CLICK for explanation of Logo CLICK for Simbahayan's kind host
SIMBAHAYAN DOCTRINAL COMPILATION
"DOMESTIC CHURCH"
in Evangelii Nuntiandi

Catholic teaching accepts the natural truth that the family is the basic human society. On top of its natural dignity, the family has been raised by Jesus Christ -- by virtue of the Sacrament of Matrimony -- to the nature of a "Domestic Church".
The wider community of believers more commonly known as "the Church" is best understood in turn to be the "Family of God", a communion of persons with God as Father, we as children (through, with and in Jesus Christ His Son), and with a divinely appointed mother, Mary the mother of Jesus.
The following is a choice excerpt from the papal document Evangelii Nuntiandi (Proclaiming the Gospel) -- an apostolic exhortation on evangelization in the modern world, issued in December 1975 by Pope Paul VI. The Pope outlines family-based evangelization as fundamental to the Church's mission. In the present excerpt, the Holy Father reaffirms the ecclesial nature of the family. We have used the official translation; emphases and thematic titles have been added, however, to facilitate your personal study and reflection.
The Domestic Church as Evangelizer +
The Christian Family is Truly Church +
71.    One cannot fail to stress the evangelizing action of the family in the evangelizing apostolate of the laity.
         At different moments in the Church's history and also in the Second Vatican Council, the family has well deserved the beautiful name of "domestic Church".*   This means that there should be found in every Christian family the various aspects of the entire Church. Furthermore, the family, like the Church, ought to be a place where the Gospel is transmitted and from which the Gospel radiates.
         In a family which is conscious of this mission, all the members evangelize and are evangelized. The parents not only communicate the Gospel to their children, but from their children they can themselves receive the same Gospel as deeply lived by them.
         And such a family becomes the evangelizer of many other families, and of the neighborhood of which it forms part. Families resulting from a mixed marriage also have the duty of proclaiming Christ to the children in the fullness of the consequences of a common Baptism; they have moreover the difficult task of becoming builders of unity.



END NOTE
* Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 11.
   Vatican II, Apostolicam Actuositatem, n. 11.
   Saint John Chrysostom, In Genesim Serm. VI, 2; VII, 1: PG 54, 607-608.
< Teachings Menu MAIN PAGE Familiaris Consortio, 21  >

| PRAYERS | JOHN PAUL II | FEATURE | TEACHINGS | PARADIGMS | AGENDA | PROGRAMS | DOWNLOADS | SEARCH | EMAIL |


DOLPHIN   WEBSTER
WEB DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
dolphin.web@mailcity.com