The Priestly Role of the Family
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2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A COMMUNITY IN DIALOGUE WITH GOD
The Church's Sanctuary in the Home
55.
The proclamation of the Gospel and its acceptance in faith reach their fullness in the celebration of the sacraments. The Church which is a believing and evangelizing community is also a priestly people invested with the dignity and sharing in the power of Christ the High Priest of the New and Eternal Covenant.1
The Christian family too is part of this priestly people which is the Church. By means of the sacrament of marriage, in which it is rooted and from which it draws its nourishment, the Christian family is continuously vivified by the Lord Jesus and called and engaged by Him in a dialogue with God through the sacraments, through the offering of one's life, and through prayer.
This is the priestly role which the Christian family can and ought to exercise in intimate communion with the whole Church, through the daily realities of married and family life. In this way the Christian family is called to be sanctified and to sanctify the ecclesial community and the world.
Marriage as a Sacrament of Mutual Sanctification and an Act of Worship
56.
The sacrament of marriage is the specific source and original means of sanctification for Christian married couples and families. It takes up again and makes specific the sanctifying grace of Baptism. By virtue of the mystery of the death and Resurrection of Christ, of which the spouses are made part in a new way by marriage, conjugal love is purified and made holy: "This love the Lord has judged worthy of special gifts, healing, perfecting and exalting gifts of grace and of charity." 2
The gift of Jesus Christ is not exhausted in the actual celebration of the sacrament of marriage, but rather accompanies the married couple throughout their lives. This fact is explicitly recalled by the Second Vatican Council when it says that Jesus Christ "abides with them so that, just as He loved the Church and handed Himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal. ... For this reason, Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfill their conjugal and family obligations, they are penetrated with the Spirit of Christ, who fills their whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance towards their own perfection, as well as towards their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God." 3
Christian spouses and parents are included in the universal call to sanctity. For them this call is specified by the sacrament they have celebrated and is carried out concretely in the realities proper to their conjugal and family life.4 This gives rise to the grace and requirement of an authentic and profound conjugal and family spirituality that draws its inspiration from the themes of creation, covenant, cross, resurrection, and sign, which were stressed more than once by the Synod.
Christian marriage, like the other sacraments, "whose purpose is to sanctify people, to build up the body of Christ, and finally, to give worship to God",5 is in itself a liturgical action glorifying God in Jesus Christ and in the Church. By celebrating it, Christian spouses profess their gratitude to God for the sublime gift bestowed on them of being able to live in their married and family lives the very love of God for people and that of the Lord Jesus for the Church, His bride.
Just as husbands and wives receive from the sacrament the gift and responsibility of translating into daily living the sanctification bestowed on them, so the same sacrament confers on them the grace and moral obligation of transforming their whole lives into a "spiritual sacrifice".6 What the Council says of the laity applies also to Christian spouses and parents, especially with regard to the earthly and temporal realities that characterize their lives: "As worshippers leading holy lives in every place, the laity consecrate the world itself to God." 7
Marriage and the Eucharist
57.
The Christian family's sanctifying role is grounded in Baptism and has its highest expression in the Eucharist, to which Christian marriage is inimately connected. The Second Vatican Council drew attention to the unique relationship between the Eucharist and marriage by requesting that "marriage normally be celebrated within the Mass".8 To understand better and live more intensely the graces and responsibilities of Christian marriage and family life, it is altogether necessary to rediscover and strengthen this relationship.
The Eucharist is the very source of Christian marriage. The Eucharistic Sacrifice, in fact, represents Christ's covenant of love with the Church, sealed with his blood on the Cross.9 In this sacrifice of the New and Eternal Covenant, Christian spouses encounter the source from which their own marriage covenant flows, is interiorly structured and continuously renewed. As a representation of Christ's sacrifice of love for the Church, the Eucharist is a fountain of charity. In the Eucharistic gift of charity, the Christian family finds the foundation and soul of its "communion" and "mission": by partaking in the Eucharistic bread, the different members of the Christian family become one body, which reveals and shares in the wider unity of the Church. Their sharing in the Body of Christ that is "given up" and in his Blood that is "shed" becomes a never-ending source of missionary and apostolic dynamism for the Christian family.
The Sacrament of Conversion and Reconciliation
58.
An essential and permanent part of the Christian family's sanctifying role consists in accepting the call to conversion that the Gospel addresses to all Christians, who do nat always remain faithful to the "newness" of the Baptism that constitutes them "saints". The Christian family too is sometimes unfaithful to the law of baptismal grace and holiness proclaimed anew in the sacrament of marriage.
Repentance and mutual pardon within the bosom of the Christian family , so much a part of daily life, receive their specific sacramental expression in Christian Penance. In the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, Paul VI wrote of married couples: "And if sin should still keep its hold over them, let them not be discouraged, but rather have recourse with humble perseverance to the mercy of God, which is abundantly poured forth in the sacrament of Penance." 10
The celebration of this sacrament acquires special significance for family life. While they discover in faith that sin contradicts not only the covenant with God, but also the covenant between husband and wife and the communion of the family, the married couple and the other members of the family are led to an encounter with God, who is "rich in mercy",11 who bestows on them his love which is more powerful than sin,12 and who reconstructs and brings to perfection the marriage covenant and the family communion.
Family Prayer
59.
The Church prays for the Christian family and educates the
family to live in generous accord with the priestly gift and role
received from Christ the High Priest. In effect, the baptismal
priesthood of the faithful, exercised in the sacrament of marriage,
constitutes the basis of a priestly vocation and mission for the
spouses and family by which their daily lives are transformed into
"spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ".13 (149) This transformation is achieved not only by celebrating the Eucharist
and the other sacraments and through offering themselves to the
glory of God, but also through a life of prayer, through prayerful
dialogue with the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
Family prayer has its own characteristic qualities. It is prayer
offered in common, husband and wife together, parents and children
together. Communion in prayer is both a consequence of and a
requirement for the communion bestowed by the sacraments of
Baptism and Matrimony. The words with which the Lord Jesus
promises His presence can be applied to the members of the
Christian family in a special way: "Again I say to you, if two of you
agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by
my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my
name, there am I in the midst of them." 14
Family prayer has for its very own object family life itself, which in
all its varying circumstances is seen as a call from God and lived as a
filial response to His call. Joys and sorrows, hopes and
disappointments, births and birthday celebrations, wedding
anniversaries of the parents, departures, separations and
homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of
those who are dear, etc. -- all of these mark God's loving intervention
in the family's history. They should be seen as suitable moments for
thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting abandonment of the family into
the hands of their common Father in heaven. The dignity and
responsibility of the Christian family as the domestic Church can be
achieved only with God's unceasing aid, which will surely be granted
if it is humbly and trustingly petitioned in prayer.
Educators in Prayer
60.
By reason of their dignity and mission, Christian parents have
the specific responsibility of educating their children in prayer,
introducing them to gradual discovery of the mystery of God and to
personal dialogue with Him: "It is particularly in the Christian family,
enriched by the grace and the office of the sacrament of Matrimony,
that from the earliest years children should be taught, according to
the faith received in Baptism, to have a knowledge of God, to
worship Him and to love their neighbor." 15
The concrete example and living witness of parents is fundamental
and irreplaceable in educating their children to pray. Only by praying
together with their children can a father and mother-exercising their
royal priesthood-penetrate the innermost depths of their children's
hearts and leave an impression that the future events in their lives will
not be able to efface. Let us again listen to the appeal made by Paul
VI to parents: "Mothers, do you teach your children the Christian
prayers? Do you prepare them, in conjunction with the priests, for
the sacraments that they receive when they are young: Confession,
Communion and Confirmation? Do you encourage them when they
are sick to think of Christ suffering to invoke the aid of the Blessed
Virgin and the saints Do you say the family rosary together? And
you, fathers, do you pray with your children, with the whole domestic
community, at least sometimes? Your example of honesty in thought
and action, joined to some common prayer, is a lesson for life, an act
of worship of singular value. In this way you bring peace to your
homes: Pax huic domui. Remember, it is thus that you build up the
Church." 16
Liturgical Prayer and Private Prayer
61.
There exists a deep and vital bond between the prayer of the
Church and the prayer of the individual faithful, as has been clearly
reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council.17 An important purpose of the prayer of the domestic Church is to serve as the natural introduction for the children to the liturgical prayer of the
whole Church, both in the sense of preparing for it and of extending
it into personal, family and social life. Hence the need for gradual
participation by all the members of the Christian family in the
celebration of the Eucharist, especially on Sundays and feast days,
and of the other sacraments, particularly the sacraments of Christian
initiation of the children. The directives of the Council opened up a
new possibility for the Christian family when it listed the family among
those groups to whom it recommends the recitation of the Divine
Office in common.18 Likewise, the Christian family will strive to
celebrate at home, and in a way suited to the members, the times
and feasts of the liturgical year.
As preparation for the worship celebrated in church, and as its
prolongation in the home, the Christian family makes use of private
prayer, which presents a great variety of forms. While this variety
testifies to the extraordinary richness with which the Spirit vivifies
Christian prayer, it serves also to meet the various needs and life
situations of those who turn to the Lord in prayer. Apart from
morning and evening prayers, certain forms of prayer are to be
expressly encouraged, following the indications of the Synod
Fathers, such as reading and meditating on the word of God,
preparation for the reception of the sacraments, devotion and
consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the various forms of
veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grace before and after meals,
and observance of popular devotions.
While respecting the freedom of the children of God, the Church
has always proposed certain practices of piety to the faithful with
particular solicitude and insistence. Among these should be
mentioned the recitation of the rosary: "We now desire, as a
continuation of the thought of our predecessors, to recommend
strongly the recitation of the family rosary. ... There is no doubt that ...
the rosary should be considered as one of the best and most
efficacious prayers in common that the Christian family is invited to
recite. We like to think, and sincerely hope, that when the family
gathering becomes a time of prayer the rosary is a frequent and
favored manner of praying." 19 In this way authentic devotion to
Mary, which finds expression in sincere love and generous imitation
of the Blessed Virgin's interior spiritual attitude, constitutes a special
instrument for nourishing loving communion in the family and for
developing conjugal and family spirituality. For she who is the Mother
of Christ and of the Church is in a special way the Mother of
Christian families, of domestic Churches.
Prayer and Life
62.
It should never be forgotten that prayer constitutes an essential part of Christian life, understood in its fullness and centrality. Indeed, prayer is an important part of our very humanity: it is "the first expression of man's inner truth, the first condition for authentic freedom of spirit".20
Far from being a form of escapism from everyday commitments, prayer constitutes the strongest incentive for the Christian family to assume and comply fully with all its responsibilities as the primary and fundamental cell of human society. Thus the Christian family's actual participation in the Church's life and mission is in direct
proportion to the fidelity and intensity of the prayer with which it is united with the fruitful vine that is Christ the Lord.21
The fruitfulness of the Christian family in its specific service to human advancement, which of itself cannot but lead to the transformation of the world, derives from its living union with Christ, nourished by Liturgy, by self-oblation and by prayer.22
One more webpage on Familiaris Consortio follows.
END NOTES
1. Cf. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, n. 10.
2. Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church Gaudium et Spes, n. 49.
3. Ibid., 48.
4. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 41.
5. Vatican II, Constitution on Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 59.
6. Cf. 1Peter 2:5; Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 34.
7. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 34.
8. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 78.
9. Cf. John 19:34.
10. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae n. 25.
11. Ephesians 2:4.
12. John Paul II, encyclical letter Dives in Misericordia, n. 13.
13. 1Peter 2:5.
14. Matthew 18:19-20.
15. Vatican II, Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum Educationis, n. 3;
cf. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae, n. 36.
16. Paul VI, General Audience Address, 11 August 1976: Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, XIV (1976), 640.
17. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 12.
18. Cf. Institutio Generalis de Liturgia Horarum, n. 27.
19. Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus, nn. 52 & 54.
20. John Paul II, Address at the Mentorella Shrine, 29 October 1978:
Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, I (1978), 78-79.
21. Cf. Vatican II, Apostolicam Actuositatem, n. 4.
22. Cf. John Paul I, Address to the Bishops of the Twelfth Pastoral Region of the
United States of America, 21 September 1978: AAS 70 (1978), 767.
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