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We thought this section of this document might help you to focus a bit on the Purpose of Marriage Preparation before you actually come on your marriage preparation weekend.
The
Purpose of Marriage Preparation excerpt from
Familiaris Consortio by Pope John Paul II
In a particular way the church addresses the young,
who are beginning their journey toward marriage and family life, for the
purpose of presenting them with new horizons, helping them to discover
the beauty and grandeur of the vocation to love and the service of life.
66.
Preparation for marriage.
More than ever necessary in our times is preparation of young people for
marriage and family life. In some countries it is still the families themselves
that, according to ancient customs, ensure the passing on to young people
of the values concerning married and family life, and they do this through
a gradual process of education or initiation. But the changes that have
taken place within almost all modern societies demand that not only the
family but also society and the church should be involved in the effort
of properly preparing young people for their future responsibilities.
Many negative phenomena which are today noted with regret in family life
derive from the fact that in the new situations young people not only
lost sight of the correct hierarchy of values but, since they have no
longer certain criteria of behavior, they do not know how to face and
deal with the new difficulties. But experience teaches that young people
who have been well prepared for family life generally succeed better than
others.
This is even more applicable to Christian marriage, which influences the
holiness of large numbers of men and women. The church must therefore
promote better and more intensive programs of marriage preparation in
order to eliminate as far as possible the difficulties that many married
couples find themselves in, and even more in order to favor positively
the establishing and maturing of successful marriages.
Marriage preparation has to be seen and put into practice as a gradual
and continuous process. It includes three main stages: remote, proximate
and immediate preparation.
Remote preparation begins in early childhood in that wise family training
which leads children to discover themselves as beings endowed with a rich
and complex psychology and with a particular personality with its own
strengths and weaknesses. It is the period when esteem for all authentic
human values is instilled, both in interpersonal and in social relationships,
with all that this signifies for the formation of character, for the control
and right use of one's inclinations, for the manner of regarding and meeting
people of the opposite sex, and so on. Also necessary, especially for
Christians, is solid spiritual and catechetical formation that will show
that marriage is a true vocation and mission, without excluding the possibility
of the total gift of self to God in the vocation to the priestly or religious
life.
Upon this basis there will subsequently and gradually be built up the
proximate preparation, which -- from a suitable age and with adequate
catechesis, as in a catechumenal process -- involves a more specific preparation
for the sacraments, as it were, a rediscovery of them. This renewed catechesis
of young people and others preparing for Christian marriage is absolutely
necessary in order that the sacrament may be celebrated and lived with
the right moral and spiritual dispositions. The religious formation of
young people should be integrated, at the right moment and in accordance
with the various concrete requirements, with a preparation for life as
a couple. This preparation will present marriage as an interpersonal relationship
of a man and a woman that has to be continually developed, and will encourage
those concerned to study the nature of conjugal sexuality and responsible
parenthood, with the essential medical and biological knowledge connected
with it. It will also acquaint those concerned with correct methods for
the education of children and will assist them in gaining the basic requisites
for well-ordered family life, such as stable work, sufficient financial
resources, sensible administration, notions of housekeeping.
Finally, one must not overlook preparation for the family apostolate,
for fraternal solidarity and collaboration with other families, for active
membership in groups, associations, movements and undertakings set up
for the human and Christian benefit of the family.
The immediate preparation for the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony
should take place in the months and weeks immediately preceding the wedding
so as to give a new meaning, content, and form to the so-called premarital
inquiry required by canon law. This preparation is not only necessary
in every case, but is also more urgently needed for engaged couples that
still manifest shortcomings or difficulties in Christian doctrine and
practice.
Among the elements to be instilled in this journey of faith, which is
similar to the catechumate, there must also be a deeper knowledge of the
mystery of Christ and the church, of the meaning of grace and of the responsibility
of Christian marriage, as well as preparation for taking an active and
conscious part in the rites of the marriage liturgy.
The Christian family and the whole of the ecclesial community should feel
involved in the different phases of the preparation for marriage which
have been described only in their broad outlines. It is to be hoped that
the episcopal conferences, just as they are concerned with appropriate
initiatives to help engaged couples to be more aware of the seriousness
of their choice and also to help pastors of souls to make sure of the
couples' proper dispositions, so they will also take steps to see that
there is issued a directory for the pastoral care of the family. In this
they should lay down in the first place, the minimum content, duration
and method of the "preparation courses," balancing the different
aspects -- doctrinal, pedagogical, legal and medical -- concerning marriage
and structuring them in such a way that those preparing for marriage will
not only receive an intellectual training, but will also feel a desire
to enter actively into the ecclesial community.
Although one must not underestimate the necessity and obligation of the
immediate preparation for marriage -- which would happen if dispensations
from it were easily given -- nevertheless such preparation must always
be set forth and put into practice in such a way that omitting it is not
an impediment to the celebration of marriage.
End of Section 66.
See below for entire document:
Apostolic Exhortation
FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO (On the Family)
of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II to the Episcopate, to the Clergy and
to the Faithful of the Whole Catholic Church Regarding the Role of the
Christian Family in the Modern World
December 15, 1981.
INTRODUCTION ------------
1. The Church at the Service of the Family. -------------------------------------------
The family in the modern world, as much as and perhaps more than any other
institution, has been beset by the many profound and rapid changes that
have affected society and culture. Many families are living this situation
in fidelity to those values that constitute the foundation of the institution
of the family. Others have become uncertain and bewildered over their
role or even doubtful and almost unaware of the ultimate meaning and truth
of conjugal and family life. Finally, there are others who are hindered
by various situations of injustice in the realization of their fundamental
rights.
Knowing that marriage and the family constitute one of the most precious
of human values, the church wishes to speak and offer her help to those
who are already aware of the value of marriage and the family and seek
to live it faithfully, to those who are uncertain and anxious and searching
for the truth, and to those who are unjustly impeded from living freely
their family lives. Supporting the first, illumination the second and
assisting the others, the church offers her services to every person who
wonders about the destiny of marriage and the family [1].
In a particular way the church addresses the young, who are beginning
their journey toward marriage and family life, for the purpose of presenting
them with new horizons, helping them to discover the beauty and grandeur
of the vocation to love and the service of life.
2. The Synod of 1980 in Continuity with Preceding Synods --------------------------------------------------------
A Sign of this profound interest of the church in the family was the last
Synod of Bishops, held in Rome from Sept. 26 to Oct. 25, 1980. This was
a natural continuation of the two preceding synods [2]: The Christian
family, in fact, is the first community called to announce the Gospel
to the human person during growth and to bring him or her, through a progressive
education and catechesis, to full human and Christian maturity.
Furthermore, the recent synod is logically connected in some way as well
with that on the ministerial priesthood and on justice in the modern world.
In fact, as an educating community, the family must help man to discern
his own vocation and to accept responsibility in the search for greater
justice, educating him from the beginning in interpersonal relationships,
rich in justice and in love.
At the close of their assembly, the synod fathers presented me with a
long list of proposals in which they had gathered the fruits of their
reflections, which had matured over intense days of work, and they asked
me unanimously to be a spokesman before humanity of the church's lively
care for the family and to give suitable indications for renewed pastoral
effort in this fundamental sector of the life of man and of the church.
As I fulfill that mission with this exhortation, thus actuating in a particular
matter the apostolic ministry with which I am entrusted, I wish to thank
all the members of the synod for the very valuable contribution of teaching
and experience that they made, especially through the *propositiones*,
the text of which I am entrusting to the Pontifical Council for the Family
with instructions to study it so as to bring out every aspect of its rich
content.
3. The Precious Value of Marriage and of the Family. ----------------------------------------------------
Illuminated by the faith that gives her an understanding of all the truth
concerning the great value of marriage and the family and their deepest
meaning, the church once again feels the pressing need to proclaim the
Gospel, that is the "good news," to all people without exception,
in particular to those who are called to marriage and are preparing for
it, to all married couples and parents in the world.
The church is deeply convinced that only by the acceptance of the Gospel
are the hopes that man legitimately places in marriage and in the family
capable of being fulfilled.
Willed by God in the very act of creation [3], marriage and the family
are interiorly ordained to fulfillment in Christ [4] and have need of
his graces in order to be healed from the wounds of sin [5] and restored
to their "beginning" [6], that is, to full understanding and
the full realization of God's plan.
At a moment of history in which the family is the object of numerous forces
that seek to destroy it or in some way to deform it, and aware that the
well-being of society and her own good are intimately tied to the good
of the family [7], the church perceives in a more urgent and compelling
way her mission of proclaiming to all people the plan of God for marriage
and the family, ensuring their full vitality and human and Christian development,
and thus contributing to the renewal of society and of the people of God.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes:
[1] Cf. Second Vatican Council GAUDIUM ET SPES, 52.
[2] Cf. John Paul II, Homily for the Opening of the Sixth Synod of Bishops
(Sept. 26, 1980), 2: AAS 72 (1980), 1008.
[3] Cf. Gn. 1-2.
[4] Cf. Eph. 5.
[5] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 47; Pope John Paul II,
Letter APOPROPINQUAT IAM (Aug 15, 1980), 1: AAS 72 (1980), 791.
[6] Cf. Mt. 19:4.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
PART ONE BRIGHT SPOTS AND SHADOWS FOR THE FAMILY TODAY
4. The Need to Understand the Situation. ----------------------------------------
Since God's plan for marriage and the family touches men and women in
the concreteness of their daily existence in specific social and cultural
situations, the church ought to apply herself to understanding the situations
within which marriage and the family are lived today, in order to fulfill
her task of serving [8].
This understanding is therefore an inescapable requirement of the work
of evangelization. It is, in fact, to the families of our times that the
church must bring the unchangeable and ever new gospel of Jesus Christ,
just as it is the families involved in the present conditions of the world
that are called to accept and to live the plan of God that pertains to
them. Moreover, the call and demands of the spirit resound in the very
events of history, and so the church can also be guided to a more profound
understanding of the inexhaustible mystery of marriage and the family
by the circumstances, the questions and the anxieties and hopes of the
young people, married couples and parents of today [9].
To this ought to be added a further reflection of particular importance
at the present time. Not infrequently ideas and solutions which are very
appealing, but which obscure in varying degrees the truth and the dignity
of the human person, are offered to men and women of today in their sincere
and deep search for a response to the important daily problems that affect
their married and family life. These views are often supported by the
powerful and pervasive organization of the means of social communication,
which subtly endangers freedom and the means of objective judgement.
Many are already aware of this danger to the human person and are working
for the truth. The church, with her evangelical discernment, joins with
them, offering her own service to the truth, to freedom and to the dignity
of every man and every woman.
8. Evangelical Discernment. ---------------------------
The discernment effected by the church becomes the offering of an orientation
in order that the entire truth and the full dignity of marriage and the
family may be preserved and realized.
This discernment is accomplished through the sense of faith [10], which
is a gift that the Spirit gives to all the faithful [11], and is therefore
the work of the whole church according to the diversity of the various
gifts and charisms that, together with and according to the responsibility
proper to each one, work together for a more profound understanding and
activation of the word of God. The church, therefore, does not accomplish
this discernment only through the pastors, who teach in the name and with
the power of Christ, but also through the laity: Christ "made them
his witnesses and gave them understanding of the faith and the grace of
speech (Acts 2:17-18; Rv. 19:10), so that the power of the Gospel might
shine forth in their daily social and family life" [12]. The laity,
moreover, by reason of their particular vocation have the specific role
of interpreting the history of the world in the light of Christ, inasmuch
as they are called to illuminate and organize temporal realities according
to the plan of God, creator and redeemer.
The "supernatural sense of faith" [13], however, does not consist
solely or necessarily in the consensus of the faithful. Following Christ,
the church seeks the truth, which is not always the same as the majority
opinion. She listens to conscience and not to power, and in this way she
defends the poor and downtrodden. The church values sociological and statistical
research when it proves helpful in understanding the historical context
in which pastoral action has to be developed and when it leads to a better
understanding of the truth. Such research alone, however, is not to be
considered in itself an expression of the sense of faith.
Because it is the task of the apostolic ministry to ensure that the church
remains in the truth of Christ and to lead her ever more deeply into that
truth, the pastors must promote the sense of faith in all the faithful,
examine and authoratively judge the genuineness of its expressions and
educate the faithful in an ever more mature evangelical discernment [14].
Christian spouses and parents can and should offer their unique and irreplaceable
contribution to the elaboration of an authentic evangelical discernment
in the various situations and cultures in which men and women live their
marriage and their family life. They are qualified for this role by their
charism or special gift, the gift of the sacrament of matrimony [15].
6. The Situation of the Family in the World Today. --------------------------------------------------
The situation in which the family finds itself presents positive and negative
aspects: The first is a sign of the salvation of Christ operating in the
world; the second, a sign of the refusal that man gives to the love of
God.
On the one hand, in fact, there is a more lively awareness of personal
freedom and greater attention to the quality of interpersonal relationships
in marriage, in promoting the dignity of women, to responsible procreation,
to the education of children. There is also an awareness of the need for
the development of interfamily relationships, for reciprocal spiritual
and material assistance, the rediscovery of the ecclesial mission proper
to the family and its responsibility for the building of a more just society.
On the other hand, however, signs are not lacking of a disturbing degradation
of some fundamental values: a mistaken theoretical and practical concept
of the independence of the spouses in relation to each other; serious
misconceptions regarding the relationship of authority between parents
and children; the concrete difficulties that the family itself experiences
in the transmission of values; the growing number of divorces; the scourge
of abortion; the ever more frequent recourse to sterilization; the appearance
of a truly contraceptive mentality.
At the root of these negative phenomena there frequently lies a corruption
of the idea and the experience of freedom, conceived not as a capacity
for realizing the truth of God's plan for marriage and the family, but
as an autonomous power of self-affirmation, often against others, for
one's own selfish well-being.
Worthy of our attention also is the fact in the countries of the so-called
Third World, families often lack both the means necessary for survival,
such as food, work, housing and medicine, and the most elementary freedoms.
In the richer countries, on the contrary, excessive prosperity and the
consumer mentality, paradoxically joined to a certain anguish and uncertainty
about the future, deprive married couples of the generosity and courage
needed for raising up new human life: Thus life is often perceived not
as a blessing but as a danger from which to defend oneself.
The historical situation in which the family lives therefore appears as
an interplay of light and darkness.
This shows that history is not simply a fixed progression toward what
is better, but rather an event of freedom, and even a struggle between
freedoms that are in mutual conflict, that is, according to the wellknown
expression of St. Augustine, a conflict between two loves: the love of
God to the point of disregarding self, and the love of self to the point
of disregarding God [16].
It follows that only an education for love rooted in faith can lead to
the capacity of interpreting "the signs of the times," which
are the historical expression of this twofold love.
7. The Influence of Circumstances on the Consciences of the ------ -----------------------------------------------------
Faithful. ---------
Living in such a world, under the pressures coming above all from the
mass media, the faithful do not always remain immune from the obscuring
of certain fundamental values, nor set themselves up as the critical conscience
of the family culture and as active agents in the building of an authentic
family humanism.
Among the more troubling signs of this phenomenon, the synod fathers stressed
the following in particular: the spread of divorce and of recourse to
a new union, even on the part of the faithful; the acceptance of purely
civil marriage in contradiction of the vocation of the baptized to "be
married in the Lord"; the celebration of the marriage sacrament without
living faith, but for other motives; the rejection of moral norms that
guide and promote human and Christian exercise of sexuality in marriage.
8. Our Age Needs Wisdom. ------------------------
The whole church is obliged to a deep reflection and commitment, so that
the new culture now emerging may be evangelized in depth, true values
acknowledged, the rights of men and women defended and justice promoted
in the very structures of society. In this way the "new humanism"
will not distract people from their relationship with God, but will lead
them to it more fully.
Science and its technical applications offer new and immense possibilities
in the construction of such a humanism. Still, as a consequence of political
choices that decide the direction of research and its applications, science
is often used against its original purpose, which is the advancement of
the human person.
It becomes necessary, therefore, on the part of all to recover an awareness
of the primacy of moral values, which are the values of the human person
as such. The great task that has to be faced today for the renewal of
society is that of recapturing the ultimate meaning of life and its fundamental
values. Only an awareness of the primacy of these values enables man to
use the immense possibilities given him by science in such a way as to
bring about the true advancement of the human person in his or her whole
truth, in his or her freedom and dignity. Science is called to ally itself
with wisdom.
The following words of the Second Vatican Council can therefore be applied
to the problems of the family: "Our era needs such wisdom more than
bygone ages if the discoveries made by man are to be further humanized.
For the future of the world stands in peril unless wiser people are forthcoming"
[17].
The education of the moral conscience, which makes every human being capable
of judging and of discerning the proper ways to achieve self-realization
according to his or her original truth, thus becomes a pressing requirement
that cannot be renounced.
Modern culture must be led to a more profoundly restored covenant with
divine wisdom. Every man is given a share of such wisdom through the creating
action of God. And it is only in faithfulness to this covenant that the
families of today will be in a position to influence positively the building
of a more just and fraternal world.
9. Gradualness and Conversion. ------------------------------
To the injustice originating from sin -- which has profoundly penetrated
the structures of today's world -- and often hindering the family's full
realization of itself and of its fundamental rights, we must all set ourselves
in opposition through a conversion of mind and heart, following Christ
crucified by denying our own selfishness: Such a conversion cannot fail
to have a beneficial and renewing influence even on the structures of
society.
What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while requiring
an interior detachment from every evil and an adherence to good in its
fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which leads us gradually
with the progressive integration of the gifts of God and the demands of
his definitive and absolute love in the entire personal and social life
of man. Therefore an educational growth process is necessary in order
that individual believers, families and peoples, even civilization itself,
by beginning from what they have already received of the mystery of Christ,
may patiently be led forward, arriving at a richer understanding and a
fuller integration of this mystery in their lives.
10. Inculturation. ------------------
In conformity with her constant tradition, the church receives from the
various cultures everything that is able to express better the unsearchable
riches of Christ [18]. Only with the help of all the cultures will it
be possible for these riches to be manifested ever more clearly and for
the church to progress toward a daily, more complete and profound awareness
of the truth, which has already been given to her in its entirety by the
Lord.
Holding fast to the two principles of the compatibility with the Gospel
of the various cultures to be taken up and of communion with the universal
church, there must be further study, particularly by the episcopal conferences
and the appropriate departments of the Roman Curia, and greater pastoral
diligence so that this "inculturation" of the Christian faith
may come about ever more extensively in the context of marriage and the
family as well as in other fields.
It is by means of "inculturation" that one proceeds toward the
full restoration of the covenant with the wisdom of God, which is Christ
himself. The whole church will be enriched also by the cultures which,
though lacking technology, abound in human wisdom and are enlivened by
profound moral values.
So that the goal of this journey might be clear and consequently the way
plainly indicated, the synod was right to begin by considering in depth
the original design of God for marriage and the family: It "went
back to the beginning," in deference to the teaching of Christ [19].
-------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes:
[8] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Council of the General Secretariat
of the Synod of Bishops (Feb. 23, 1980): INSEGNAMENTI DI GIOVANNI PAOLO
II,) III, 1 (1980), 472-476.
[9] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 4.
[10] Cf. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12.
[11] Cf. 1 Jn. 2:20.
[12] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 35.
[13] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12; Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration MYSTERIUM ECCLESIAE, 2: AAS 65 (1973),
398-400.
[14] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12; DEI VERBUM, 10.
[15] Cf. John Paul II, Homily for the Opening of the Sixth Synod of Bishops,
3.
[16] Cf. St. Augustine, DE CIVITATE DEI, XIV, 28; CSEL 40, II, 56- 57.
[17] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 15.
[18] Cf. Eph. 3:8; Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 44; AD GENTES,
15, 22.
[19] Cf. Mt. 19:4-6.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
PART TWO THE PLAN OF GOD FOR MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
11. Man, the Image of the God Who Is Love. ------------------------------------------
God created man in his own image and likeness [20]; calling him to existence
through love, he called him at the same time for love.
God is love [21] and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving
communion. Creating the human race in his own image and continually keeping
it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation,
and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion [22].
Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.
As an incarnate spirit, that is, a soul which expresses itself in a body
and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called to love in his
unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the body is made a
sharer in spiritual love.
Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation
of the human person, in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity
or celibacy. Either one is in its proper form an actuation of the most
profound truth of man, of his being "created in the image of God."
Consequently sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves
to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses,
is by no means something purely biological, but concerns the innermost
being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way
only if it is an integral pert of the love by which a man and a woman
commit themselves totally to one another until death. The total physical
self-giving would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total
personal self- giving, in which the whole person, including the temporal
dimension, is present: If the person were to withhold something or reserve
the possibility of deciding otherwise in the future, by this very fact
he or she would not be giving totally.
This totality which is required by conjugal love also corresponds to the
demands of responsible fertility. This fertility is directed to the generation
of a human being, and so by its nature it surpasses the purely biological
order and involves a whole series of personal values. For the harmonious
growth of these values a persevering and unified contribution by both
parents is necessary.
The only "place" in which this self-giving in its whole truth
is made possible is marriage, the covenant of conjugal love freely and
consciously chosen, whereby man and woman accept the intimate community
of life and love willed by God himself [23], which only in this light
manifests its true meaning. The institution of marriage is not an undue
interference by society or authority, nor the extrinsic imposition of
a form. Rather, it is an interior requirement of the covenant of conjugal
love which is publicly affirmed as unique and exclusive in order to live
in complete fidelity to the plan of God, the creator. A person's freedom,
far from being restricted by this fidelity, is secured against every form
of subjectivism or relativism and is made a sharer in creative wisdom.
12. Marriage and Communion Between God and People. --------------------------------------------------
The communion of love between God and people, a fundamental part of the
revelation and faith experience of Israel, finds a meaningful expression
in the marriage covenant which is established between a man and a woman.
For this reason the central word of revelation, "God loves his people,"
is likewise proclaimed through the living and concrete word whereby a
man and a woman express their conjugal love. Their bond of love becomes
the image and the symbol of the covenant which unites god and his people
[24]. And the same sin which can harm the conjugal covenant becomes an
image of the infidelity of the people to their God: Idolatry is prostitution
[25], infidelity is adultery, disobedience to the law is abandonment of
the spousal love of the Lord. But the infidelity of israel does not destroy
the eternal fidelity of the Lord, and therefore the ever faithful love
of God is put forward as the model of the relations of the faithful love
which should exist between spouses [26].
13. Jesus Christ, Bridegroom of the Church, and the Sacrament of ----------------------------------------------------------------
Matrimony. ----------
The communion between God and his people finds its definitive fulfillment
in Jesus Christ, the bridegroom who loves and gives himself as the savior
of humanity, uniting it to himself as his body.
He reveals the original truth of marriage, the truth of the "beginning"
[27], and, freeing man from his hardness of heart, he makes man capable
of realizing this truth in its entirety.
This revelation reaches its definitive fullness in the gift of love which
the word of God makes to humanity in assuming a human nature, and in the
sacrifice which Jesus Christ makes of himself on the cross for his bride,
the church. In this sacrifice there is entirely revealed that plan which
God has imprinted on the humanity of man and woman since their creation
[28], the marriage of baptized persons thus becomes a real symbol of that
new and eternal covenant sanctioned in the blood of Christ. The Spirit
which the Lord pours forth gives a new heart, and renders man and woman
capable of loving one another as Christ has loved us. Conjugal love reaches
that fullness to which it is interiorly ordained, conjugal charity, which
is the proper and specific way in which the spouses participate in and
are called to live the very charity of Christ, who gave himself on the
cross.
In a deservedly famous page, Tertullian has well expressed the greatness
of this conjugal life in Christ and its beauty: "How can I ever express
the happiness of the marriage that is joined together by the church, strengthened
by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced by angels and ratified
by the Father? !!! How wonderful the bond between two believers, with
a single hope, a single desire, a single observance, a single service!
They are both brethren and both fellow servants; there is no separation
between them in spirit or flesh. In fact they are truly two in one flesh,
and where the flesh is one, one is the spirit" [29].
Receiving and mediating faithfully on the word of God, the church has
solemnly taught and continued to teach that the marriage of the baptized
is one of the seven sacraments of the new covenant [30].
Indeed by means of baptism, man and woman are definitively placed within
the new and eternal covenant, in the spousal covenant of Christ with the
church. And it is because of this indestructible insertion that the intimate
community of conjugal life and love, founded by the creator [31], is elevated
and assumed into the spousal charity of Christ, sustained and enriched
by his redeeming power.
By virtue of the sacraments of their marriage, spouses are bound to one
another in the most profoundly indissoluble manner. Their belonging to
each other is the real representation, by means of the sacramental sign,
of the very relationship of Christ with the church.
Spouses are therefore the permanent reminder to the church of what happened
on the cross; they are for one another and for the children witnesses
to the salvation in which the sacrament makes them sharers. Of this salvation
event marriage, like every sacrament, is a memorial, actuation and prophecy:
"As a memorial, the sacrament gives them the grace and duty of commemorating
the great works of God and of bearing witness to them before their children.
As actuation, it gives them the grace and duty of putting into practice
in the present, toward each other and their children, the demands of a
love which forgives and redeems. As prophecy, it gives them the grace
and duty of living and bearing witness to the hope of the future encounter
with Christ" [32].
Like each one of the seven sacraments, so also marriage is a real symbol
of the event of salvation, but in its own way.
"The spouses participate in it as spouses, together, as a couple,
so that the first and immediate effect of marriage (res et sacramentum)
is not supernatural grace itself, but the Christian conjugal bond, a typically
Christian communion of two persons because it represents the mystery of
Christ's incarnation and the mystery of his covenant. The content of participation
in Christ's life is also specific: Conjugal love involves a totality,
in which all the elements of the person enter -- appeal of the body and
instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and
of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, the unity that, beyond union
in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility
and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and is open to fertility
(cf. Humanae Vitae, 9). In a word, it is a question of the normal characteristics
of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only
purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making
them the expression of specifically Christian values" [33].
14. Children, the Precious Gift of Marriage. --------------------------------------------
According to the plan of God, marriage is the foundation of the wider
community of the family, since the very institution of marriage and conjugal
love is ordained to the procreation and education of children, in whom
it finds its crowning [34].
In its most profound reality, love is essentially a gift; and conjugal
love, while leading the spouses to the reciprocal "knowledge"
which makes them "one flesh", [35] does not end with the couple,
because it makes them capable of the greatest possible gift, the gift
by which they become cooperators with God for giving life to a new human
person. Thus the couple, while giving themselves to one another, give
not just themselves but also the reality of children, who are a living
reflection of their love, a permanent sign of conjugal unity and a living
and inseparable synthesis of their being a father and a mother.
When they become parents, spouses receive from God the gift of a new responsibility.
Their parental love is called to become for the children the visible sign
of the very love of God, "from whom every family in heaven and on
earth is named" [36].
It must not be forgotten however, that even when procreation is not possible,
conjugal life does not for this reason lose its value. Physical sterility
in fact, can be for the spouses the occasion for other important services
to the life of the human person, for example, adoption, various forms
of educational work, and assistance to other families and to poor or handicapped
children.
15. The Family, a Communion of Persons. ---------------------------------------
In matrimony and in the family a complex of interpersonal relationships
is set up -- married life, fatherhood and motherhood, filiation and fraternity
-- through which each human person is introduced into the "human
family" and into the "family of God," which is the church.
Christian marriage and the Christian family build up the church: for in
the family the human person is not only brought into being and progressively
introduced by means of education into the human community, but by means
of rebirth of baptism and education in the faith the child is also introduced
into God's family, which is the church.
The human family, disunited by sin, is reconstituted in its unity by the
redemptive power of death and resurrection of Christ [37]. Christian marriage,
by participating in the salvific efficacy of this event, constitutes the
natural setting in which the human person is introduced into the great
family of the church.
The commandment to grown and multiply, given to man and woman in the beginning,
in this way reaches its whole truth and full realization.
The church thus finds in the family, born from the sacrament, the cradle
and the setting in which she can enter the human generations and where
these in turn can enter the church.
16. Marriage and Virginity or Celibacy. ---------------------------------------
Virginity or celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of God not only does
not contradict the dignity of marriage but presupposes it and confirms
it. Marriage and virginity or celibacy are two ways of expressing and
living the one mystery of the covenant of God with his people. When marriage
is not esteemed, neither can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist;
when human sexuality is not regarded as a great value given by the creator,
the renunciation of it for the sake of the kingdom of heaven loses its
meaning.
Rightly indeed does St. John Chrysostom say:
"Whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity.
Whoever praises it makes virginity more admirable and resplendent. What
appears good only in comparison with evil would not be particularly good.
It is something better than what is admitted to be good that is the most
excellent good" [38].
In virginity or celibacy, the human being is awaiting, also in a bodily
way, the eschatological marriage of Christ with the church, giving himself
or herself completely to the church in the hope that Christ may give himself
to the church in the full truth of eternal life. The celibate person thus
anticipates in his or her flesh the new world of the future resurrection
[39].
By virtue of this witness, virginity or celibacy keeps alive in the church
a consciousness of the mystery of marriage and defends it from any reduction
and impoverishment.
Virginity or celibacy, by liberating the human heart in a unique way [40],
"so as to make it burn with greater love for God and all humanity"
[41], bears witness that the kingdom of God and his justice is that pearl
of great price which is preferred to every other value no matter how great,
and hence must be sought as the only definitive value. It is for this
reason that the church throughout her history has always defended the
superiority of this charism to that of marriage, by reason of the wholly
singular link which it has with the kingdom of God [42].
In spite of having renounced physical fecundity, the celibate person becomes
spiritually fruitful, the father and mother of many, cooperating in the
realization of the family according to God's plan.
Christian couples therefore have the right to expect from celibate persons
a good example and a witness of fidelity to their vocation until death.
Just as fidelity at times becomes difficult for married people and requires
sacrifice, mortification and self- denial, the same can happen to celibate
persons, and their fidelity, even in the trials that may occur, should
strengthen the fidelity of married couples [43].
These reflections on virginity or celibacy can enlighten and help those
who, for reasons independent of their own will, have been unable to marry
and have then accepted their situation in a spirit of service.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[20] Cf. Gn. 1:26-27.
[21] Cf. 1 Jn. 4:8.
[22] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 12.
[23] Cf. Ibid, 48.
[24] Cf. e.g., Hos. 2:21; Jer. 3:6-13; Is. 54.
[25] Ez. 16:25.
[26] Cf. Hos. 3.
[27] Cf. G. 2:24; Mt. 19:5.
[28] Cf. Eph. 5:32-33.
[29] Tertullian, AD UXOREM, II, VIII, 6-8: CCL, I, 393.
[30] Cf. Council of Trent, Session XXIV, Canon 1:I.D. Mansi, SACRORUM
CONCILIORUM NOVA ET EMPLISSIMA COLLECTIO, 33, 149-150.
[31] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GUADIUM ET SPES, 48.
[32] John Paul II, Address to the delegates of the Centre de Liaison des
Equipes de Recherche ( Nov. 3, 1979), 3: INSEGNAMENTI II, 2 (1979), 1038.
[33] Ibid, 4; loc. cit., 1032.
[34] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 50.
[35] St. John Chrysostom, VIRGINITY, X: PG 48: 540.
[39] Cf. Mt. 22:30.
[40] Cf. 1 Cor. 7:32-35.
[41] Second Vatican Council, PERFECTAE CARITATIS, 12.
[42] Cf. Pius XII, Encyclical SACRA VIRGINITAS, II: AAS 46 (1954), 174ff.
[43] Cf. John Paul II, Letter NOVO INCPIENTE (April 8, 1979), 9: AAS 71
(1979), 410-411.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
PART THREE THE ROLE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY
17. Family, Become What You Are. --------------------------------
The family finds in the plan of God the creator and redeemer not only
its identity, what it is, but also its mission, what it can and should
do. The role that God calls the family to perform in history derives from
what the family is: its role represents the dynamic and existential development
of what it is. Each family finds within itself a summons that cannot be
ignored and that specifies both its dignity and its responsibility: Family
become what you are.
Accordingly, the family must go back to the "beginning" of God's
creative act if it is to attain self-knowledge and self-realization in
accordance with the inner truth not only of what it is, but also of what
it does in history. And since in God's plan it has been established as
an "intimate community of live and love" [44], the family has
the mission to become more and more what it is, that is to say, a community
of life and love in an effort that will find fulfillment, as will everything
created and redeemed, in the kingdom of God. Looking at it in such a way
as to reach its very roots, we must say that the essence and role of the
family are in the final analysis specified by love. Hence the family has
the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love, and this is a living
reflection of and a real sharing in God's love for humanity and the love
of Christ the Lord for the church, his bride.
Every particular task of the family is an expression and concrete actuation
of that fundamental mission. We must therefore go deeper into the unique
riches of the family's mission and probe its contents, which are both
manifold and unified.
Thus, with love as its point of departure and making constant reference
to it, the recent synod emphasized four general tasks for the family:
I. Forming a community of persons; II. Serving life; III. Participating
in the development of society; IV. Sharing in the life and mission of
the church.
I. FORMING A COMMUNITY OF PERSONS. ----------------------------------
18. Love as the principle and power of communion. -------------------------------------------------
The family, which is founded and given life by love, is a community of
persons: of husband and wife, of parents and children, of relatives. Its
first task is to live with fidelity the reality of communion in a constant
effort to develop an authentic community of persons.
The inner principle of that task, its permanent power and its final goal,
is love: Without love the family is not a community of persons, and in
the same way, without love the family cannot live, grow and perfect itself
as a community of persons. What I wrote in the Encyclical REDEMPTOR HOMINIS
applies primarily and especially within the family as such: "Man
cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible
for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if
he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his
own, if he does not participate intimately in it" [45].
The love between husband and wife and, in a derivatory and broader way,
the love between members of the same family -- between parents and children,
brothers and sisters and relatives and members of the household -- is
given life and sustenance by the unceasing inner dynamism leading the
family to ever deeper and more intense communion, which is the foundation
and soul of the community of marriage and the family.
19. The indivisible unity of conjugal communion. ------------------------------------------------
The first communion is the one which is established and which develops
between husband and wife: By virtue of the covenant of married life, the
man and woman "are no longer two but one flesh" [46] and they
are called to grow continually in their communion through day-to-day fidelity
to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving.
This conjugal communion sinks its roots in the natural complementarity
that exists between man and woman and is nurtured through the personal
willingness of the spouses to share their entire life project, what they
have and what they are: For this reason such communion is the fruit and
the sign of a profoundly human need. But in the Lord Christ God takes
up this human need, confirms it, purifies it and elevates it, leading
it to perfection through the sacrament of matrimony: the Holy Spirit who
is poured out in the sacramental celebration offers Christian couples
the gift of a new communion of love that is the living and real image
of that unique unity which makes of the church the indivisible mystical
body of the Lord Jesus.
The gift of the spirit is a commandment of life for Christian spouses
and at the same time a stimulating impulse so that every day they may
progress toward an ever richer union with each other on all levels --
of the body, of the character, of the heart, of the intelligence and will,
of the soul [47] -- revealing in this way to the church and to the world
the new communion of love, given by the grace of Christ.
Such a communion is radically contradicted by polygamy: This, in fact,
directly negates the plan of God which was revealed from the beginning,
because it is contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women,
who in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and therefore
unique and exclusive. As the Second Vatican Council writes: "Firmly
established by the Lord, the unity of marriage will radiate from the equal
personal dignity of husband and wife, a dignity acknowledged by mutual
and total love" [48].
20. An indissoluble communion. ------------------------------
Conjugal communion is characterized not only by its unity, but also by
its indissolubility: "As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate
union, as well as the good of the children, imposes total fidelity on
the spouses and argues for an unbreakable oneness between them" [49].
It is a fundamental duty of the church to reaffirm strongly, as the synod
fathers did, the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. To all those
who in our times consider it too difficult or indeed impossible to be
bound to one person for the whole of life, and to those caught up in a
culture that rejects indissolubility of marriage and openly mocks the
commitment of spouses to fidelity, it is necessary to reconfirm the good
news of the definitive nature of that conjugal love that has in Christ
its foundation and strength [50].
Being rooted in the personal and total self-giving of the couple and being
required by the good of the children, the indissolubility of marriage
finds its ultimate truth in the plan that God has manifested in his revelation:
He wills and communicates the indissolubility of marriage as a fruit,
a sign and a requirement of the absolutely faithful love that God has
for man and that the Lord Jesus has for the church.
Christ renews the first plan that the creator inscribed in the hearts
of man and woman, and in the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony
offers "a new heart": thus the couples are not only able to
overcome "hardness of heart" [51], but also, and above all,
they are able to share the full and definitive love of Christ, the new
and eternal covenant made flesh. Just as the Lord Jesus is the "faithful
witness" [52], the "yes" of the promises of God [53] and
thus the supreme realization of the unconditional faithfulness with which
God loves his people, so Christian couples are called to participate truly
in the irrevocable indissolubility that binds Christ to the church, his
bride, loved by him to the end [54].
The gift of the sacrament is at the same time a vocation and commandment
for Christian spouses, that they may remain faithful to each other forever,
beyond every trial and difficulty, in generous obedience to the holy will
of the Lord: "What therefore God has joined together, let not man
put asunder" [55].
To bear witness to the inestimable value of the indissolubility and fidelity
of marriage is one of the most precious and most urgent tasks of Christian
couples in our time. So, with all my brothers who participated in the
Synod of Bishops, I praise and encourage those numerous couples who, though
encountering no small difficulty, preserve and develop the value of indissolubility:
Thus in a humble and courageous manner they perform the role committed
to them of being in the world a "sign" -- a small and precious
sign, sometimes also subjected to temptation, but always renewed -- of
the unfailing fidelity with which God and Jesus Christ love each and every
human being. But it is also proper to recognize the value of the witness
of those spouses who, even when abandoned by their partner, with the strength
of faith give an authentic witness to fidelity, of which the world today
has a great need. For this reason they must be encouraged and helped by
the pastors and the faithful of the church.
21. The broader communion of the family. ----------------------------------------
Conjugal communion constitutes the foundation on which is built the broader
communion of family, of parents and children, of brothers and sisters
with each other, of relatives and other members of the household.
This communion is rooted in the natural bonds of flesh and blood and grows
to its specifically human perfection with the establishment and maturing
of the still deeper and richer bonds of the spirit: The love that animates
the interpersonal relationships of the different members of the family
constitutes the interior strength that shapes and animates the family
communion and community.
The Christian family is also called to experience a new and original communion
which confirms and perfects natural and human communion. In fact the grace
of Jesus Christ, "the firstborn among many brethren" [56], is
by its nature and interior dynamism "a grace of brotherhood,"
as St. Thomas Aquinas calls it [57]. The Holy Spirit, who is poured forth
in the celebration of the sacraments, is the living source and inexhaustible
sustenance of the supernatural communion that gathers believers and links
them with Christ and with each other in the unity of the church of God.
The Christian family constitutes a specific revelation and realization
of ecclesial communion, and for this reason too it can and should be called
"the domestic church" [58].
All members of the family, each according to his or her own gift, have
the grace and responsibility of guiding day by day the communion of persons,
making the family "a school of deeper humanity" [59]: This happens
where there is care and love for the little ones, the sick, the aged,
where there is mutual service every day; when there is a sharing of goods,
of joys and of sorrows.
A fundamental opportunity for building such a communion is constituted
by the educational exchange between parents and children [60], in which
each gives and receives. By means of love, respect and obedience toward
their parents, children offer their specific and irreplaceable contribution
to the construction of an authentically human and Christian family [61].
They will be aided in this if parents exercise their unrenounceable authority
as a true and proper "ministry", that is, as a service to the
human and Christian well-being of their children and in particular as
a service aimed at helping them acquire a truly responsible freedom, and
if parents maintain a living awareness of the "gift" they continually
receive from their children.
Family communion can only be preserved and perfected through a great spirit
of sacrifice. It requires, in fact, a ready and generous openness of each
and all to understanding, to forbearance, to pardon, to reconciliation.
There is no family that does not know how selfishness, discord, tension
and conflict violently attack and at times mortally wound its own communion:
Hence there arise the many and varied forms of division in family life.
But, at the same time, every family is called by the God of peace to have
the joyous and renewing experience of "reconciliation", that
is, communion re-established, unity restored. In particular, participation
in the sacrament of reconciliation and in the banquet of the one body
of Christ offers to the Christian family the grace and the responsibility
of overcoming every division and of moving toward the fullness of communion
willed by God, responding in this way to the ardent desire of the Lord:
"that they may be one" [62].
22. The rights and role of women. ---------------------------------
In that it is, and ought to become, a communion and community of persons,
the family finds in love the source and the constant impetus for welcoming,
respecting and promoting each one of its members in his or her lofty dignity
as a person, that is, as a living image of God. As the synod fathers rightly
stated, the moral criterion for the authenticity of conjugal and family
relationships consists in fostering the dignity and vocation of the individual
persons, who achieve their fullness by sincere self- giving [63].
In this perspective the synod devoted special attention to women, to their
rights and role within the family and society. In the same perspective
are also to be considered men as husbands and fathers, and likewise children
and the elderly.
Above all it is important to underline the equal dignity and responsibility
of women with men. This equality is realized in a unique manner in that
reciprocal self-giving by each one to the other and by both to the children
which is proper to marriage and the family. What human reason intuitively
perceives and acknowledges is fully revealed by the word of God: The history
of salvation, in fact, is a continuous and luminous testimony to the dignity
of women.
In creating the human race "male and female" [64], God gives
man and woman an equal personal dignity, endowing them the inalienable
rights and responsibilities proper to the human person. God then manifests
the dignity of women in the highest form possible, by assuming human flesh
from the Virgin Mary, whom the church honors as the mother of God, calling
her the new Eve and presenting her as the model of redeemed woman. The
sensitive respect of Jesus toward the women that he called to his following
and his friendship, his appearing on Easter morning to a woman before
the other disciples, the mission entrusted to women to carry the good
news of the resurrection to the apostles -- these are all signs that confirm
the special esteem of the Lord Jesus for women. The apostle Paul will
say: "IN Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith ...
There is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for
you are all one in Christ Jesus" [65].
23. Women and society. ----------------------
Without intending to deal with all the various aspects of the vast and
complex theme of the relationships between women and society and limiting
these remarks to a few essential points, one cannot but observe that in
the specific area of family life a widespread social and cultural tradition
has considered women's role to be exclusively that of wife and mother,
without adequate access to public functions, which have generally been
reserved for men.
There is no doubt that the equal dignity and responsibility of men and
women fully justifies women's access to public functions. On the other
hand the true advancement of women requires that clear recognition be
given to the value of their maternal and family role, by comparison with
all other public roles and all other professions. Furthermore, these roles
and professions should be harmoniously combined if we wish the evolution
of society and culture to be truly and fully human.
This will come about more easily if, in accordance with the wishes expressed
by the synod, a renewed "theology of work" can shed light upon
and study in depth the meaning of work in the Christian life and determine
the fundamental bond between work and the family, and therefore the original
and irreplaceable meaning of work in the home be recognized and respected
by all in its irreplaceable value.
This is of particular importance in education: For possible discrimination
between the different types of work and professions is eliminated at its
very root once it is clear that all people in every area are working with
equal rights and equal responsibilities. The image of God in man and in
woman will thus be seen with added luster.
While it must be recognized that women have the same right as men to perform
various public functions, society must be structured in such a way that
wives and mothers are not in practice compelled to work outside the home,
and that their families can live and prosper in a dignified way even when
they themselves devote their full time to their own family.
Furthermore, the mentality which honors women more for their work outside
the home than for their work within the family must be overcome. This
requires that men should truly esteem and love women with total respect
for their personal dignity, and that society should create and develop
conditions favoring work in the home.
With due respect to the different vocations of men and women, the church
must in her own life promote as far as possible the equality of rights
and dignity: and this for the good of all, the family, the church, and
society.
But clearly all of this does not mean for women a renunciation of their
femininity or an imitation of the male role, but the fullness of true
feminine humanity which should be expressed in their activity, whether
in the family or outside it, without disregarding the differences of customs
and cultures in this sphere.
24. Offenses against women's dignity. -------------------------------------
Unfortunately the Christian message about the dignity of women is contradicted
by that persistent mentality which considers the human being not as a
person but as a thing, as an object of trade, at the service of selfish
interest and mere pleasure: The first victims of this mentality are women.
This mentality produces very bitter fruits, such as contempt for man and
for women, slavery, oppression of the weak, pornography, prostitution
-- especially in an organized form -- and all those various forms of discrimination
that exist in the fields of education, employment wages, etc.
Besides, many forms of degrading discrimination still persist today in
a great part of our society that affect and seriously harm particular
categories of women, as for example childless wives, widows, separated
or divorced women, and unmarried mothers.
The synod fathers deplored these and other forms of discrimination as
strongly as possible. I therefore ask that vigorous and incisive pastoral
action be taken by all to overcome them definitively so that the image
of God that shines in all human beings without exception may be fully
respected.
25. Men as husbands and fathers. --------------------------------
Within the conjugal and family communion-community, the man is called
upon to live his gift and role as husband and father.
In his wife he sees the fulfillment of God's intention: "It is not
good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fir for him"
[67], and he makes his own of the cry of Adam, the first husband: "This
at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" [68].
Authentic conjugal love presupposes and requires that man have a profound
respect for the equal dignity of his wife: "You are not her master,"
writes St. Ambrose, "but her husband; she was not given to you to
be your slave, but your wife. ... Reciprocate her attentiveness to you
and be grateful to have her for her love" [69]. With his wife a man
should live "a very special form of personal friendship" [70].
As for the Christian, he is called upon to develop a new attitude of love,
manifesting toward his wife a charity that is both gentle and strong life
that which Christ has for the church.
Love for his wife as mother of their children and love for the children
themselves are for the man the natural way of understanding and fulfilling
his own fatherhood. Above all where social and cultural conditions so
easily encourage a father to be less concerned with his family or at any
rate less involved in the work of education, efforts must be made to restore
socially the conviction that the place and task of the father in and for
the family is of unique and irreplaceable importance [72]. As experience
teaches, the absence of a father causes psychological and moral imbalance
and notable difficulties in family relationships, as does, in contrary
circumstances, the oppressive presence of a father, especially where there
still prevails the phenomenon of "machismo," or a wrong superiority
of male prerogatives which humiliates women and inhibits the development
of healthy family relationships.
In revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God [73],
a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of
all the members of the family: He will perform this task by exercising
generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the
mother, by a more solitious commitment to education, a task he shares
with his wife [74], by work which is never a cause of division in the
family but promotes its unity and stability, and by means of the witness
he gives of an adult Christian life which effectively introduces the children
into the living experience of Christ and the church.
26. The rights of children. ---------------------------
In the family, which is a community of persons, special attention must
be devoted to the children by developing a profound esteem for their personal
dignity and a great respect and generous concern for their rights. This
is true of every child, but it becomes all the more urgent the smaller
the child is and the more it is in need of everything, when it is sick,
suffering or handicapped.
By fostering and exercising a tender and strong concern for every child
that comes into this world, the church fulfills a fundamental mission:
for she is called upon to reveal and put forward anew in history the example
and the commandment of Christ the Lord, who placed the child at the heart
of the kingdom of God: "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder
them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" [75].
I repeat once again what I said to the General Assembly of the United
Nations Oct. 2, 1979:
"I wish to express the joy that we all find in children, the springtime
of life, the anticipation of the future history of each of our present
earthly homelands. No country on earth, no political system can think
of its own future otherwise than through the image of these new generations
that will receive from their parents the manifold heritage of values,
duties and aspirations of the nation to which they belong and of the whole
human family. Concern for the child, even before birth, from the first
moment of conception and then throughout the years of infancy and youth,
is the primary and fundamental test of the relationship of one human being
to another. And so, what better which can I express for every nation and
the whole of mankind, and for all the children of the world than a better
future in which respect for human rights will become a complete reality
throughout the third millennium which is drawing near" [76].
Acceptance, love esteem, many-sided and united material, emotional, educational
and spiritual concern for every child that comes into this world should
always constitute a distinctive, essential characteristic of all Christians,
in particular of the Christian family: Thus children while they are able
to grow "in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man"
[77], offer their won precious contribution to building up the family
community and even to the sanctification of their parents [78].
27. The elderly in the family. ------------------------------
There are cultures which manifest a unique veneration and great love for
the elderly: Far from being outcasts from the family or merely tolerated
as a useless burden, they continue to be present and to take an active
and responsible part in family life, though having to respect the autonomy
of the new family, above all they carry out the important mission of being
a witness to the past and a source of wisdom for the young and for the
future.
Other cultures, however, especially in the wake of disordered industrial
and urban development, have both in the past and in the present set the
elderly aside in unacceptable ways. This causes acute suffering to them
and spiritually impoverishes many families.
The pastoral activity of the church must help everyone to discover and
to make good use of the role of the elderly within the civil and ecclesial
community, in particular within the family. In fact, "the life of
the aging helps to clarify a scale of human values; it shows the continuity
of generations and marvelously demonstrates the interdependence of God's
people. The elderly often have the charism to bridge generation gaps before
they are made. How many children have found understanding and love in
the eyes and words and caresses of the aging! And how many old people
have willingly subscribed to the inspired word that the 'crown of the
aged is their children's children' (Prv. 17:6)!" [79].
------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes:
[44] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[45] Encyclical REDEMPTOR HOMINIS, 10: AAS 71 (1979), 274.
[46] Mt. 19:6; cf. Gn. 2:24.
[47] Cf. John Paul II, Letter NOVO INCIPIENTE (April 8, 1979), 9: AAS
71 (1979), 274.
[48] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 49; cf. JOHN PAUL II, Address at Kinshasa 4: loc
cit.
[49] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[50] Cf. Eph. 5:25.
[51] Mt. 19:8.
[52] Rv. 3:14.
[53] Cf. 2 Cor. 1:20.
[54] Cf. Jn. 13:1.
[55] Mt. 19:6.
[56] Rom. 8:29.
[57] St. Thomas Aquinas, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, II-II, q 14, art. 2, ad 4.
[58] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 11; cf. APOSTOLICAM ACTUSITATEM,
11.
[59] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 52.
[60] Cf. Eph. 6:1-4.
[61] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[62] Jn. 17:21.
[63] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 24.
[64] Gn. 1:27.
[65] Gal. 3:26, 28.
[66] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical LABOREM ECERCENS, 19: AAS 73 (1981),
625.
[67] Gn. 2:18.
[68] Gn. 2:23.
[69] St. Ambrose, EXAMERON, V 7, 19: CSEL 32, I, 154.
[70] Paul VI, Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 9: AAS 60 (1968), 486.
[71] Cf. Eph. 5:25.
[72] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations
(Oct. 2, 1979), 21: AAS 71 (1979), 1159.
[73] Cf. Eph. 3:15.
[74] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 52.
[75] Lk. 18:16; cf. Mt. 19:14; Mk. 18:16.
[76] John Paul II, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations
(Oct. 2, 1979), 21: AAS 71 (1979), 1159.
[77] Lk. 2:52.
[78] Cf. Lk. 2:52.
[79] John Paul II, Address to the Participants in the International Forum
on Active Aging (Sept. 5, 1980), 5: INSEGNAMENTI, III (1980), 539.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
II. SERVING LIFE. -----------------
A. The Transmission of Life. ----------------------------
28. Cooperators in the love of God the Creator. -----------------------------------------------
With the creation of man and woman in his own image and likeness, God
crowns and brings to perfection the work of his hands: He calls them to
a special sharing in his love and his power as creator and Gather through
their free and responsible cooperation in transmitting the gift of human
life: "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth and subdue it.'" [80].
Thus the fundamental task of the family is to serve life, to actualize
in history the original blessing of the creator -- that of transmitting
by procreation the divine image from person to person [81].
Fecundity is the fruit and the sign of conjugal love, the living testimony
of the full reciprocal self-giving of the spouses: "While not making
the other purposes of matrimony of less account, the true practice of
conjugal love, and the whole meaning of the family life which results
from it, have this aim: that the couple be ready with stout hearts to
cooperate with the love of the creator and the savior, who through them
will enlarge and enrich his own family day by day" [82].
However, the fruitfulness of conjugal love is not restricted solely to
the procreation of children, even understood in its specifically human
dimension: It is enlarged and enriched by all those fruits of moral, spiritual
and supernatural life which the father and mother are called to hand on
to their children, and through the children to the church and to the world.
29. The church's teaching and norm, always old yet always new. --------------------------------------------------------------
Precisely because the love of husband and wife is a unique participation
in the mystery of life and of the love of God himself, the church knows
that she has received the special mission of guarding and protecting the
lofty dignity of marriage and the most serious responsibility of the transmission
of human life.
Thus, in continuity with the living tradition of the ecclesial community
throughout history, the recent Second Vatican Council and the magisterium
of my predecessor Paul VI, expressed above all in the encyclical HUMANAE
VITAE, have handed on to our times a truly prophetic proclamation, which
reaffirms and reproposes with clarity the church's teaching and norm,
always old yet always new, regarding marriage and regarding the transmission
of human life.
For this reason the synod fathers made the following declaration at their
last assembly:
"This sacred synod, gathered together with the successor of Peter
in the unity of faith, firmly holds what has been set forth in the Second
Vatican Council (Cf. GAUDIUM ET SPES, 50) and afterward in the encyclical
HUMANAE VITAE, particularly that love between husband and wife must be
fully human, exclusive and open to new life (HUMANAE VITAE, 11: cf. 9,
12)" [83].
30. The church stands for life. -------------------------------
The teaching of the church in our day is placed in a social and cultural
context which renders it more difficult to understand and yet more urgent
and irreplaceable for promoting the true good of men and women.
Scientific and technological progress, which contemporary man is continually
expanding in his dominion over nature, not only offers the hope of creating
a new and better humanity, but also causes ever greater anxiety regarding
the future. Some ask themselves if it is a good thing to be alive or if
it would be better never to have been born; they doubt therefore if it
is right to bring others into life when perhaps they will curse their
existence in a cruel world with unforeseeable terrors. Others consider
themselves to be the only ones for whom the advantages of technology are
intended and they exclude others by imposing on them contraceptives or
even worse means. Still others imprisoned in a consumer mentality and
whose sole concern is to bring about a continual growth of material goods,
finish by ceasing to understand, and thus by refusing, the spiritual riches
of a new human life. The ultimate reason for these mentalities is the
absence in people's hearts of God, whose love alone is stronger than all
the world's fears and can conquer them.
Thus an anti-life mentality is born, as can be seen in many current issues:
One thinks, for example of a certain panic deriving from the studies of
ecologists and futurologists on population growth, which sometimes exaggerate
the danger of demographic increase to the quality of life.
But the church firmly believes that human life, even if weak and suffering,
is always a splendid gift of God's goodness. Against the pessimism and
selfishness which cast a shadow over the world, the church stands for
life: In each human life she sees the splendor of that "yes",
that "amen", who is Christ himself [84]. To the "no"
which assails and afflicts the world, she replies with this living "yes",
thus defending the human person and the world from all who plot against
and harm life.
The church is called upon to manifest anew to everyone, with clear and
stronger conviction, her will to promote human life by every means and
to defend it against all attacks in whatever condition or state of development
it is found.
Thus the church condemns as a grave offense against human dignity and
justice all those activities of governments or other public authorities
which attempt to limit in any way the freedom of couples in deciding about
children. Consequently any violence applied by such authorities in favor
of contraception or, still worse, of sterilization and procured abortion
must be altogether condemned and forcefully rejected. Likewise to be denounced
as gravely unjust are cases where in international relations economic
help given for the advancement of peoples is made conditional on programs
of contraception, sterilization and procured abortion [85].
31. That God's design may be ever more completely fulfilled. ------------------------------------------------------------
The church is certainly aware of the many complex problems which couples
in many countries face today in their task of transmitting life in a responsible
way. She also recognizes the serious problem of population growth in the
form it has taken in many parts of the world and its moral implications.
However, she holds that consideration in depth of all the aspects of these
problems offers a new and stronger confirmation of the importance of the
authentic teaching on birth regulation reproposed in the Second Vatican
Council and in the encyclical HUMANAE VITAE.
For this reason, together with the synod fathers I feel it is my duty
to extend a pressing invitation to theologians, asking them to unite their
efforts in order to collaborate with the hierarchial magisterium and to
commit themselves to the task of illustrating ever more clearly the biblical
foundations, the ethical grounds and the personalistic reasons behind
this doctrine. Thus it will be possible, in the context of an organic
exposition, to render the teaching of the church on this fundamental question
truly accessible to all people of good will, fostering a daily more enlightened
and profound understanding of it. In this way God's plan will be ever
more completely fulfilled for the salvation of humanity and for the glory
of the Creator.
A united effort by theologians in this regard, inspired by a convinced
adherence to the magisterium, which is the one authentic guide for the
people of God, is particularly urgent for reasons that include the close
link between Catholic teaching on this matter and the view of the human
person that the church proposes: Doubt or error in the field of marriage
or the family involves obscuring to a serious extent the integral truth
about the human person in a cultural situation that is already so often
confused and contradictory. In fulfillment of their specific role theologians
are called upon to provide enlightenment and a deeper understanding, and
their contribution is of incomparable value and represents a unique and
highly meritorious service to the family and humanity.
32. In an integral vision of the human person and of his or her ---------------------------------------------------------------
vocation. ---------
In the context of a culture which seriously distorts or entirely misinterprets
the true meaning of human sexuality because it separates it from its reference
to the person, the church more urgently feels how irreplaceable is her
mission of presenting sexuality as a value and task of the whole person,
created male and female in the image of God.
In this perspective the Second Vatican Council clearly affirmed that "when
there is a question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible
transmission of life, the moral aspect of any procedure does not depend
solely on sincere intentions or on an evaluation of motives. It must be
determined by objective standards. These, based on the nature of the human
person and his or her acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving
and human procreation in the context of true love. Such a goal cannot
be achieved unless the virtue of conjugal chastity is sincerely practiced"
[86].
It is precisely by moving from "an integral vision of man and of
his vocation, not only his natural and earthly, but also his supernatural
and eternal vocation" [87], that Paul VI affirmed that the teaching
of the church "is founded upon the inseparable connection willed
by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative between the
two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative
meaning" [88]. And he concluded by re-emphasizing that there must
be excluded as intrinsically immoral "every action which, either
in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the
development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or
as a means, to render procreation impossible" [89].
When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two
meanings that God the creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman
and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as "arbiters"
of the divine plan and they "manipulate" and degrade human sexuality
and with it themselves and their married partner by altering its value
of "total" self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses
the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through
contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that
of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive
refusal to be open to life, but also to a falsification of the inner truth
of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.
When, instead, by means of recourse to periods of infertility, the couple
respect inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings
of human sexuality, they are acting as "ministers" of God's
plan and they "benefit from" their sexuality according to the
original dynamism of "total" self-giving, without manipulation
or alteration [90].
In light of the experience of many couples and of the data provided by
the different human sciences, theological reflection is able to perceive
and is called to study further the difference, both anthropological and
moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle:
It is a difference which is much wider and deeper than is usually thought,
one which involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of
the human person and of human sexuality. The choice of the natural rhythms
involves accepting the cycle of the person, that is, the woman, and thereby
accepting dialogue, reciprocal respect, shared responsibility and self-control.
To accept the cycle and to enter into dialogue means to recognize both
the spiritual and corporal character of conjugal communion and to live
personal love with its requirement of fidelity. In this context the couple
comes to experience how conjugal communion is enriched with those values
of tenderness and affection which constitute the inner soul of human sexuality
in its physical dimension also. In this way sexuality is respected and
promoted in its truly and fully human dimension and is never "used"
as an "object" that, by breaking the personal unity of soul
and body, strikes at God's creation itself at the level of the deepest
interaction of nature and person.
33. The church as teacher and mother for couples in difficulty. ---------------------------------------------------------------
In the field of conjugal morality the church is teacher and mother and
acts as such.
As teacher, she never tires of proclaiming the moral norm that must guide
the responsible transmission of life. The church is in no way the author
or arbiter of this norm. In obedience to the truth which is Christ, whose
image is reflected in the nature and dignity of the human person, the
church interprets the moral norm and proposes it to all people of good
will without concealing its demands of radicalness and perfection.
As mother, the church is close to the married couples who find themselves
in difficulty over this important point of the moral life: She knows well
their situation, which is often very arduous and at times truly tormented
by difficulties of every kind, not only individual difficulties but social
ones as well; she knows that many couples encounter difficulties not only
in the concrete fulfillment of the moral norm but even in understanding
its inherent values.
But it is one and the same church that is both teacher and mother. And
so the church never ceases to exhort and encourage all to resolve whatever
conjugal difficulties may arise without ever falsifying or compromising
the truth: She is convinced that there can be no true contradiction between
divine law on transmitting life and that on fostering authentic married
love [91]. Accordingly, the concrete pedagogy of the church must always
remain linked with her doctrine and never be separated from it. With the
same conviction as my predecessor, I therefore repeat: "To diminish
in no way the saving teaching of Christ constitutes an eminent form of
charity for souls" [92].
On the other hand, authentic ecclesial pedagogy displays its realism and
wisdom only by making a tenacious and courageous effort to create and
uphold all human conditions -- psychological, moral and spiritual -- indispensable
for understanding and living the moral value and norm.
There is no doubt that these conditions must include persistence and patience,
humility and strength of mind, filial trust in God and in his grace, and
frequent recourse to prayer and to the sacraments of the eucharist and
of reconciliation [93]. Thus strengthened, Christian husbands and wives
will be able to keep alive their awareness of the unique influence that
the grace of the sacrament of marriage has on every aspect of married
life including, therefore, their sexuality: The gift of the Spirit, accepted
and responded to by the husband and wife, helps them to live their human
sexuality in accordance with God's plan and as a sign of the unitive and
fruitful love of Christ for his church.
But the necessary conditions also include knowledge of the bodily aspect
and the body's rhythms of fertility. Accordingly, every effort must be
made to render such knowledge accessible to all married people and also
to young adults before marriage through clear, timely and serious instruction
and education given by married couples, doctors and experts. Knowledge
must then lead to education in self-control: Hence the absolute necessity
for the virtue of chastity and for permanent education in it. In the Christian
view, chastity by no means signifies rejection of human sexuality or the
lack of esteem for it: Rather it signifies spiritual energy capable of
defending love from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and
able to advance it toward its full realization.
With deeply wise and loving intuition, Paul VI, was only voicing the experience
of many married couples when he wrote in his encyclical: To dominate instinct
by means of one's reason and free will undoubtably requires ascetical
practices, so that the affective manifestations of conjugal life may observe
the correct order, in particular with regard to the observance of periodic
continence. Yet this discipline which is proper to the purity of married
couples, far from harming conjugal love, rather confers it to a higher
human value. It demands continual effort, yet thanks to its beneficent
influence husband and wife fully develop their personalities, being enriched
with spiritual values. Such discipline bestows upon family life fruits
of serenity and peace,. and facilitates the solution of other problems;
it favors attention for one's partner, helps both parties to drive out
selfishness, the enemy of true love, and deepens their sense of responsibility.
By its means, parents acquire the capacity of having a deeper and more
efficacious influence on the education of their offspring" [94].
34. The moral progress of married people. -----------------------------------------
It is always very important to have a right notion of the moral order,
its values and its norms; and the importance is all the greater when the
difficulties in the way or respecting them become more numerous and serious.
Since the moral order reveals and sets forth the plan of God the creator,
for this very reason it cannot be something that harms man, something
impersonal. On the contrary, by responding to the deepest demands of the
human being created by God, it places itself at the service of that person's
full humanity with the delicate and binding love whereby God himself inspires,
sustains and guides every creature toward its happiness.
But man, who has been called to live God's wise and loving design in a
responsible manner, is an historical being who day by day builds himself
up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves and accomplishes
moral good by stages of growth.
Married people too are called upon to progress unceasingly in their moral
life with the support of a sincere and active desire to gain ever better
knowledge of the values enshrined in and fostered by the law of God. They
must also be supported by an upright and generous willingness to embody
these values in their concrete decisions. They cannot, however, look on
the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: They must consider
it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy.
"And so what is know as 'the law of gradualness' or step-by-step
advance cannot be identified with 'gradualness of the law,' as if there
were different degrees or forms of precept in God's law for different
individuals and situations. In God's plan, all husbands and wives are
called in marriage to holiness, and this lofty vocation is fulfilled to
the extent that the human person is able to respond to God's command with
serene confidence in God's grace and in his or her own will" [95].
On the same lines, it is part of the church's pedagogy that husbands and
wives would first recognize clearly the teaching of HUMANAE VITAE as indicating
the norm for the exercise of their sexuality, and that they should endeavor
to establish the conditions necessary for observing that norm. As the
synod noted, this pedagogy embraces the whole of married life. Accordingly,
the function of transmitting life must be integrated into the overall
mission of Christian life as a whole which, without the cross, cannot
reach the resurrection. In such a context it is understandable that sacrifice
cannot be removed from family life, but must in fact be wholeheartedly
accepted if the love between husband and wife is to be deepened and become
a source of intimate joy.
This shared progress demands reflection, instruction and suitable education
on the part of the priests, religious and lay people engaged in family
pastoral work: they will all be able to assist married people in their
human and spiritual progress, a progress that demands awareness of sin,
a sincere commitment to observe the moral law and the ministry of reconciliation.
It must also be kept in mind that conjugal intimacy involves the wills
of two persons, who are thereby called to harmonize their mentality and
behavior, requiring much patience, understanding and time. Uniquely important
in this field is unity of moral and pastoral judgement by priests -- a
unity that must be carefully sought and ensured in order that the faithful
may not have to suffer anxiety of conscience [96].
It will be easier for married people to make progress if, with respect
for the church's teaching and with trust in the grace of Christ, and with
the help and support of the pastors of souls and the entire ecclesial
community, they are able to discover and experience the liberating and
inspiring value of authentic love that is offered by the Gospel and set
before us by the Lord's commandment.
35. Instilling conviction and offering practical help. ------------------------------------------------------
With regard to the question of lawful birth regulation, the ecclesial
community at the present time must take on the task of instilling conviction
and offering practical help to those who wish to live out their parenthood
in a truly responsible way.
In this matter, while the church notes with satisfaction the results achieved
by scientific research aimed at more precise knowledge of the rhythms
of women's fertility, and while it encourages a more decisive and wide-ranging
extension of that research, it cannot fail to call with renewed vigor
on the responsibility of all -- doctors, experts, marriage counselors,
teachers and married couples -- who can actually help married people to
live their love with respect for the structure and finalities of the conjugal
act which expresses that love. This implies a broader, more decisive and
more systematic effort to make the natural methods of regulating fertility
known, respected and applied [97].
A very valuable witness can and should be given by those husbands and
wives who, through their joint exercise of periodic continence, have reached
a more mature personal responsibility with regard to love and life. As
Paul VI wrote: "To them the Lord entrusts the task of making visible
to people the holiness and sweetness of the law which unites the mutual
love of husband and wife with their cooperation with the love of God the
author of human life" [98].
------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes:
[80] Gn. 1:28.
[81] Cf. Gn. 5:1-3.
[82] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[83] PROPOSITIO 21. Section 11 of the encyclical HUMANAE VITAE ends with
the statement: "The church, calling people back to the observance
of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted by her constant doctrine,
teaches that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission
of life (ut quilibet matrimonii usus ad vitam humanan procreandam per
se destinatus permaneat)": AAS 60 (1968), 488.
[84] Cf. 2 Cor. 1:19; Rv. 3:14.
[85] Cf. The sixth Synod of Bishops' Message to Christian Families in
the Modern World (Oct. 24, 1980), 5.
[86] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 51.
[87] Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 7: AAS 60 (1968), 485.
[88] Ibid., 12: loc cit. 488-489.
[89] Ibid., 14: loc cit. 490.
[90] Ibid., 13: loc cit.,m 489.
[91] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 51.
[92] Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 29: AAS 60 (1968), 501.
[93] Cf. Ibid., 25: loc cit. 498-499.
[94] Ibid., 21: loc cit. 496.
[95] John Paul II, Homily at the Close of the Sixth Synod of Bishops (Oct.
25, 1980), 8: AAS 72 (1980), 1083.
[96] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 28: AAS 60 (1968), 501.
[97] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Delegates of the Centre de Liaison
des Equipes de Recherche (Nov. 3, 1979), 9: INSEGNAMENTI, II, 2 (1979),
1035; and cf. Address to the Participants in the First Congress for the
Family of Africa and Europe (Jan. 15, 1981):
[98] Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 25: AAS 60 (1968), 499.
------------------------------------------------------------------
B. Education. -------------
36. The right and duty of parents regarding education. ------------------------------------------------------
The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation of married
couples to participate in God's creative activity: By begetting in love
and for love a new person who has within himself or herself the vocation
for growth and development, parents by that very fact take the task of
helping that person effectively to live a fully human life. As the Second
Vatican Council recalled, "Since parents have conferred life on their
children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring.
Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators
of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely
anything can compensate for their failure in it. For it devolves on parents
to create a family atmosphere so animated with love and reverence for
God and others that a well-rounded personal and social development will
be fostered among the children. Hence, the family is the first school
of those social virtues which every society needs" [99].
The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it
is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary
with regard to the educational role of others on account of the uniqueness
of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable
and inalienable and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to
others or usurped by others.
In addition to those characteristics, it cannot be forgotten that the
most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational role of
parents, is parental love, which finds fulfillment in the task of education
as it completes and perfects its service of life. As well as being a source,
the parents' love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm
inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it
with the values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness
and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of love.
37. Educating in the essential values of human life. ----------------------------------------------------
Even amid difficulties of the work of education, difficulties which are
often greater today, parents must trustingly and courageously train their
children in the essential values of human life. Children must grow up
with a correct attitude of freedom with regard to material goods, by adopting
a simple and austere lifestyle and being fully convinced that "man
is more precious for what he is than for what he has" [100].
In a society shaken and split by tensions and conflicts caused by the
violent clash of various kinds of individualism and selfishness, children
must be enriched not only with a sense of true justice, which alone leads
to respect for the personal dignity of each individual, but also and more
powerfully by a sense of true love, understood as sincere solicitude and
disinterested service with regard to others, especially the poorest and
those in most need. The family is the first and fundamental school of
social living: As a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law
that guides it and makes it grow. The self-giving that inspires the love
of husband and wife for each other is the model and norm for the self-giving
that must be practiced in the relationships between brothers and sisters
of the different generations living together in the family. And the communion
and sharing that are part of everyday life in the home at times of joy
and at times of difficulty are the most concrete and effective pedagogy
for the active, responsible and fruitful inclusion of the children in
the wider horizon of society.
Education in love as self-giving is also the indispensable premise for
parents called to give their children a clear and delicate sex education.
Faced with a culture that largely reduced human sexuality to the level
of something commonplace, since it interprets and lives it in a reductive
and impoverished way by linking it solely with the body and with selfish
pleasure, the educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training
in the area of sex that is truly and fully personal: for sexuality is
an enrichment of the whole person -- body, emotions and soul -- and it
manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self
in love.
Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always
be carried out under their attentive guidance whether at home or in educational
centers chosen and controlled by them. In this regard, the church reaffirms
the law of subsidiarity, which the school is bound to observe when it
cooperates in sex education, by entering into the same spirit that animates
the parents.
In this context education for chastity is absolutely essential, for it
is a virtue that develops a person's authentic maturity and makes him
or her capable of respecting and fostering the "nuptial meaning"
of the body. Indeed Christian parents, discerning the signs of God's call,
will devote special attention and care to education in virginity or celibacy
as the supreme from of that self-giving that constitutes the very meaning
of human sexuality.
In view of the close links between the sexual dimension of the person
and his or her ethical values, education must bring the children to a
knowledge of and respect for the moral norms as the necessary and highly
valuable guarantee for responsible personal growth in human sexuality.
For this reason the church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form
of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principles. That would
merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure and a stimulus
leading to the loss of serenity -- while still in the years of innocence
-- by opening the way to vice.
38. The mission to educate and the sacrament of marriage. ---------------------------------------------------------
For Christian parents the mission to educate, a mission rooted as we have
said in their participation in God's creating activity, has a new specific
source in the sacrament of marriage, which consecrates them for the strictly
Christian education of their children: that is to say, it calls upon them
to share in the very authority and love of God the Father and Christ the
shepherd, and in the motherly love of the church, and it enriches them
with wisdom, counsel, fortitude and all the other fits of the Holy Spirit
in order to help the children in their growth as human beings and as Christians.
The sacrament of marriage gives to the educational role the dignity and
vocation of being really and truly a "ministry" of the church
at the service of the building up of her members. So great and splendid
is the educational ministry of Christian parents that St. Thomas has no
hesitation in comparing it with the ministry of priests: "Some only
propagate and guard spiritual life by a spiritual ministry: This is the
role of the sacrament of orders, others do this for both corporal and
spiritual life, and this is brought about by the sacrament of marriage,
by which a man and a woman join in order to beget offspring and bring
them up to worship God" [101].
A vivid and attentive awareness of the mission that they have received
with the sacrament of marriage will help Christian parents to place themselves
at the service of the children's education with great serenity and trustfulness,
and also with a sense of responsibility before God, who calls them and
gives them the mission of building up the church in their children. Thus
in the case of baptized people, the family, called together by word and
sacrament as the church of the home, is both teacher and mother, the same
as the worldwide church.
39. First experience of the church. -----------------------------------
The mission to educate demands that Christian parents should present to
their children all the topics that are necessary for the gradual maturing
of their personality from a Christian and ecclesial point of view. They
will therefore follow the educational lines mentioned above, taking care
to show their children the depths of significance to which the faith and
love of Jesus Christ can lead. Furthermore, their awareness that the Lord
is entrusting to them the growth of a child of God, a brother or sister
of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a member of the church, will support
Christian parents in their task of strengthening the gift of divine grace
in their children's souls.
The Second Vatican Council describes the content of Christian education
as follows: "Such an education does not merely strive to foster maturity
... in the human person. Rather, its principal aims are these: that as
baptized persons are gradually introduced into a knowledge of the mystery
of salvation, they may daily grow more conscious of the gift of faith
which they have received; that they may learn to adore God the Father
in spirit and in truth (cf. Jn. 4:23), especially through liturgical worship;
that they may be trained to conduct their personal life in true righteousness
and holiness, according to their new nature (Eph. 4:22-24), and thus grow
to maturity, to the stature of the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:13),
and devote themselves to the upbuilding of the mystical body. Moreover,
aware of their calling, they should grow accustomed to giving witness
to the hope that is in them (cf. 1Pt. 3:15), and to promoting the Christian
transformation of the world" {102}.
The synod too, taking up and developing the indications of the council,
presented the educational mission of the Christian family as a true ministry
through which the Gospel is transmitted and radiated, so that family life
itself becomes an itinerary of faith and in some way a Christian initiation
and a school of following Christ. Within a family that is aware of this
gift, as Paul VI wrote, "all members evangelize and are evangelized"
[103].
By virtue of their ministry of educating, parents are through the witness
of their lives the first heralds of the Gospel for their children. Furthermore,
by praying with their children, by reading the word of God with them and
by introducing them deeply through Christian initiation into the body
of Christ -- both the eucharistic and the ecclesial body -- they become
fully parents, in that they are begetters not only of bodily life but
also of the life that through the Spirit's renewal flows from the cross
and resurrection of Christ.
In order that Christian parents may worthily carry out their ministry
of education, the synod fathers expressed the hope that a suitable catechism
for families would be prepared, one that would be clear, brief and easily
assimilated by all. The episcopal conferences were warmly invited to contribute
to producing this catechism.
40. Relations with other educating agents. ------------------------------------------
The family is the primary but not the only and exclusive educating community.
Man's community aspect itself -- both civil and ecclesial -- demands and
leads to a broader and more articulated activity resulting from well-ordered
collaboration between the various agents of education. All these agents
are necessary, even though each can and should play its part in accordance
with the special competence and contribution proper to itself [104].
The educational role of the Christian family therefore has a very important
place in the organic pastoral work. This involves a new form of cooperation
between parents and Christian communities and between the various educational
groups and pastors. In this sense, the renewal of the Catholic school
must give special attention both to the parents of the pupils and to the
formation of a perfect educating community.
The right of parents to choose an education in conformity with their religious
faith must be absolutely guaranteed.
The state and the church have the obligation to give families all possible
aid to enable them to perform their educational role properly. Therefore
both the church and the state must create and foster the institutions
and activities that families justly demand, and the aid must be in proportion
to the families' needs. However, those in society who are in charge of
schools must never forget that the parents have been appointed by God
himself as the first and principal educators of their children and that
their right is completely inalienable.
But corresponding to their right, parents have a serious duty to commit
themselves totally to a cordial and active relationship with the teachers
and school authorities.
If ideologies opposed to the Christian faith are taught in the schools,
the family must join other families, if possible through family associations,
and with all its strength and with wisdom help the young not to depart
from the faith. In this case the family needs special assistance from
pastors of souls, who must never forget that parents have the inviolable
right to entrust their children to the ecclesial community.
41. Manifold service to life. -----------------------------
Fruitful married life expresses itself in serving life in many ways. Of
these ways, begetting and educating children are the most immediate, specific
and irreplaceable. In fact, every act of true love toward a human being
bears witness to and perfects the spiritual fecundity of the family, since
it is an act of obedience to the deep inner dynamism of love as self-giving
to others.
For everyone this perspective is full of value and commitment, and it
can be an inspiration in particular for couples who experience physical
sterility.
Christian families, recognizing with faith all human beings as children
of the same heavenly Father, will respond generously to the children of
other families, giving them support and love not as outsiders but as members
of the one family of God's children. Christian parents will thus be able
to spread their love beyond the bonds of flesh and blood, nourishing the
links that are rooted in the spirit and that develop through concrete
service to the children of other families, who are often without even
the barest necessities.
Christian families will be able to show greater readiness to adopt and
foster children who have lost their parents or have been abandoned by
the. Rediscovering the warmth of affection of a family, these children
will be able to experience God's loving and provident fatherhood witnessed
to by Christian parents, and they will thus be able to grow up with serenity
and confidence in life. At the same time the whole family will be enriched
with the spiritual values of a wider fraternity.
Family fecundity must have an unceasing "creativity", a marvelous
fruit of the Spirit of God, who opens the eyes of the heart to discover
the new needs and sufferings of our society and gives courage for accepting
them and responding to them. A vast field of activity lies open to families:
Today even more preoccupying than child abandonment is the phenomenon
of social and cultural exclusion, which seriously affects the elderly,
the sick, the disabled, drug addicts, ex-prisoners, etc.
This broadens enormously the horizons of the parenthood of Christian families:
These and many other urgent needs of our time are a challenge to their
spiritually fruitful love. With families and through them, the Lord Jesus
continues to "have compassion" on the multitudes.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes:
[99] GRAVISSIUM EDUCATIONIS, 3.
[100] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 35.
[101] St. Thomas Aquinas, SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES, IV, 58.
[102] GRAVISSIUM EDUCATIONIS, 2.
[103] Apostolic Exhortation EVANGELII NUNTIANDI, 71: AAS 68 (1976), 60-61.
[104] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 3.
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III. PARTICIPATING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY. -------------------------------------------------
42. The Family as the first and vital cell of society. -------