
And what is this danger? It is the loss of the
truth about one's own self and about the family,
together with the risk of a loss of freedom
and consequently of a loss of love itself. "You
will know the truth", Jesus says, "and
the truth will make you free" (Jn 8:32):
the truth, and only the truth, will prepare
you for a love which can be called "fairest
love" (cf. Sir 24:24, Vulg.).
The contemporary family, like families in every
age, is searching for "fairest love".
A love which is not "fairest", but
reduced only to the satisfaction of concupiscence
(cf. 1 Jn 2:16), or to a man's and a woman's
mutual "use" of each other, makes
persons slaves to their weaknesses. Do not certain
modern "cultural agendas" lead to
this enslavement? There are agendas which "play"
on man's weaknesses, and thus make him increasingly
weak and defenceless.
The civilization of love evokes joy: joy, among
other things, for the fact that a man has come
into the world (cf. Jn 16:21), and consequently
because spouses have become parents. The civilization
of love means "rejoicing in the right"
(cf. 1 Cor 13:6). But a civilization inspired
by a consumerist, anti-birth mentality is not
and cannot ever be a civilization of love. If
the family is so important for the civilization
of love, it is because of the particular closeness
and intensity of the bonds which come to be
between persons and generations within the family.
However, the family remains vulnerable and can
easily fall prey to dangers which weaken it
or actually destroy its unity and stability.
As a result of these dangers families cease
to be witnesses of the civilization of love
and can even become a negation of it, a kind
of counter-sign. A broken family can, for its
part, consolidate a specific form of "anti-civilization",
destroying love in its various expressions,
with inevitable consequences for the whole of
life in society.
LOVE IS DEMANDING
14. The love which the Apostle Paul
celebrates in the First Letter to the Corinthians--the
love which is "patient" and "kind",
and "endures all things" (1 Cor 13:4,
7)--is certainly a demanding love. But this
is precisely the source of its beauty: by the
very fact that it is demanding, it builds up
the true good of man and allows it to radiate
to others. The good, says Saint Thomas, is by
its nature "diffusive".[36] Love is
true when it creates the good of persons and
of communities; it creates that good and gives
it to others. Only the one who is able to be
demanding with himself in the name of love can
also demand love from others. Love is demanding.
It makes demands in all human situations; it
is even more demanding in the case of those
who are open to the Gospel. Is this not what
Christ proclaims in "his" commandment?
Nowadays people need to rediscover this demanding
love, for it is the truly firm foundation of
the family, a foundation able to "endure
all things". According to the Apostle,
love is not able to "endure all things"
if it yields to "jealousies", or if
it is "boastful... arrogant or rude"
(cf. 1 Cor 13:5-6). True love, Saint Paul teaches,
is different: "Love believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things" (1
Cor 13:7). This is the very love which "endures
all things". At work within it is the power
and strength of God himself, who "is love"
(1 Jn 4:8, 16). At work within it is also the
power and strength of Christ, the Redeemer of
man and Saviour of the world.
Meditating on the thirteenth chapter of the
First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, we
set out on a path which leads us to understand
quickly and clearly the full truth about the
civilization of love. No other biblical text
expresses this truth so simply and so profoundly
as the hymn to love.
The dangers faced by love are also dangers
for the civilization of love, because they promote
everything capable of effectively opposing it.
Here one thinks first of all of selfishness,
not only the selfishness of individuals, but
also of couples or, even more broadly, of social
selfishness, that for example of a class or
nation (nationalism). Selfishness in all its
forms is directly and radically opposed to the
civilization of love. But is love to be defined
simply as "anti-selfishness"? This
would be a very impoverished and ultimately
a purely negative definition, even though it
is true that different forms of selfishness
must be overcome in order to realize love and
the civilization of love. It would be more correct
to speak of "altruism", which is the
opposite of selfishness. But far richer and
more complete is the concept of love illustrated
by Saint Paul. The hymn to love in the First
Letter to the Corinthians remains the Magna
Charta of the civilization of love. In this
concept, what is important is not so much individual
actions (whether selfish or altruistic), so
much as the radical acceptance of the understanding
of man as a person who "finds himself"
by making a sincere gift of self. A gift is,
obviously, "for others": this is the
most important dimension of the civilization
of love.
We thus come to the very heart of the Gospel
truth about freedom. The person realizes himself
by the exercise of freedom in truth. Freedom
cannot be understood as a license to do absolutely
anything: it means a gift of self. Even more:
it means an interior discipline of the gift.
The idea of gift contains not only the free
initiative of the subject, but also the aspect
of duty. All this is made real in the "communion
of persons". We find ourselves again at
the very heart of each family.
Continuing this line of thought, we also come
upon the antithesis between individualism and
personalism. Love, the civilization of love,
is bound up with personalism. Why with personalism?
And why does individualism threaten the civilization
of love? We find a key to answering this in
the Council's expression, a "sincere gift".
Individualism presupposes a use of freedom in
which the subject does what he wants, in which
he himself is the one to "establish the
truth" of whatever he finds pleasing or
useful. He does not tolerate the fact that someone
else "wants" or demands something
from him in the name of an objective truth.
He does not want to "give" to another
on the basis of truth; he does not want to become
a "sincere gift". Individualism thus
remains egocentric and selfish. The real antithesis
between individualism and personalism emerges
not only on the level of theory, but even more
on that of "ethos". The "ethos"
of personalism is altruistic: it moves the person
to become a gift for others and to discover
joy of giving himself. This is the joy about
which Christ speaks (cf. Jn 15:11; 16:20, 22).
What is needed then is for human societies,
and the families who live within them, often
in a context of struggle between the civilization
of love and its opposites, to seek their solid
foundation in a correct vision of man and of
everything which determines the full "realization"
of his humanity. Opposed to the civilization
of love is certainly the phenomenon of so-called
"free love"; this is particularly
dangerous because it is usually suggested as
a way of following one's "real" feelings,
but it is in fact destructive of love. How many
families have been ruined because of "free
love"! To follow in every instance a "real"
emotional impulse by invoking a love "liberated"
from all conditionings, means nothing more than
to make the individual a slave to those human
instincts which Saint Thomas calls "passions
of the soul".[37] "Free love"
exploits human weaknesses; it gives them a certain
"veneer" of respectability with the
help of seduction and the blessing of public
opinion. In this way there is an attempt to
"soothe" consciences by creating a
"moral alibi". But not all of the
consequences are taken into consideration, especially
when the ones who end up paying are, apart from
the other spouse, the children, deprived of
a father or mother and condemned to be in fact
orphans of living parents.
As we know, at the foundation of ethical utilitarianism
there is the continual quest for "maximum"
happiness. But this is a "utilitarian happiness",
seen only as pleasure, as immediate gratification
for the exclusive benefit of the individual,
apart from or opposed to the objective demands
of the true good.
The programme of utilitarianism, based on an
individualistic understanding of freedom--a
freedom without responsibilities-is the opposite
of love, even as an expression of human civilization
considered as a whole. When this concept of
freedom is embraced by society, and quickly
allies itself with varied forms of human weakness,
it soon proves a systematic and permanent threat
to the family. In this regard, one could mention
many dire consequences, which can be statistically
verified, even though a great number of them
are hidden in the hearts of men and women like
painful, fresh wounds.
The love of spouses and parents has the capacity
to cure these kinds of wounds, provided the
dangers alluded to do not deprive it of its
regenerative force, which is so beneficial and
wholesome a thing for human communities. This
capacity depends on the divine grace of forgiveness
and reconciliation, which always ensures the
spiritual energy to begin anew. For this very
reason family members need to encounter Christ
in the Church through the wonderful Sacrament
of Penance and Reconciliation.
In this context, we can realize how important
prayer is with families and for families, in
particular for those threatened by division.
We need to pray that married couples will love
their vocation, even when the road becomes difficult,
or the paths become narrow, uphill and seemingly
insuperable; we need to pray that, even then,
they will be faithful to their covenant with
God.
"The family is the way of the Church".
In this Letter we wish both to profess and to
proclaim this way, which leads to the kingdom
of heaven (cf. Mt 7:14) through conjugal and
family life. It is important that the "communion
of persons" in the family should become
a preparation for the "communion of Saints".
This is why the Church both believes and proclaims
the love which "endures all things"
(1 Cor 13:7); with Saint Paul she sees in it
"the greatest" virtue of all (cf.
1 Cor 13:13). The Apostle puts no limits on
anyone. Everyone is called to love, including
spouses and families. In the Church everyone
is called equally to perfect holiness (cf. Mt
5:48).[38]
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT: "HONOUR YOUR
FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER"
15. The fourth commandment of the Decalogue
deals with the family and its interior unity--its
solidarity, we could say.
In its formulation, the fourth commandment
does not explicitly mention the family. In fact,
however, this is its real subject matter. In
order to bring out the communion between generations,
the divine Legislator could find no more appropriate
word than this: "Honour..." (Ex 20:12).
Here we meet another way of expressing what
the family is. This formulation does not exalt
the family in some "artificial" way,
but emphasizes its subjectivity and the rights
flowing from it. The family is a community of
particularly intense interpersonal relationships:
between spouses, between parents and children,
between generations. It is a community which
must be safeguarded in a special way. And God
cannot find a better safeguard than this: "Honour".
"Honour your father and your mother, that
your days may be long in the land which the
Lord your God gives to you" (Ex 20:12).
This commandment comes after the three basic
precepts which concern the relation of the individual
and the people of Israel with God: "Shema,
Izrael...", "Hear, O Israel: the Lord
our God is one Lord" (Dt 6:4). "You
will have no other gods before me" (Ex
20:3). This is the first and greatest commandment,
the commandment of love for God "above
all else": God is to be loved "with
all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your might" (Dt 6:5; cf. Mt 22:37).
It is significant that the fourth commandment
is placed in this particular context. "Honour
your father and your mother", because for
you they are in a certain sense representatives
of the Lord; they are the ones who gave you
life, who introduced you to human existence
in a particular family line, nation and culture.
After God, they are your first benefactors.
While God alone is good, indeed the Good itself,
parents participate in this supreme goodness
in a unique way. And so, honour your parents!
There is a certain analogy here with the worship
owed to God.
The fourth commandment is closely linked to
the commandment of love. The bond between "honour"
and "love" is a deep one. Honour,
at its very centre, is connected with the virtue
of justice, but the latter, for its part, cannot
be explained fully without reference to love:
the love of God and of one's neighbour. And
who is more of a neighbour than one's own family
members, parents and children?
Is the system of interpersonal relations indicated
by the fourth commandment one-sided? Does it
bind us only to honour our parents? Taken literally,
it does. But indirectly we can speak of the
"honour" owed to children by their
parents. "To honour" means to acknowledge!
We could put it this way: "let yourself
be guided by the firm acknowledgment of the
person, first of all that of your father and
mother, and then that of the other members of
the family". Honour is essentially an attitude
of unselfishness. It could be said that it is
"a sincere gift of person to person",
and in that sense honour converges with love.
If the fourth commandment demands that honour
should be shown to our father and mother, it
also makes this demand out of concern for the
good of the family. Precisely for this reason,
however, it makes demands of the parents themselves.
You parents, the divine precept seems to say,
should act in such a way that your life will
merit the honour (and the love) of your children!
Do not let the divine command that you be honoured
fall into a moral vacuum! Ultimately then we
are speaking of mutual honour. The commandment
"honour your father and your mother"
indirectly tells parents: Honour your sons and
your daughters. They deserve this because they
are alive, because they are who they are, and
this is true from the first moment of their
conception. The fourth commandment then, by
expressing the intimate bonds uniting the family,
highlights the basis of its inner unity.
The commandment goes on to say: "that
your days may be long in the land which the
Lord your God gives you". The conjunction
"that" might give the impression of
an almost "utilitarian" calculation:
honour them so that you will have a long life.
In any event, this does not lessen the fundamental
meaning of the imperative "honour",
which by its nature suggests an attitude of
unselfishness. To honour never means: "calculate
the benefits". It is difficult, on the
other hand, not to acknowledge the fact that
an attitude of mutual honour among members of
the family community also brings certain advantages.
"Honour" is certainly something useful,
just as every true good is "useful".
In the first place, the family achieves the
good of "being together". This is
the good par excellence of marriage (hence its
indissolubility) and of the family community.
It could also be defined as a good of the subject
as such. Just as the person is a subject, so
too is the family, since it is made up of persons,
who, joined together by a profound bond of communion,
form a single communal subject. Indeed, the
family is more a subject than any other social
institution: more so than the nation or the
State, more so than society and international
organizations. These societies, especially nations,
possess a proper subjectivity to the extent
that they receive it from persons and their
families. Are all these merely "theoretical"
observations, formulated for the purpose of
"exalting" the family before public
opinion? No, but they are another way of expressing
what the family is. And this too can be deduced
from the fourth commandment.
This truth deserves to be emphasized and more
deeply understood: indeed it brings out the
importance of the fourth commandment for the
modern system of human rights. Institutions
and legal systems employ juridical language
But God says: "honour". All "human
rights" are ultimately fragile and ineffective,
if at their root they lack the command to "honour";
in other words, if they lack an acknowledgment
of the individual simply because he is an individual,
"this" individual. Of themselves,
rights are not enough.
It is not an exaggeration to reaffirm that
the life of nations, of states, and of international
organizations "passes" through the
family and "is based" on the fourth
commandment of the Decalogue. The age in which
we live, notwithstanding the many juridical
Declarations which have been drafted, is still
threatened to a great extent by "alienation".
This is the result of "Enlightenment"
premises according to which a man is "more"
human if he is "only" human. It is
not difficult to notice how alienation from
everything belonging in various ways to the
full richness of man threatens our times. And
this affects the family. Indeed, the affirmation
of the person is in great measure to be referred
back to the family and consequently to the fourth
commandment. In God's plan the family is in
many ways the first school of how to be human.
Be human! This is the imperative passed on in
the family--human as the son or daughter of
one's country, a citizen of the State, and,
we would say today, a citizen of the world.
The God who gave humanity the fourth commandment
is "benevolent" towards man (philanthropos,
as the Greeks said). The Creator of the universe
is the God of love and of life: he wants man
to have life and have it abundantly, as Christ
proclaims (cf. Jn 10:10); that he may have life,
first of all thanks to the family.
At this point it seems clear that the "civilization
of love" is strictly bound up with the
family. For many people the Civilization of
love is still a pure utopia. Indeed, there are
those who think that love cannot be demanded
from anyone and that it cannot be imposed: love
should be a free choice which people can take
or leave.
There is some truth in all this. And yet there
is always the fact that Jesus Christ left us
the commandment of love, just as God on Mount
Sinai ordered: "Honour your father and
your mother". Love then is not a utopia:
it is given to mankind as a task to be carried
out with the help of divine grace. It is entrusted
to man and woman, in the Sacrament of Matrimony,
as the basic principle of their "duty",
and it becomes the foundation of their mutual
responsibility: first as spouses, then as father
and mother. In the celebration of the Sacrament,
the spouses give and receive each other, declaring
their willingness to welcome children and to
educate them. On this hinges human civilization,
which cannot be defined as anything other than
a "civilization of love".
The family is an expression and source of this
love. Through the family passes the primary
current of the civilization of love, which finds
therein its "social foundations".
The Fathers of the Church, in the Christian
tradition, have spoken of the family as a "domestic
church", a "little church". They
thus referred to the civilization of love as
a possible system of human life and coexistence:
"to be together" as a family, to be
for one another, to make room in a community
for affirming each person as such, for affirming
"this" individual person. At times
it is a matter of people with physical or psychological
handicaps, of whom the so-called "progressive"
society would prefer to be free. Even the family
can end up like this kind of society. It does
so when it hastily rids itself of people who
are aged, disabled or sick. This happens when
there is a loss of faith in that God for whom
"all live" (cf. Lk 20:38) and are
called to the fullness of Life.
Yes, the civilization of love is possible;
it is not a utopia. But it is only possible
by a constant and ready reference to the "Father
from whom all fatherhood [and motherhood] on
earth is named" (cf. Eph 3:14-15), from
whom every human family comes.
EDUCATION
16. What is involved in raising children?
In answering this question two fundamental truths
should be kept in mind: first, that man is called
to live in truth and love; and second, that
everyone finds fulfillment through the sincere
gift of self. This is true both for the educator
and for the one being educated. Education is
thus a unique process for which the mutual communion
of persons has immense importance. The educator
is a person who "begets" in a spiritual
sense. From this point of view, raising children
can be considered a genuine apostolate. It is
a living means of communication, which not only
creates a profound relationship between the
educator and the one being educated, but also
makes them both sharers in truth and love, that
final goal to which everyone is called by God
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Fatherhood and motherhood presume the coexistence
and interaction of autonomous subjects. This
is quite evident in the case of the mother when
she conceives a new human being. The first months
of the child's presence in the mother's womb
bring about a particular bond which already
possesses an educational significance of its
own. The mother, even before giving birth, does
not only give shape to the child's body, but
also, in an indirect way, to the child's whole
personality. Even though we are speaking about
a process in which the mother primarily affects
the child, we should not overlook the unique
influence that the unborn child has on its mother.
In this mutual influence which will be revealed
to the outside world following the birth of
the child, the father does not have a direct
part to play. But he should be responsibly committed
to providing attention and support throughout
the pregnancy and, if possible, at the moment
of birth.
For the "civilization of love" it
is essential that the husband should recognize
that the motherhood of his wife is a gift: this
is enormously important for the entire process
of raising children. Much will depend on his
willingness to take his own part in this first
stage of the gift of humanity, and to become
willingly involved as a husband and father in
the motherhood of his wife.
Education then is before all else a reciprocal
"offering" on the part of both parents:
together they communicate their own mature humanity
to the newborn child, who gives them in turn
the newness and freshness of the humanity which
it has brought into the world. This is the case
even when children are born with mental or physical
disabilities. Here, the situation of the children
can enhance the very special courage needed
to raise them.
With good reason, then, the Church asks during
the Rite of Marriage: "Will you accept
children lovingly from God, and bring them up
according to the law of Christ and his Church"?[39]
In the raising of children conjugal love is
expressed as authentic parental love. The "communion
of persons", expressed as conjugal love
at the beginning of the family, is thus completed
and brought to fulfillment in the raising of
children. Every individual born and raised in
a family constitutes a potential treasure which
must be responsibly accepted, so that it will
not be diminished or lost, but will rather come
to an ever more mature humanity. This too is
a process of exchange in which the parents-educators
are in turn to a certain degree educated themselves.
While they are teachers of humanity for their
own children, they learn humanity from them.
All this clearly brings out the organic structure
of the family, and reveals the fundamental meaning
of the fourth commandment.
In rearing children, the "we" of
the parents, of husband and wife, develops into
the "we" of the family, which is grafted
on to earlier generations, and is open to gradual
expansion. In this regard both grandparents
and grandchildren play their own individual
roles.
If it is true that by giving life parents share
in God's creative work, it is also true that
by raising their children they become sharers
in his paternal and at the same time maternal
way of teaching. According to Saint Paul, God's
fatherhood is the primordial model of all fatherhood
and motherhood in the universe (cf. Eph 3:14-15),
and of human motherhood and fatherhood in particular.
We have been completely instructed in God's
own way of teaching by the eternal Word of the
Father who, by becoming man, revealed to man
the authentic and integral greatness of his
humanity, that is, being a child of God. In
this way he also revealed the true meaning of
human education. Through Christ all education,
within the family and outside of it, becomes
part of God's own saving pedagogy, which is
addressed to individuals and families and culminates
in the Paschal Mystery of the Lord's Death and
Resurrection. The "heart" of our redemption
is the starting-point of every process of Christian
education, which is likewise always an education
to a full humanity.
Parents are the first and most important educators
of their own children, and they also possess
a fundamental competence in this area: they
are educators because they are parents. They
share their educational mission with other individuals
or institutions, such as the Church and the
State. But the mission of education must always
be carried out in accordance with a proper application
of the principle of subsidiarity. This implies
the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving
assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic
and absolute limit in their prevailing right
and their actual capabilities. The principle
of subsidiarity is thus at the service of parental
love, meeting the good of the family unit. For
parents by themselves are not capable of satisfying
every requirement of the whole process of raising
children, especially in matters concerning their
schooling and the entire gamut of socialization.
Subsidiarity thus complements paternal and maternal
love and confirms its fundamental nature, inasmuch
as all other participants in the process of
education are only able to carry out their responsibilities
in the name of the parents, with their consent
and, to a certain degree, with their authorization.
The process of education ultimately leads to
the phase of self- education, which occurs when
the individual, after attaining an appropriate
level of psycho-physical maturity, begins to
"educate himself on his own". In time,
self-education goes beyond the earlier results
achieved by the educational process, in which
it continues to be rooted. An adolescent is
exposed to new people and new surroundings,
particularly teachers and classmates, who exercise
an influence over his life which can be either
helpful or harmful. At this stage he distances
himself somewhat from the education received
in the family, assuming at times a critical
attitude with regard to his parents. Even so,
the process of self-education cannot fail to
be marked by the educational influence which
the family and school have on children and adolescents.
Even when they grow up and set out on their
own path, young people remain intimately linked
to their existential roots.
Against this background, we can see the meaning
of the fourth commandment, "Honour your
father and your mother" (Ex 20:12) in a
new way. It is closely linked to the whole process
of education. Fatherhood and motherhood, this
first and basic fact in the gift of humanity,
open up before both parents and children new
and profound perspectives. To give birth according
to the flesh means to set in motion a further
"birth", one which is gradual and
complex and which continues in the whole process
of education. The commandment of the Decalogue
calls for a child to honour its father and mother.
But, as we saw above, that same commandment
enjoins upon parents a kind of corresponding
or "symmetrical" duty. Parents are
also called to "honour" their children,
whether they are young or old. This attitude
is needed throughout the process of their education,
including the time of their schooling. The "principle
of giving honour", the recognition and
respect due to man precisely because he is a
man, is the basic condition for every authentic
educational process.
In the sphere of education the Church has a
specific role to play. In the light of Tradition
and the teaching of the Council, it can be said
that it is not only a matter of entrusting the
Church with the person's religious and moral
education, but of promoting the entire process
of the person's education "together with"
the Church. The family is called to carry out
its task of education in the Church, thus sharing
in her life and mission. The Church wishes to
carry out her educational mission above all
through families who are made capable of undertaking
this task by the Sacrament of Matrimony, through
the "grace of state" which follows
from it and the specific "charism"
proper to the entire family community.
Certainly one area in which the family has
an irreplaceable role is that of religious education,
which enables the family to grow as a "domestic
church". Religious education and the catechesis
of children make the family a true subject of
evangelization and the apostolate within the
Church. We are speaking of a right intrinsically
linked to the principle of religious liberty.
Families, and more specifically parents, are
free to choose for their children a particular
kind of religious and moral education consonant
with their own convictions. Even when they entrust
these responsibilities to ecclesiastical institutions
or to schools administered by religious personnel,
their educational presence ought to continue
to be constant and active.
Within the context of education, due attention
must be paid to the essential question of choosing
a vocation, and here in particular that of preparing
for marriage. The Church has made notable efforts
to promote marriage preparation, for example
by offering courses for engaged couples. All
this is worthwhile and necessary. But it must
not be forgotten that preparing for future life
as a couple is above all the task of the family.
To be sure, only spiritually mature families
can adequately assume that responsibility. Hence
we should point out the need for a special solidarity
among families. This can be expressed in various
practical ways, as for example by associations
of families for families. The institution of
the family is strengthened by such expressions
of solidarity, which bring together not only
individuals but also communities, with a commitment
to pray together and to seek together the answers
to life's essential questions. Is this not an
invaluable expression of the apostolate of families
to one another? It is important that families
attempt to build bonds of solidarity among themselves.
This allows them to assist each other in the
educational enterprise: parents are educated
by other parents, and children by other children.
Thus a particular tradition of education is
created, which draws strength from the character
of the "domestic church" proper to
the family.
The gospel of love is the inexhaustible source
of all that nourishes the human family as a
"communion of persons". In love the
whole educational process finds its support
and definitive meaning as the mature fruit of
the parents' mutual gift. Through the efforts,
sufferings and disappointments which are part
of every person's education, love is constantly
being put to the test. To pass the test, a source
of spiritual strength is necessary. This is
only found in the One who "loved to the
end" (Jn 13:1). Thus education is fully
a part of the "civilization of love".
It depends on the civilization of love and,
in great measure, contributes to its upbuilding.
The Church's constant and trusting prayer during
the Year of the Family is for the education
of man, so that families will persevere in their
task of education with courage, trust and hope,
in spite of difficulties occasionally so serious
as to appear insuperable. The Church prays that
the forces of the "civilization of love",
which have their source in the love of God,
will be triumphant. These are forces which the
Church ceaselessly expends for the good of the
whole human family.
FAMILY AND SOCIETY
17. The family is a community of persons
and the smallest social unit. As such it is
an institution fundamental to the life of every
society.
What does the family as an institution expect
from society? First of all, it expects a recognition
of its identity and an acceptance of its status
as a subject in society. This "social subjectivity"
is bound up with the proper identity of marriage
and the family. Marriage, which undergirds the
institution of the family, is constituted by
the covenant whereby "a man and a woman
establish between themselves a partnership of
their whole life", and which "of its
own very nature is ordered to the well-being
of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing
of children".[40] Only such a union can
be recognized and ratified as a "marriage"
in society. Other interpersonal unions which
do not fulfil the above conditions cannot be
recognized, despite certain growing trends which
represent a serious threat to the future of
the family and of society itself.
No human society can run the risk of permissiveness
in fundamental issues regarding the nature of
marriage and the family! Such moral permissiveness
cannot fail to damage the authentic requirements
of peace and communion among people. It is thus
quite understandable why the Church vigorously
defends the identity of the family and encourages
responsible individuals and institutions, especially
political leaders and international organizations,
not to yield to the temptation of a superficial
and false modernity.
As a community of love and life, the family
is a firmly grounded social reality. It is also,
in a way entirely its own, a sovereign society,
albeit conditioned in certain ways. This affirmation
of the family's sovereignty as an institution
and the recognition of the various ways in which
it is conditioned naturally leads to the subject
of family rights. In this regard, the Holy See
published in 1983 the Charter of the Rights
of the Family; even today this document has
lost none of its relevance.
The rights of the family are closely linked
to the rights of the person: if in fact the
family is a communion of persons, its self-
realization will depend in large part on the
correct application of the rights of its members.
Some of these rights concern the family in an
immediate way, such as the right of parents
to responsible procreation and the education
of children. Other rights however touch the
family unit only indirectly: among these, the
right to property, especially to what is called
family property, and the right to work are of
special importance.
But the rights of the family are not simply
the sum total of the rights of the person, since
the family is much more than the sum of its
individual members. It is a community of parents
and children, and at times a community of several
generations. For this reason its "status
as a subject", which is grounded in God's
plan, gives rise to and calls for certain proper
and specific rights. The Charter of the Rights
of the Family, on the basis of the moral principles
mentioned above, consolidates the existence
of the institution of the family in the social
and juridical order of the "greater"
society--those of the nation, of the State and
of international communities. Each of these
"greater" societies is at least indirectly
conditioned by the existence of the family.
As a result, the definition of the rights and
duties of the "greater" society with
regard to the family is an extremely important
and even essential issue.
In the first place there is the almost organic
link existing between the family and the nation.
Naturally we cannot speak in all cases about
a nation in the proper sense. Ethnic groups
still exist which, without being able to be
considered true nations, do fulfil to some extent
the function of a "greater" society.
In both cases, the link of the family with the
ethnic group or the nation is founded above
all on a participation in its culture. In one
sense, parents also give birth to children for
the nation, so that they can be members of it
and can share in its historic and cultural heritage.
From the very outset the identity of the family
is to some extent shaped by the identity of
the nation to which it belongs.
By sharing in the nation's cultural heritage,
the family contributes to that specific sovereignty,
which has its origin in a distinct culture and
language. I addressed this subject at the UNESCO
Conference meeting in Paris in 1980, and, given
its unquestionable importance, I have often
returned to it. Not only the nations, but every
family realizes its spiritual sovereignty through
culture and language. Were this not true, it
would be very difficult to explain many events
in the history of peoples, especially in Europe.
From these events, ancient and modern, inspiring
and painful, glorious and humiliating, it becomes
clear how much the family is an organic part
of the nation, and the nation of the family.
In regard to the State, the link with the family
is somewhat similar and at the same time somewhat
dissimilar. The State, in fact, is distinct
from the nation; it has a less "family-like"
structure, since it is organized in accordance
with a political system and in a more "bureaucratic"
fashion. Nonetheless, the apparatus of the State
also has, in some sense, a "soul"
of its own, to the extent that it lives up to
its nature as a "political community"
juridically ordered towards the common good.[41]
Closely linked to this "soul" is the
family, which is connected with the State precisely
by reason of the principle of subsidiarity.
Indeed, the family is a social reality which
does not have readily available all the means
necessary to carry out its proper ends, also
in matters regarding schooling and the rearing
of children. The State is thus called upon to
play a role in accordance with the principle
mentioned above. Whenever the family is self-sufficient,
it should be left to act on its own; an excessive
intrusiveness on the part of the State would
prove detrimental, to say nothing of lacking
due respect, and would constitute an open violation
of the rights of the family. Only in those situations
where the family is not really self-sufficient
does the State have the authority and duty to
intervene.
Beyond child-rearing and schooling at all levels,
State assistance, while not excluding private
initiatives, can find expression in institutions
such as those founded to safeguard the life
and health of citizens, and in particular to
provide social benefits for workers. Unemployment
is today one of the most serious threats to
family life and a rightful cause of concern
to every society. It represents a challenge
for the political life of individual States
and an area for careful study in the Church's
social doctrine. It is urgently necessary, therefore,
to come up with courageous solutions capable
of looking beyond the confines of one's own
nation and taking into consideration the many
families for whom lack of employment means living
in situations of tragic poverty.[42]
While speaking about employment in reference
to the family, it is appropriate to emphasize
how important and burdensome is the work women
do within the family unit:[43] that work should
be acknowledged and deeply appreciated. The
"toil" of a woman who, having given
birth to a child, nourishes and cares for that
child and devotes herself to its upbringing,
particularly in the early years, is so great
as to be comparable to any professional work.
This ought to be clearly stated and upheld,
no less than any other labour right. Motherhood,
because of all the hard work it entails, should
be recognized as giving the right to financial
benefits at least equal to those of other kinds
of work undertaken in order to support the family
during such a delicate phase of its life.
Every effort should be made so that the family
will be recognized as the primordial and, in
a certain sense "sovereign" society!
The "sovereignty" of the family is
essential for the good of society. A truly sovereign
and spiritually vigorous nation is always made
up of strong families who are aware of their
vocation and mission in history. The family
is at the heart of all these problems and tasks.
To relegate it to a subordinate or secondary
role, excluding it from its rightful position
in society, would be to inflict grave harm on
the authentic growth of society as a whole.
II. THE BRIDEGROOM IS WITH YOU
AT CANA IN GALILEE
18. Engaged in conversation with John's
disciples one day, Jesus speaks of a wedding
invitation and the presence of the bridegroom
among the guests: "the Bridegroom is with
them" (Mt 9:15). In this way he indicated
the fulfillment in his own person of the image
of God the Bridegroom, which had already been
used in the Old Testament, in order to reveal
fully the mystery of God as the mystery of Love.
By describing himself as a "Bridegroom",
Jesus reveals the essence of God and confirms
his immense love for mankind. But the choice
of this image also throws light indirectly on
the profound truth of spousal love. Indeed by
using this image in order to speak about God,
Jesus shows to what extent the fatherhood and
the love of God are reflected in the love of
a man and a woman united in marriage. Hence,
at the beginning of his mission, we find Jesus
at Cana in Galilee, taking part in a wedding
banquet, together with Mary and with the first
disciples (cf. Jn 2:1-11). He thus wishes to
make clear to what extent the truth about the
family is part of God's Revelation and the history
of salvation. In the Old Testament, and particularly
in the Prophets, we find many beautiful expressions
about the love of God. It is a gentle love like
that of a mother for her child, a tender love
like that of the bridegroom for his bride, but
at the same time an equally and intensely jealous
love. It is not in the first place a love which
chastises but one which forgives; a love which
deigns to meet man just as the father does in
the case of the prodigal son; a love which raises
him up and gives him a share in divine life.
It is an amazing love: something entirely new
and previously unknown to the whole pagan world.
At Cana in Galilee Jesus is, as it were, the
herald of the divine truth about marriage, that
truth on which the human family can rely, gaining
reassurance amid all the trials of life.
Jesus proclaims this truth by his presence
at the wedding in Cana and by working his first
"sign": water changed into wine. Jesus
proclaims the truth about marriage again when,
speaking to the Pharisees, he explains how the
love which comes from God, a tender and spousal
love, gives rise to profound and radical demands.
Moses, by allowing a certificate of divorce
to be drawn up, had been less demanding. When
in their lively argument the Pharisees appealed
to Moses, Jesus' answer was categorical: "from
the beginning it was not so" (Mt 19:8).
And he reminds them that the One who created
man created him male and female, and ordained
that "a man leaves his father and his mother
and cleaves to his wife, and they become one
flesh" (Gen 2:24). With logical consistency
Jesus concludes: "So they are no longer
two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined
together, let not man put asunder" (Mt
19:6). To the objection of the Pharisees who
vaunt the Law of Moses he replies: "For
your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to
divorce your wives, but from the beginning it
was not so" (Mt 19:8).
Jesus appeals to "the beginning",
seeing at the very origins of creation God's
plan, on which the family is based, and, through
the family, the entire history of humanity.
What marriage is in nature becomes, by the will
of Christ, a true sacrament of the New Covenant,
sealed by the blood of Christ the Redeemer.
Spouses and families, remember at what price
you have been "bought"! (cf. 1 Cor
6:20).
But it is humanly difficult to accept and to
live this marvellous truth. Should we be surprised
that Moses relented before the insistent demands
of his fellow Israelites, if the Apostles themselves,
upon hearing the words of the Master, reply
by saying: "If such is the case of a man
with his wife, it is not expedient to marry"
(Mt 19:10)! Nonetheless, in view of the good
of man and woman, of the family and the whole
of society, Jesus confirms the demand which
God laid down from the beginning. At the same
time, however, he takes the opportunity to affirm
the value of a decision not to marry for the
sake of the Kingdom of God. This choice too
enables one to "beget", albeit in
a different way. In this choice we find the
origin of the consecrated life, of the Religious
Orders and Religious Congregations of East and
West, and also of the discipline of priestly
celibacy, as found in the tradition of the Latin
Church. Hence it is untrue that "it is
not expedient to marry"; however, love
for the kingdom of heaven can lead a person
to choose not to marry (cf. Mt 19:12).
Marriage however remains the usual human vocation
which is embraced by the great majority of the
people of God. It is in the family where living
stones are formed for that spiritual house spoken
of by the Apostle Peter (cf. 1 Pet 2:5). The
bodies of the husband and wife are the dwelling-place
of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 6:19). Because
the transmission of divine life presumes the
transmission of human life, marriage not only
brings about the birth of human children, but
also, through the power of Baptism, the birth
of adopted children of God, who live the new
life received from Christ through his Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, spouses and parents,
this is how the Bridegroom is with you. You
know that he is the Good Shepherd. You know
who he is, and you know his voice. You know
where he is leading you, and how he strives
to give you pastures where you can find life
and find it in abundance. You know how he withstands
the marauding wolves, and is ever ready to rescue
his sheep: every husband and wife, every son
and daughter, every member of your families.
You know that he, as the Good Shepherd, is prepared
to lay down his own life for his flock (cf.
Jn 10:11). He leads you by paths which are not
the steep and treacherous paths of many of today's
ideologies, and he repeats to today's world
the fullness of truth, even as he did in his
conversation with the Pharisees or when he announced
it to the Apostles, who then proclaimed it to
all the ends of the earth and to all the people
of their day, to Jews and Greeks alike. The
disciples were fully conscious that Christ had
made all things new. They knew that man had
been made a "new creation": no longer
Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer
male or female, but "one" in Christ
(cf. Gal 3:28) and endowed with the dignity
of an adopted child of God. On the day of Pentecost
man received the Spirit, the Comforter, the
Spirit of truth. This was the beginning of the
new People of God, the Church, the foreshadowing
of new heavens and a new earth (cf. Rev 21:1).
The Apostles, overcoming their initial fears
even about marriage and the family, grew in
courage. They came to understand that marriage
and family are a true vocation which comes from
God himself and is an apostolate: the apostolate
of the laity. Families are meant to contribute
to the transformation of the earth and the renewal
of the world, of creation and of all humanity.
Dear families, you too should be fearless,
ever ready to give witness to the hope that
is in you (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), since the Good Shepherd
has put that hope in your hearts through the
Gospel. You should be ready to follow Christ
towards the pastures of life, which he himself
has prepared through the Paschal Mystery of
his Death and Resurrection.
Do not be afraid of the risks! God's strength
is always far more powerful than your difficulties!
Immeasurably greater than the evil at work in
the world is the power of the Sacrament of Reconciliation,
which the Fathers of the Church rightly called
a "second Baptism". Much more influential
than the corruption present in the world is
the divine power of the Sacrament of Confirmation,
which brings Baptism to its maturity. And incomparably
greater than all is the power of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is truly a wondrous sacrament.
In it Christ has given us himself as food and
drink, as a source of saving power. He has left
himself to us that we might have life and have
it in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10): the life which
is in him and which he has shared with us by
the gift of the Spirit in rising from the dead
on the third day. The life that comes from Christ
is a life for us. It is for you, dear husbands
and wives, parents and families! Did Jesus not
institute the Eucharist in a family-like setting
during the Last Supper? When you meet for meals
and are together in harmony, Christ is close
to you. And he is Emmanuel, God with us, in
an even greater way whenever you approach the
table of the Eucharist. It can happen, as it
did at Emmaus, that he is recognized only in
"the breaking of the bread" (cf. Lk
24:35). It may well be that he is knocking at
the door for a long time, waiting for it to
be opened so that he can enter and eat with
us (cf. Rev 3:20). The Last Supper and the words
he spoke there contain all the power and wisdom
of the sacrifice of the Cross. No other power
and wisdom exist by which we can be saved and
through which we can help to save others. There
is no other power and no other wisdom by which
you, parents, can educate both your children
and yourselves. The educational power of the
Eucharist has been proved down the generations
and centuries.
Everywhere the Good Shepherd is with us. Even
as he was at Cana in Galilee, the Bridegroom
in the midst of the bride and groom as they
entrusted themselves to each other for their
whole life, so the Good Shepherd is also with
us today as the reason for our hope, the source
of strength for our hearts, the wellspring of
ever new enthusiasm and the sign of the triumph
of the "civilization of love". Jesus,
the Good Shepherd, continues to say to us: Do
not be afraid. I am with you. "I am with
you always, to the close of the age" (Mt
28:20). What is the source of this strength?
What is the reason for our certainty that you
are with us, even though they put you to death,
O Son of God, and you died like any other human
being? What is the reason for this certainty?
The Evangelist says: "He loved them to
the end" (Jn 13:1). Thus do you love us,
you who are the First and the Last, the Living
One; you who died and are alive for evermore
(cf. Rev 1:17-18).
THE GREAT MYSTERY
19. Saint Paul uses a concise phrase
in referring to family life: it is a "great
mystery" (Eph 5:32). What he writes in
the Letter to the Ephesians about that "great
mystery", although deeply rooted in the
Book of Genesis and in the whole Old Testament
tradition, nonetheless represents a new approach
which will later find expression in the Church's
Magisterium.
The Church professes that Marriage, as the
Sacrament of the covenant between husband and
wife, is a "great mystery", because
it expresses the spousal love of Christ for
his Church. Saint Paul writes: "Husbands,
love your wives, as Christ loved the Church
and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify
her, having cleansed her by the washing of water
with the word" (Eph 5:25-26). The Apostle
is speaking here about Baptism, which he discusses
at length in the Letter to the Romans, where
he presents it as a sharing in the death of
Christ leading to a sharing in his life (cf.
Rom 6:3-4). In this Sacrament the believer is
born as a new man, for Baptism has the power
to communicate new life, the very life of God.
The mystery of the God-man is in some way recapitulated
in the event of Baptism. As Saint Irenaeus would
later say, along with many other Fathers of
the Church of both East and West: "Christ
Jesus, our Lord, the Son of God, became the
son of man so that man could become a son of
God".[44]
The Bridegroom then is the very same God who
became man. In the Old Covenant Yahweh appears
as the Bridegroom of Israel, the chosen people--a
Bridegroom who is both affectionate and demanding,
jealous and faithful. Israel's moments of betrayal,
desertion and idolatry, described in such powerful
and evocative terms by the Prophets, can never
extinguish the love with which God-the Bridegroom
"loves to the end" (cf. Jn 13:1).
The confirmation and fulfillment of the spousal
relationship between God and his people are
realized in Christ, in the New Covenant. Christ
assures us that the Bridegroom is with us (cf.
Mt 9:15). He is with all of us; he is with the
Church. The Church becomes a Bride, the Bride
of Christ. This Bride, of whom the Letter to
the Ephesians speaks, is present in each of
the baptized and is like one who presents herself
before her Bridegroom. "Christ loved the
Church and gave himself up for her..., that
he might present the Church to himself in splendour,
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that
she might be holy and without blemish"
(Eph 5:25-27). The love with which the Bridegroom
"has loved" the Church "to the
end" continuously renews her holiness in
her saints, even though she remains a Church
of sinners. Even sinners, "tax collectors
and harlots", are called to holiness, as
Christ himself affirms in the Gospel (cf. Mt
21:31). All are called to become a glorious
Church, holy and without blemish. "Be holy",
says the Lord, "for I am holy" (Lev
11:44; cf. 1 Pet 1:16).
This is the deepest significance of the "great
mystery", the inner meaning of the sacramental
gift in the Church, the most profound meaning
of Baptism and the Eucharist. They are fruits
of the love with which the Bridegroom has loved
us to the end, a love which continually expands
and lavishes on people an ever greater sharing
in the supernatural life.
Saint Paul, after having said: "Husbands,
love your wives" (Eph 5:25), emphatically
adds: "Even so husbands should love their
wives as their own bodies. He who loves his
wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his
own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as
Christ does the Church, because we are members
of his body" (Eph 5:28-30). And he encourages
spouses with the words: "Be subject to
one another out of reverence for Christ"
(Eph 5:21).
This is unquestionably a new presentation of
the eternal truth about marriage and the family
in the light of the New Covenant. Christ has
revealed this truth in the Gospel by his presence
at Cana in Galilee, by the sacrifice of the
Cross and the Sacraments of his Church. Husbands
and wives thus discover in Christ the point
of reference for their spousal love. In speaking
of Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church, Saint
Paul uses the analogy of spousal love, referring
back to the Book of Genesis: "A man leaves
his father and his mother and cleaves to his
wife, and they become one flesh" (Gen 2:24).
This is the "great mystery" of that
eternal love already present in creation, revealed
in Christ and entrusted to the Church. "This
mystery is a profound one", the Apostle
repeats, "and I am saying that it refers
to Christ and the Church" (Eph 5:32). The
Church cannot therefore be understood as the
Mystical Body of Christ, as the sign of man's
Covenant with God in Christ, or as the universal
sacrament of salvation, unless we keep in mind
the "great mystery" involved in the
creation of man as male and female and the vocation
of both to conjugal love, to fatherhood and
to motherhood. The "great mystery",
which is the Church and humanity in Christ,
does not exist apart from the "great mystery"
expressed in the "one flesh" (cf.
Gen 2:24; Eph 5:31-32), that is, in the reality
of marriage and the family.
The family itself is the great mystery of God.
As the "domestic church", it is the
bride of Christ. The universal Church, and every
particular Church in her, is most immediately
revealed as the bride of Christ in the "domestic
church" and in its experience of love:
conjugal love, paternal and maternal love, fraternal
love, the love of a community of persons and
of generations. Could we even imagine human
love without the Bridegroom and the love with
which he first loved to the end? Only if husbands
and wives share in that love and in that "great
mystery" can they love "to the end".
Unless they share in it, they do not know "to
the end" what love truly is and how radical
are its demands. And this is undoubtedly very
dangerous for them.
The teaching of the Letter to the Ephesians
amazes us with its depth and the authority of
its ethical teaching. Pointing to marriage,
and indirectly to the family, as the "great
mystery" which refers to Christ and the
Church, the Apostle Paul is able to reaffirm
what he had earlier said to husbands: "Let
each one of you love his wife as himself".
He goes on to say: "And let the wife see
that she respects her husband" (Eph 5:33).
Respect, because she loves and knows that she
is loved in return. It is because of this love
that husband and wife become a mutual gift.
Love contains the acknowledgment of the personal
dignity of the other, and of his or her absolute
uniqueness. Indeed, each of the spouses, as
a human being, has been willed by God from among
all the creatures of the earth for his or her
own sake.[45] Each of them, however, by a conscious
and responsible act, makes a free gift of self
to the other and to the children received from
the Lord. It is significant that Saint Paul
continues his exhortation by echoing the fourth
commandment: "Children, obey your parents
in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honour your
father and mother' (this is the first commandment
with a promise), 'that it may be well with you
and that you may live long on the earth'. Fathers,
do not provoke your children to anger, but bring
them up in the discipline and instruction of
the Lord" (Eph 6:1-4). The Apostle thus
sees in the fourth commandment the implicit
commitment of mutual respect between husband
and wife, between parents and children, and
he recognizes in it the principle of family
stability.
Saint Paul's magnificent synthesis concerning
the "great mystery" appears as the
compendium or summa, in some sense, of the teaching
about God and man which was brought to fulfillment
by Christ. Unfortunately, Western thought, with
the development of modern rationalism, has been
gradually moving away from this teaching. The
philosopher who formulated the principle of
"Cogito, ergo sum", "I think,
therefore I am", also gave the modern concept
of man its distinctive dualistic character.
It is typical of rationalism to make a radical
contrast in man between spirit and body, between
body and spirit. But man is a person in the
unity of his body and his spirit.[46] The body
can never be reduced to mere matter: it is a
spiritualized body, just as man's spirit is
so closely united to the body that he can be
described as an embodied spirit. The richest
source for knowledge of the body is the Word
made flesh. Christ reveals man to himself.[47]
In a certain sense this statement of the Second
Vatican Council is the reply, so long awaited,
which the Church has given to modern rationalism.
This reply is of fundamental importance for
understanding the family, especially against
the background of today's civilization, which,
as has been said, seems in so many cases to
have given up the attempt to be a "civilization
of love". The modern age has made great
progress in understanding both the material
world and human psychology, but with regard
to his deepest, metaphysical dimension contemporary
man remains to a great extent a being unknown
to himself. Consequently the family too remains
an unknown reality. Such is the result of estrangement
from that "great mystery" spoken of
by the Apostle.
The separation of spirit and body in man has
led to a growing tendency to consider the human
body, not in accordance with the categories
of its specific likeness to God, but rather
on the basis of its similarity to all the other
bodies present in the world of nature, bodies
which man uses as raw material in his efforts
to produce goods for consumption. But everyone
can immediately realize what enormous dangers
lurk behind the application of such criteria
to man. When the human body, considered apart
from spirit and thought, comes to be used as
raw material in the same way that the bodies
of animals are used--and this actually occurs
for example in experimentation on embryos and
fetuses--we will inevitably arrive at a dreadful
ethical defeat.
Within a similar anthropological perspective,
the human family is facing the challenge of
a new Manichaeanism, in which body and spirit
are put in radical opposition; the body does
not receive life from the spirit, and the spirit
does not give life to the body. Man thus ceases
to live as a person and a subject. Regardless
of all intentions and declarations to the contrary,
he becomes merely an object. This neo-Manichaean
culture has led, for example, to human sexuality
being regarded more as a area for manipulation
and exploitation than as the basis of that primordial
wonder which led Adam on the morning of creation
to exclaim before Eve: "This at last is
bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh"
(Gen 2:23). This same wonder is echoed in the
words of the Song of Solomon: "You have
ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you
have ravished my heart with a glance of your
eyes" (Song 4:9). How far removed are some
modern ideas from the profound understanding
of masculinity and femininity found in Divine
Revelation! Revelation leads us to discover
in human sexuality a treasure proper to the
person, who finds true fulfillment in the family
but who can likewise express his profound calling
in virginity and in celibacy for the sake of
the Kingdom of God.
Modern rationalism does not tolerate mystery.
It does not accept the mystery of man as male
and female, nor is it willing to admit that
the full truth about man has been revealed in
Jesus Christ. In particular, it does not accept
the "great mystery" proclaimed in
the Letter to the Ephesians, but radically opposes
it. It may well acknowledge, in the context
of a vague deism, the possibility and even the
need for a supreme or divine Being, but it firmly
rejects the idea of a God who became man in
order to save man. For rationalism it is unthinkable
that God should be the Redeemer, much less that
he should be "the Bridegroom", the
primordial and unique source of the human love
between spouses. Rationalism provides a radically
different way of looking at creation and the
meaning of human existence. But once man begins
to lose sight of a God who loves him, a God
who calls man through Christ to live in him
and with him, and once the family no longer
has the possibility of sharing in the "great
mystery", what is left except the mere
temporal dimension of life? Earthly life becomes
nothing more than the scenario of a battle for
existence, of a desperate search for gain, and
financial gain before all else.
The deep-seated roots of the "great mystery",
the sacrament of love and life which began with
Creation and Redemption and which has Christ
the Bridegroom as its ultimate surety, have
been lost in the modern way of looking at things.
The "great mystery" is threatened
in us and all around us. May the Church's celebration
of the Year of the Family be a fruitful opportunity
for husbands and wives to rediscover that mystery
and recommit themselves to it with strength,
courage and enthusiasm.
MOTHER OF FAIREST LOVE
20. The history of "fairest love"
begins at the Annunciation, in those wondrous
words which the angel spoke to Mary, called
to become the Mother of the Son of God. With
Mary's "yes", the One who is "God
from God and Light from Light" becomes
a son of man. Mary is his Mother, while continuing
to be the Virgin who "knows not man"
(cf. Lk 1:34). As Mother and Virgin, Mary becomes
the Mother of Fairest Love. This truth is already
revealed in the words of the Archangel Gabriel,
but its full significance will gradually become
clearer and more evident as Mary follows her
Son in the pilgrimage of faith.[48]
The "Mother of Fairest Love" was
accepted by the one who, according to Israel's
tradition, was already her earthly husband:
Joseph, of the house of David. Joseph would
have had the right to consider his promised
bride as his wife and the mother of his children.
But God takes it upon himself to intervene in
this spousal covenant: "Joseph, son of
David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife,
for that which is conceived in her is of the
Holy Spirit" (Mt 1:20). Joseph is aware,
having seen it with his own eyes, that a new
life with which he has had nothing to do has
been conceived in Mary. Being a just man, and
observing the Old Law, which in his situation
imposed the obligation of divorce, he wishes
to dissolve his marriage in a loving way (cf.
Mt 1:19). The angel of the Lord tells him that
this would not be consistent with his vocation;
indeed it would be contrary to the spousal love
uniting him to Mary. This mutual spousal love,
to be completely "fairest love", requires
that he should take Mary and her Son into his
own house in Nazareth. Joseph obeys the divine
message and does all that he had been commanded
(cf. Mt 1:24). And so, thanks also to Joseph,
the mystery of the Incarnation and, together
with it, the mystery of the Holy Family, come
to be profoundly inscribed in the spousal love
of husband and wife and, in an indirect way,
in the genealogy of every human family. What
Saint Paul will call the "great mystery"
found its most lofty expression in the Holy
Family. Thus the family truly takes its place
at the very heart of the New Covenant.
It can also be said that the history of "fairest
love" began, in a certain way, with the
first human couple: Adam and Eve. The temptation
to which they yielded and the original sin which
resulted did not completely deprive them of
the capacity for "fairest love". This
becomes clear when we read, for example, in
the Book of Tobit that the spouses Tobias and
Sarah, in defining the meaning of their union,
appealed to their first parents, Adam and Eve
(cf. Tob 8:6). In the New Covenant, Saint Paul
also bears witness to this, speaking of Christ
as a new Adam (cf. 1 Cor 15:45). Christ does
not come to condemn the first Adam and the first
Eve, but to save them. He comes to renew everything
that is God's gift in man, everything in him
that is eternally good and beautiful, everything
that forms the basis of "fairest love".
The history of "fairest love" is,
in one sense, the history of man's salvation.
"Fairest love" always begins with
the self-revelation of the person. At creation
Eve reveals herself to Adam, just as Adam reveals
himself to Eve. In the course of history newly-married
couples tell each other: "We shall walk
the path of life together". The family
thus begins as a union of the two and, through
the Sacrament, as a new community in Christ.
For love to be truly "fairest", it
must be a gift of God, grafted by the Holy Spirit
on to human hearts and continually nourished
in them (cf. Rom 5:5). Fully conscious of this,
the Church in the Sacrament of Marriage asks
the Holy Spirit to visit human hearts. If love
is truly to be "fairest love", a gift
of one person to another, it must come from
the One who is himself a gift and the source
of every gift.
Such was the case, as the Gospel recounts,
with Mary and Joseph who, at the threshold of
the New Covenant, renewed the experience of
"fairest love" described in the Song
of Solomon. Joseph thinks of Mary in the words:
"My sister, my bride" (Song 4:9).
Mary, the Mother of God, conceives by the power
of the Holy Spirit, who is the origin of the
"fairest love", which the Gospel delicately
places in the context of the "great mystery".
When we speak about "fairest love",
we are also speaking about beauty: the beauty
of love and the beauty of the human being who,
by the power of the Holy Spirit, is capable
of such love. We are speaking of the beauty
of man and woman: their beauty as brother or
sister, as a couple about to be married, as
husband and wife. The Gospel sheds light not
only on the mystery of "fairest love",
but also on the equally profound mystery of
beauty, which, like love, is from God. Man and
woman are from God, two persons called to become
a mutual gift. From the primordial gift of the
Spirit, the "giver of life", there
arises the reciprocal gift of being husband
or wife, no less than that of being brother
or sister.
All this is confirmed by the mystery of the
Incarnation, a mystery which has been the source
of a new beauty in the history of humanity and
has inspired countless masterpieces of art.
After the strict prohibition against portraying
the invisible God by graven images (cf. Dt 4:15-20),
the Christian era began instead to portray in
art the God who became man, Mary his Mother,
Saint Joseph, the Saints of the Old and New
Covenant and the entire created world redeemed
by Christ. In this way it began a new relationship
with the world of culture and of art. It can
be said that this new artistic canon, attentive
to the deepest dimension of man and his future,
originates in the mystery of Christ's Incarnation
and draws inspiration from the mysteries of
his life: his birth in Bethlehem, his hidden
life in Nazareth, his public ministry, Golgotha,
the Resurrection and his final return in glory.
The Church is conscious that her presence in
the contemporary world, and in particular the
contribution and support she offers to the promotion
of the dignity of marriage and the family, are
intimately linked to the development of culture,
and she is rightly concerned for this. This
is precisely why the Church is so concerned
with the direction taken by the means of social
communication, which have the duty of forming
as well as informing their vast audience.[49]
Knowing the vast and powerful impact of the
media, she never tires of reminding communications
workers of the dangers arising from the manipulation
of truth. Indeed, what truth can there be in
films, shows and radio and television programmes
dominated by pornography and violence? Do these
really serve the truth about man? Such questions
are unavoidable for those who work in the field
of communications and those who have responsibility
for creating and marketing media products.
This kind of critical reflection should lead
our society, which certainly contains many positive
aspects on the material and cultural level,
to realize that, from various points of view,
it is a society which is sick and is creating
profound distortions in man. Why is this happening?
The reason is that our society has broken away
from the full truth about man, from the truth
about what man and woman really are as persons.
Thus it cannot adequately comprehend the real
meaning of the gift of persons in marriage,
responsible love at the service of fatherhood
and motherhood, and the true grandeur of procreation
and education. Is it an exaggeration to say
that the mass media, if they are not guided
by sound ethical principles, fail to serve the
truth in its fundamental dimension? This is
the real drama: the modern means of social communication
are tempted to manipulate the message, thereby
falsifying the truth about man. Human beings
are not the same thing as the images proposed
in advertising and shown by the modern mass
media. They are much more, in their physical
and psychic unity, as composites of soul and
body, as persons. They are much more because
of their vocation to love, which introduces
them as male and female into the realm of the
"great mystery".
Mary was the first to enter this realm, and
she introduced her husband Joseph into it. Thus
they became the first models of that "fairest
love" which the Church continually implores
for young people, husbands and wives and families.
Young people, spouses and families themselves
should never cease to pray for this. How can
we not think about the crowds of pilgrims, old
and young, who visit Marian shrines and gaze
upon the face of the Mother of God, on the faces
of the Holy Family, where they find reflected
the full beauty of the love which God has given
to mankind?
In the Sermon on the Mount, recalling the sixth
commandment, Christ proclaims: "You have
heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit
adultery'. But I say to you that every one who
looks at a woman lustfully has already committed
adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:27-28).
With regard to the Decalogue and its purpose
of defending the traditional solidity of marriage
and the family, these words represent a great
step forward. Jesus goes to the very source
of the sin of adultery, which dwells in the
innermost heart of man and is revealed in a
way of looking and thinking dominated by concupiscence.
Through concupiscence man tends to treat as
his own possession another human being, one
who does not belong to him but to God. In speaking
to his contemporaries, Christ is also speaking
to men and women in every age and generation.
He is speaking in particular to our own generation,
living as it is in a society marked by consumerism
and hedonism.
Why does Christ speak out in so forceful and
demanding a way in the Sermon on the Mount?
The reason is quite clear: Christ wants to safeguard
the holiness of marriage and of the family.
He wants to defend the full truth about the
human person and his dignity.
Only in the light of this truth can the family
be "to the end" the great "revelation",
the first discovery of the other: the mutual
discovery of husband and wife and then of each
son and daughter born to them. All that a husband
and a wife promise to each other--to be "true
in good times and in bad, and to love and honour
each other all the days of their life"--is
possible only when "fairest love"
is present. Man today cannot learn this from
what modern mass culture has to say. "Fairest
love" is learned above all in prayer. Prayer,
in fact, always brings with it, to use an expression
of Saint Paul, a type of interior hiddenness
with Christ in God, "your life is hid with
Christ in God" (Col 3:3). Only in this
hiddenness do we see the workings of the Holy
Spirit, the source of "fairest love".
He has poured forth this love not only in the
hearts of Mary and Joseph but also in the hearts
of all married couples who are open to hearing
the word of God and keeping it (cf. Lk 8:15).
The future of each family unit depends upon
this "fairest love": the mutual love
of husband and wife, of parents and children,
a love embracing all generations. Love is the
true source of the unity and strength of the
family.
BIRTH AND DANGER
21. It is significant that the brief
account of the infancy of Jesus mentions, practically
at the same time, his birth and the danger which
he immediately had to confront. Luke records
the prophetic words uttered by the aged Simeon
when the Child was presented to the Lord in
the Temple forty days after his birth. Simeon
speaks of "light" and of a "sign
of contradiction". He goes on to predict
of Mary: "And a sword will pierce through
your own soul also" (cf. Lk 2:32-35). Matthew,
for his part, tells of the plot of Herod against
Jesus. Informed by the Magi who came from the
East to see the new king who was to be born
(cf. Mt 2:2), Herod senses a threat to his power,
and after their departure he orders the death
of all male children aged two years or under
in Bethlehem and the surrounding towns. Jesus
escapes from the hands of Herod thanks to a
special divine intervention and the fatherly
care of Joseph, who takes him with his mother
into Egypt, where they remain until Herod's
death. The Holy Family then returns to Nazareth,
their home town, and begins what for many years
would be a hidden life, marked by the carrying
out of daily tasks with fidelity and generosity
(cf. Mt 2:1-23; Lk 2:39-52).
The fact that Jesus, from his very birth, had
to face threats and dangers has a certain prophetic
eloquence. Even as a Child, Jesus is a "sign
of contradiction". Prophetically eloquent
also is the tragedy of the innocent children
of Bethlehem, slaughtered at Herod's command.[50]
According to the Church's ancient liturgy, they
shared in the birth and saving passion of Christ.
Through their own "passion", they
complete "what is lacking in Christ's afflictions
for the sake of his body, that is, the Church"
(Col 1:24).
In the infancy Gospel, the proclamation of
life, which comes about in a wondrous way in
the birth of the Redeemer, is thus put in sharp
contrast with the threat to life, a life which
embraces the mystery of the Incarnation and
of the divine-human reality of Christ in its
entirety. The Word was made flesh (cf. Jn 1:14):
God became man. The Fathers of the Church frequently
call attention to this sublime mystery: "God
became man, so that we might become gods".[51]
This truth of faith is likewise the truth about
the human being. It clearly indicates the gravity
of all attempts on the life of a child in the
womb of its mother. Precisely in this situation
we encounter everything which is diametrically
opposed to "fairest love". If an individual
is exclusively concerned with "use",
he can reach the point of killing love by killing
the fruit of love. For the culture of use, the
"blessed fruit of your womb" (Lk 1:42)
becomes in a certain sense an "accursed
fruit".
How can we not recall, in this regard, the
aberrations that the so- called constitutional
State has tolerated in so many countries? The
law of God is univocal and categorical with
respect to human life. God commands: "You
shall not kill" (Ex 20:13). No human lawgiver
can therefore assert: it is permissible for
you to kill, you have the right to kill, or
you should kill. Tragically, in the history
of our century, this has actually occurred when
certain political forces have come to power,
even by democratic means, and have passed laws
contrary to the right to life of every human
being, in the name of eugenic, ethnic or other
reasons, as unfounded as they are mistaken.
A no less serious phenomenon, also because it
meets with widespread acquiescence or consensus
in public opinion, is that of laws which fail
to respect the right to life from the moment
of conception. How can one morally accept laws
that permit the killing of a human being not
yet born, but already alive in the mother's
womb? The right to life becomes an exclusive
prerogative of adults who even manipulate legislatures
in order to carry out their own plans and pursue
their own interests.
We are facing an immense threat to life: not
only to the life of individuals but also to
that of civilization itself. The statement that
civilization has become, in some areas, a "civilization
of death" is being confirmed in disturbing
ways. Was it not a prophetic event that the
birth of Christ was accompanied by danger to
his life? Yes, even the life of the One who
is at the same time Son of Man and Son of God
was threatened. It was endangered from the very
beginning, and only by a miracle did he escape
death.
Nevertheless, in the last few decades some
consoling signs of a reawakening of conscience
have appeared: both among intellectuals and
in public opinion itself. There is a new and
growing sense of respect for life from the first
moment of conception, especially among young
people. "Prolife" movements are beginning
to spread. This is a leaven of hope for the
future of the family and of all humanity.
"YOU WELCOMED ME"
22. Married couples and families of
all the world: the Bridegroom is with you! This
is what the Pope wishes to say to you above
all else during this Year which the United Nations
and the Church have dedicated to the family.
"God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, that whoever believes in him should
not perish but have eternal life. For God sent
his Son into the world, not to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him"
(Jn 3:16-17). "That which is born of the
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit... You must be born anew"
(Jn 3:6-7). You must be born "of water
and the Spirit" (Jn 3:5). You yourselves,
dear fathers and mothers, are the first witnesses
and servants of this rebirth in the Holy Spirit.
As you beget children on earth, never forget
that you are also begetting them for God. God
wants their birth in the Holy Spirit. He wants
them to be adopted children in the Only-begotten
Son, who gives us "power to become children
of God" (Jn 1:12). The work of salvation
continues in the world and is carried out through
the Church. All this is the work of the Son
of God, the Divine Bridegroom, who has given
to us the Kingdom of his Father and who reminds
us, his disciples, that "the Kingdom of
God is in the midst of you" (Lk 17:21).
Our faith tells us that Jesus Christ, who "is
seated at the right hand of the Father",
will come to judge the living and the dead.
On the other hand, the Gospel of John assures
us that Christ was sent "into the world,
not to condemn the world, but that the world
might be saved through him" (Jn 3:17).
In what then does judgment consist? Christ himself
gives the answer: "And this is the judgment,
that the light has come into the world... But
he who does what is true comes into the light,
that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have
been wrought by God" (Jn 3:19, 21). Recently,
the Encyclical Veritatis Splendor also reminded
us of this.[52] Is Christ then a judge? Your
own actions will judge you in the light of the
truth which you know. Fathers and mothers, sons
and daughters, will be judged by their actions.
Each one of us will be judged according to the
Commandments, including those we have discussed
in this Letter: the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and
Ninth Commandments. But ultimately everyone
will be judged on love, which is the deepest
meaning and the summing-up of the Commandments.
As Saint John of the Cross wrote: "In the
evening of life we shall be judged on love".[53]
Christ, the Redeemer and Bridegroom of mankind,
"was born for this and came into the world
for this, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone
who is of truth hears his voice" (cf. Jn
18:37). Christ will be the judge, but in the
way that he himself indicated in speaking of
the Last Judgment (cf. Mt 25:31-46). His will
be a judgment on love, a judgment which will
definitively confirm the truth that the Bridegroom
was with us, without perhaps our having been
aware of it.
The judge is the Bridegroom of the Church and
of humanity. This is why he says, in passing
his sentence: "Come, O blessed of my Father...
for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger
and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed
me" (Mt 25:34-36). This list could of course
be lengthened, and countless other problems
relevant to married and family life could be
added. There we might very well find statements
like: "I was an unborn child, and you welcomed
me by letting me be born"; "I was
an abandoned child, and you became my family";
"I was an orphan, and you adopted me and
raised me as one of your own children".
Or again: "You helped mothers filled with
uncertainty and exposed to wrongful pressure
to welcome their unborn child and let it be
born"; and "You helped large families
and families in difficulty to look after and
educate the children God gave them". We
could continue with a long and detailed list,
including all those kinds of true moral and
human good in which love is expressed. This
is the great harvest which the Redeemer of the
world, to whom the Father has entrusted judgment,
will come to reap. It is the harvest of grace
and of good works, ripened by the breath of
the Bridegroom in the Holy Spirit, who is ever
at work in the world and in the Church. For
all of this, let us give thanks to the Giver
of every good gift.
We also know however that according to the
Gospel of Matthew the Final Judgment will contain
another list, solemn and terrifying: "Depart
from me... for I was hungry and you gave me
no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,
naked and you did not clothe me" (Mt 25:41-43).
To this list also we could add other ways of
acting, in which Jesus is present in each case
as the one who has been rejected. In this way
he would identify with the abandoned wife or
husband, or with the child conceived and then
rejected: "You did not welcome me"!
This judgment is also to be found throughout
the history of our families; it is to be found
throughout the history of our nations and all
humanity. Christ's words, "You did not
welcome me", also touch social institutions,
governments and international organizations.
Pascal wrote that "Jesus will be in agony
until the end of the world".[54] The agony
of Gethsemane and the agony of Golgotha are
the summit of the revelation of love. Both scenes
reveal the Bridegroom who is with us, who loves
us ever anew, and "loves us to the end"
(cf. Jn 13:1). The love which is in Christ,
and which from him flows beyond the limits of
individual or family histories, flows beyond
the limits of all human history.
At the end of these reflections, dear Brothers
and Sisters, in view of what will be proclaimed
from various platforms during the Year of the
Family, I would like to renew with you the profession
of faith which Peter addressed to Christ: "You
have the words of eternal life" (Jn 6:68).
Together let us say: "Your words, O Lord,
will not pass away"! (cf. Mk 13:31). What
then is the Pope's wish for you at the end of
this lengthy meditation on the Year of the Family?
It is his prayer that all of you will be in
agreement with these words, which are "spirit
and life" (Jn 6:63).
"STRENGTHENED IN THE INNER MAN"
23. I bow my knees before the Father,
from whom every fatherhood and motherhood is
named, "that he may grant you to be strengthened
with might through his Spirit in the inner man"
(Eph 3:16). I willingly return to these words
of the Apostle, which I mentioned in the first
part of this Letter. In a certain sense they
are pivotal words. The family, fatherhood and
motherhood all go together. The family is the
first human setting in which is formed that
"inner man" of which the Apostle speaks.
The growth of the inner man in strength and
vigour is a gift of the Father and the Son in
the Holy Spirit.
The Year of the Family sets before us in the
Church an immense task, no different from the
task which families face every year and every
day. In the context of this Year, however, that
task takes on particular meaning and importance.
We began the Year of the Family in Nazareth
on the Solemnity of the Holy Family. Throughout
this Year we wish to make our pilgrim way towards
that place of grace which has become the Shrine
of the Holy Family in the history of humanity.
We want to make this pilgrimage in order to
become aware once again of that heritage of
truth about the family which from the beginning
has been a treasure for the Church. It is a
treasure which grows out of the rich tradition
of the Old Covenant, is completed in the New
and finds its fullest symbolic expression in
the mystery of the Holy Family in which the
divine Bridegroom brings about the redemption
of all families. From there Jesus proclaims
the "gospel of the family". All generations
of Christ's disciples have drawn upon this treasure
of truth, beginning with the Apostles, on whose
teaching we have so frequently drawn in this
Letter. In our own times this treasure has been
examined in depth in the documents of the Second
Vatican Council.[55] Perceptive analyses were
developed in the many addresses given by Pope
Pius XII to newlyweds,[56] in the Encyclical
Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul VI, in the speeches
delivered at the Synod of Bishops on the Family
(1980) and in the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris
Consortio. I have already spoken of these statements
of the Magisterium. If I return to them now,
it is in order to emphasize how vast and rich
is the treasure of Christian truth about the
family. Written testimonies alone, however,
will not suffice. Much more important are living
testimonies. As Pope Paul VI observed, "contemporary
man listens more willingly to witnesses than
to teachers, and if he listens to teachers it
is because they are witnesses".[57] In
the Church, the treasure of the family has been
entrusted first and foremost to witnesses: to
those fathers and mothers, sons and daughters
who through the family have discovered the path
of their human and Christian vocation, the dimension
of the "inner man" (Eph 3:16) of which
the Apostle speaks, and thus have attained holiness.
The Holy Family is the beginning of countless
other holy families. The Council recalled that
holiness is the vocation of all the baptized.[58]
In our age, as in the past, there is no lack
of witnesses to the "gospel of the family",
even if they are not well known or have not
been proclaimed saints by the Church. The Year
of the Family is the appropriate occasion to
bring about an increased awareness of their
existence and their great number.
The history of mankind, the history of salvation,
passes by way of the family. In these pages
I have tried to show how the family is placed
at the centre of the great struggle between
good and evil, between life and death, between
love and all that is opposed to love. To the
family is entrusted the task of striving, first
and foremost, to unleash the forces of good,
the source of which is found in Christ the Redeemer
of man. Every family unit needs to make these
forces their own so that, to use a phrase spoken
on the occasion of the Millennium of Christianity
in Poland, the family will be "strong with
the strength of God".[59] This is why the
present Letter has sought to draw inspiration
from the apostolic exhortations found in the
writings of Paul (cf. 1 Cor 7:1- 40; Eph 5:21-6:9;
Col 3:25) and the Letters of Peter and John
(cf. 1 Pet 3:1-7; 1 Jn 2:12-17). Despite the
differences in their historical and cultural
contexts, how similar are the experiences of
Christians and families then and now!
What I offer, then, is an invitation: an invitation
addressed especially to you, dearly beloved
husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons
and daughters. It is an invitation to all the
particular Churches to remain united in the
teaching of the apostolic truth. It is addressed
to my Brothers in the Episcopate, and to priests,
religious families and consecrated persons,
to movements and associations of the lay faithful;
to our brothers and sisters united by common
faith in Jesus Christ, even while not yet sharing
the full communion willed by the Saviour; 60
to all who by sharing in the faith of Abraham
belong, like us, to the great community of believers
in the one God; 61 to those who are the heirs
of other spiritual and religious traditions;
and to all men and women of good will.
May Christ, who is the same "yesterday
and today and for ever" (Heb 13:8), be
with us as we bow the knee before the Father,
from whom all fatherhood and motherhood and
every human family is named (cf. Eph 3:14-15).
In the words of the prayer to the Father which
Christ himself taught us, may he once again
offer testimony of that love with which he loved
us "to the end"! (Jn 13:1).
I speak with the power of his truth to all
people of our day, so that they will come to
appreciate the grandeur of the goods of marriage,
family and life; so that they will come to appreciate
the great danger which follows when these realities
are not respected, or when the supreme values
which lie at the foundation of the family and
of human dignity are disregarded.
May the Lord Jesus repeat these truths to us
with the power and the wisdom of the Cross,
so that humanity will not yield to the temptation
of the "father of lies" (Jn 8:44),
who constantly seeks to draw people to broad
and easy ways, ways apparently smooth and pleasant,
but in reality full of snares and dangers. May
we always be enabled to follow the One who is
"the way, and the truth, and the life"
(Jn 14:6).
Dear Brothers and Sisters: Let all of this
be the task of Christian families and the object
of the Church's missionary concern throughout
this Year, so rich in singular divine graces.
May the Holy Family, icon and model of every
human family, help each individual to walk in
the spirit of Nazareth. May it help each family
unit to grow in understanding of its particular
mission in society and the Church by hearing
the Word of God, by prayer and by a fraternal
sharing of life. May Mary, Mother of "Fairest
Love", and Joseph, Guardian of the Redeemer,
accompany us all with their constant protection.
With these sentiments I bless every family
in the name of the Most Holy Trinity: Father,
Son and Holy Spirit.
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 2 February,
the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, in
the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.
ENDNOTES
1. Cf. Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis
(4 March 1979), 14: AAS 71 (1979), 284-285.
2. Cf. SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL,
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World Gaudium et Spes, 1.
3. Ibid, 22.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church Lumen Gentium, 11.
7. Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, Part II,
Chap. 1.
8. Rituale Romanum, Ordo Celebrandi
Matrimonium, No. 74, editio typica altera, 1991,
p. 26.
9. Cf. Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris
Consortio (22 November 1981), 79-84: MS 74 (1982),
180-186.
10. Cf. Rituale Romanum, Ordo Celebrandi
Matrimonium, No 74, ed. Cit., p. 26.
11. Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 48.
12. Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris
Consortio (22 November 1981), 69: AAS 74 (1982),
165.
13. Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 24.
14. Rituale Romanum, Ordo Celebrandi
Matrimonium, No. 60, ed. cit, p. 17.
15. Cf. Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris
Consortio (22 November 1981), 28: AAS 74 (1982),
114.
16. Cf. Plus XII, Encyclical Letter
Humani Generis (12 August 1950): AAS 42 (1950),
574.
17. Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 24.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Confessiones, I, 1: CCL 27,1.
21. Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes,
50.
22. Rituale Romanum, Ordo Celebrandi
Matrimonium, No. 62, ed cit, p 17.
23. Ibid, No. 61, ed. cit., p 17.
24. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae,
I, q. 5, a. 4, ad 2.
25. Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 24.
26. Cf. Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo
Rei Socialis (30 December 1987), 25: AAS 80
(1988), 543-544.
27. ENCYCLICAL Letter Redemptor Hominis
(4 March 1979), 14: AAS 71 (1979),884-885; Cf.
Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991),
53: AAS 83 (1991), 859.
28. Adversus Haereses IV, 20, 7: PG
7, 1057; SCh 100/2, 648- 649.
29. Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus
(1 May 1991) 39: AAS 83 (1991), 842.
30. Cf. Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo
Rei Socialis (30 December 1987), 25: AAS 80
(1988), 543-544.
31. Cf. PAUL VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae
Vitae (25 July 1968), 12 AAS 60 (1968), 488-489;
Catechism of the Catholic Church, NO. 2366.
32. Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 24.
33. Cf. Homily for the Closing of the
Holy Year (25 December 1975): AAS 68(1976),
145.
34. Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 22.
35. Cf. ibid, 47.
36. Summa Theologiae, I, q. 5, a. 4,
ad 2.
37. Ibid, I-II, q. 22.
38. Cf. SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium,
11, 40 and 41.
39. Rituale Romanum, Ordo Celebrandi
Matrimonium, No. 60, ed. cit., p. 17.
40. Code of Canon Law, Canon 1055, P.
1; Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1601.
41. Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes,
74.
42. Cf. Encyclical Letter Centesimus
Annus (1 May 1991), 57: AAS 83 (1991), 862-863
.
43. Cf. Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens
(14 September 1981), 19: AAS 73 (1981), 625-629.
44. Cf. Adversus Haereses, III, 10,
2: PG 7, 873; SCh 211, 116- 119; SAINT AUGUSTINE,
De Incarnatione Verbi, 54: PG 25, 191- 192;
SAINT AUGUSTINE, Sermo 185, 3: PL 38, 999; Sermo
194, 3, 3: PL 38, 1016.
45. Cf. SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL,
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World Gaudium et Spes, 24.
46. "Corpore et anima unus",
as the Council so clearly and felicitously stated:
ibid, 14.
47. Ibid, 22.
48. Cf. SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium,
56-59.
49. Cf. PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR SOCIAL
COMMUNICATIONS, Pastoral Instruction Aetatis
Novae (22 February 1992), 7.
50. In the liturgy of their Feast, which
has its origins in the fifth century, the Church
turns to the Holy Innocents, invoking them with
the words of the poet Prudentius (+ c. 105)
as "the flowers of the martyrs whom, at
the very threshold of their lives, the persecutor
of Christ cur down as the whirlwind does to
roses still in bud".
51. SAINT ATHANASIUS, De Incarnatione
Verbi, 54: PG 25, 191- 192.
52. Cf. Veritatis Splendor (6 August
1993), 84.
53. Words of Light and Love, 59.
54. B. PASCAL, Pensees, Le mystere de
Jesus, 553 (ed. Br).
55. Cf. in particular Pastoral Constitution
on the Church Gaudium et Spes, 47-52.
56. Of particular interest is the Address
to those taking part in the Convention of the
Italian Catholic Union of Midwives (29 October
1951), in Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, XIII, 333-353.
57. Cf. Address to the members of the
"Consilium de Laicis" (2 October 1974)
in AAS 66 (1974), 568.
58. Cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church Lumen Gentium, 40.
59. Cf. Cardinal STEFAN WYSZYNSKI, Rodzina
Bogiem silna, Homily delivered at Jasna Gora
(26 August 1961).
60. Cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church Lumen Gentium, 15.
61. Cf. ibid, 16.
