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.
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 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". If in fact Christ "fully discloses man to
himself", 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". 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 XXIII, 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 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". 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 1
the grace of the Holy Spirit so that by your love poured into their
hearts they will remain faithful in the marriage covenant". 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". 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", 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—is 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".
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". 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 counseling centers, 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".
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), theirunion 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. 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 1 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, 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.
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". 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. 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". 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". 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
fulfilment precisely by sharing in God's life. The content of
this self-fulfilment 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. 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 wifehusband. 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".
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. 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". 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". 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
fulfilment 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 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. 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". Man is first of all the "glory of God": "Gloria
Dei vivens homo", in the celebrated words of Saint Irenaeus,
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".
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. 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.
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". 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 fulfilment 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", 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 fulfilment 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". 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 himself" 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".
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". 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 in 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". "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).
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 ton 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 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
fulfilment 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"? 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 fulfilment 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 ofself-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". 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. 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.
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: 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
fulfilment 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 marvelous 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".
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. 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. 'Honor 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. 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. 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 fulfilment 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.
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 aboutbeauty: 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. 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.
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".
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. "Pro-
life" 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. 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". 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". 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. Perceptive analyses were developed in the many addresses
given by Pope Pius XII to newlyweds, 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". 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. 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". 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; to all who by sharing in the faith of Abraham
belong, like us, to the great community of believers in the one God;
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.
JOHN PAUL II
