Pope Francis
Amoris
Laetitia #’s 321-325
Christian couples
are, for each other, for their children and for their relatives, cooperators of
grace and witnesses of the faith. God
calls them to bestow life and to care for life.
For this reason the family has always been the nearest “hospital.” So let us care for one another, guide and
encourage one another, and experience this as a part of our family
spirituality. Life as a couple is a
daily sharing in God’s creative work, and each person is for the other a
constant challenge from the Holy Spirit.
God’s love is proclaimed through the living and concrete word whereby a
man and the woman express their conjugal love.
The two are thus mutual reflections of that divine love which comforts
with a word, a look, a helping hand, a caress, an embrace. For this reason to want to form a family is
to resolve to be a part of God’s dream, to choose to dream with him, to want to
build with him, to join him in this saga of building a world where no one will
feel alone.
All family life is
a shepherding in mercy. Each of us, by
our love and care, leaves a mark on the life of others… Each of us is a fisher of men who in Jesus’
name casts the nets to others, or a farmer who tills the fresh soil of those
whom he or she loves, seeking to bring out the best in them. Marital fruitfulness involves helping others,
for to love anybody is to expect from him something which can neither be
defined nor foreseen; it is at the same time in some way to make it possible
for him to fulfill this expectation.
This is itself a way to worship God, who has sown so much good in others
in the hope that we will help make it grow.
It is a profound
spiritual experience to contemplate our loved ones with the eyes of God and to see
Christ in them. This demands a freedom
and openness which enable us to appreciate their dignity. We can be fully present to others only by
giving fully to ourselves and forgetting all else. Our loved ones merit our complete
attention. Jesus is our model in this,
for whenever people approached to speak with him, he would meet their gaze,
directly and lovingly. No one felt
overlooked in his presence, since his words and gestures conveyed the question: “What do you want me to do for you?” This is what we experience in the daily life
of the family. We are constantly
reminded that each of those who live with us merits attention, since he or she
possesses infinite dignity as an object of the Father’s immense love. This gives rise to a tenderness which can
“stir in the other the joy of having loved.
Tenderness is expressed in a particular way by exercising loving care in
treating the limitations of the other, especially when they are evident.
Led by the Spirit,
the family circle is not only open to life by generating it within itself, but
also by going forth and spreading life by caring for others and seeking
happiness. This openness finds
particular expression in hospitality, which the word of God eloquently
encourages: “Do not neglect to show hospitality
to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” When a family is welcoming and reaching out
to others, especially the poor and the neglected, it is a “symbol, witness and
participant in the Church’s motherhood.”
Social love, as a reflection of the Trinity, is what truly unifies the
spiritual meaning of the family and its mission to others, for it makes present
the kerygma in all its communal imperatives.
The family lives its spirituality precisely by being at one and the same
time a domestic church and a vital cell for transforming the world.
The teaching of
Christ and Saint Paul on marriage is set in the context of the ultimate and
definitive dimension of our human existence.
We urgently need to rediscover the richness of this teaching. By heeding it, married couples will come to
see the deeper meaning of their journey through life.