Family Become What You Are!
John Paul II Familiaris Consortio (17)
MARRIAGE
• Conjugal love reveals its true nature and nobility
when it is considered in its supreme origin, God, who is love.
Humanae Vitae 8.
• Marriage is the wise institution of the Creator to
realize in mankind His design of love. HV 8
• By means of the reciprocal personal gift of self,
proper and exclusive to them, husband and wife collaborate
with God in the generation and education of new lives. HV
8
Characteristics of conjugal love: HV 9
- Conjugal love is fully human – of the senses and
of the spirit, an act of free will
- Conjugal love is total – a very special form of personal
friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything,
rejoicing that they can enrich their partner with the gift
of themselves
- Conjugal love is faithful and exclusive to death
- Conjugal love is fruitful, for it is not exhausted by the
communion between husband and wife, but is destined to continue,
raising up new lives.
Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute
very substantially to the welfare of their parents. Gaudium
et Spes 50
Two meanings of conjugal love : unitive and procreative.
The conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true
mutual love and its ordination towards man’s most high
calling to parenthood. HV 12
To use this divine gift destroying, even if only partially,
its meaning and purpose, is to contradict the nature both
of man and woman and of their most intimate relationship.
HV 13
FAMILY - 4 general tasks of the family
• Forming a community of persons – without love
the family cannot live, grow and perfect itself as a community
of persons. Familiaris Consortion 18
The gift of the Spirit is a commandment of life – of
the body, of the character, of the heart, of the intelligence
and the will, of the soul – that they may remain faithful
to each other forever. FC 19
All members of the family, each according to his or her own
gift, have the grace and responsibility of building, day by
day, the communion of persons, making the family “a
school of deeper humanity”. FC21
• Serving life – husband and wife share in God’s
love and his power as Creator and Father, through their free
and responsible co-operation in transmitting the gift of human
life. FC 28
Human life even if weak and suffering, is always a splendid
gift of God’s goodness. FC 30
We are called to manifest anew to everyone, the will to promote
human life by every means and defend it against all attacks
in whatever condition or state of development it is found.
FC 30
• Participating in the development of society –
society benefits from:
The family as the first and vital cell of society. FC 42
Family life as an experience of communion and sharing. FC
43
Relationships marked by respect, justice, dialogue and love.
FC 43
Families open to and participating in society and its development.
FC 45
Society respecting and fostering the family. FC 45
Family and society having complementary functions in defending
and fostering the good of each and every human being. FC45
• Sharing in the life and mission of the Church -
It is in the love between husband and wife and between the
members of the family – a love lived out in all its
extraordinary richness of values and demands: totality, oneness,
fidelity and fruitfulness – that the Christian family’s
participation in the mission of the Church finds expression
and realisation. FC 50
Love and life constitute the nucleus of the saving mission
of the family, the domestic church. FC 50
As a community of love and life, the family is a firmly grounded
social reality and an example to the world. John Paul II Letter
to Families 17
References and further reading:
Paul VI Humanae Vitae, Encyclical Letter on the Regulation
of Birth, 1968
John Paul II Familiaris Consortio, Apostolic Exhortation
on The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, 1981
John Paul II Letter to Families, written for the Year of
the Family, 1994
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