SIMBAHAYAN: "DOMESTIC CHURCH" in Familiaris Consortio, 63-64

SIMBAHAYAN DOCTRINAL COMPILATION
"DOMESTIC CHURCH"
in Familiaris Consortio, 63-64

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 are choice excerpts from the papal document Familiaris Consortio -- an apostolic exhortation on the role of the Family in the modern world, issued by Pope John Paul II in November 1981. In this excerpt, the Holy Father discusses the kingly office -- servant-leadership -- of the Christian Family. We have used the official translation; emphases, subtitling, and special notes have been added, however, to facilitate your personal study and reflection.

Servant Leadership: The Kingly Role of the Family based on Love +
2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A COMMUNITY AT THE SERVICE OF MAN

The New Commandment of Love

63. The Church, a prophetic, priestly and kingly people, is endowed with the mission of bringing all human beings to accept the word of God in faith, to celebrate and profess it in the sacraments and in prayer, and to give expression to it in the concrete realities of life in accordance with the gift and new commandment of love.
Christian Law is a Person +

The law of Christian life is to be found not in a written code, but in the personal action of the Holy Spirit who inspires and guides the Christian. It is the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" ¹ "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."²

This is true also for the Christian couple and family. Their guide and rule of life is the Spirit of Jesus poured into their hearts in the celebration of the sacrament of Matrimony. In continuity with Baptism in water and the Spirit, marriage sets forth anew the evangelical law of love, and with the gift of the Spirit engraves it more profoundly on the hearts of Christian husbands and wives. Their love, purified and saved, is a fruit of the Spirit acting in the hearts of believers and constituting, at the same time, the fundamental commandment of their moral life to be lived in responsible freedom.
Thus, the Christian family is inspired and guided by the new law of the Spirit and, in intimate communion with the Church, the kingly people, it is called to exercise its "service" of love towards God and towards its fellow human beings. Just as Christ exercises His royal power by serving us,³ so also the Christian finds the authentic meaning of his participation in the kingship of his Lord in sharing His spirit and practice of service to man. "Christ has communicated this power to his disciples that they might be established in royal freedom and that by self-denial and a holy life they might conquer the reign of sin in themselves (cf. Rom 6:12). Further, He has shared this power so that by serving Him in their fellow human beings they might through humility and patience lead their brothers and sisters to that King whom to serve is to reign. For the Lord wishes to spread His kingdom by means of the laity also, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. In this kingdom, creation itself will be delivered out of its slavery to corruption and into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (cf. Rom 8:21)." ⁴
Christian Service is Universal +
To Discover the Image of God in Each Brother and Sister

64. Inspired and sustained by the new commandment of love, the Christian family welcomes, respects and serves every human being, considering each one in his or her dignity as a person and as a child of God.
Preferential love for one's own family +

It should be so especially between husband and wife and within the family, through a daily effort to promote a truly personal community, initiated and fostered by an inner communion of love. This way of life should then be extended to the wider circle of the ecclesial community of which the Christian family is a part. Thanks to love within the family, the Church can and ought to take on a more homelike or family dimension, developing a more human and fraternal style of relationships.
Familial love extended to the poor and needy +

Love, too, goes beyond our brothers and sisters of the same faith since "everybody is my brother or sister". In each individual, especially in the poor, the weak, and those who suffer or are unjustly treated, love knows how to discover the face of Christ, and discover a fellow human being to be loved and served.

In order that the family may serve man in a truly evangelical way, the instructions of the Second Vatican Council must be carefully put into practice: "That the exercise of such charity may rise above any deficiencies in fact and even in appearance, certain fundamentals must be observed. Thus, attention is to be paid to the image of God in which our neighbor has been created, and also to Christ the Lord to whom is really offered whatever is given to a needy person." ⁵
Families open to the human advancement of the community +

While building up the Church in love, the Christian family places itself at the service of the human person and the world, really bringing about the "human advancement" whose substance was given in summary form in the Synod's Message to families: "Another task for the family is to form persons in love and also to practice love in all its relationships, so that it does not live closed in on itself, but remains open to the community, moved by a sense of justice and concern for others, as well as by a consciousness of its responsibility towards the whole of society." ⁶

END NOTES
1. Romans 8:2.
2. Romans 5:5.
3. Cf. Mark 10:45.
4. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium n. 36.
5. Vatican II, Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem n. 36.
6. Cf. Sixth Synod of Bishops, Message to Christian Families in the Modern World (24 October 1980), 12.

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