"House" (oikos/oikía) = "Family" = "Church"
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It can, therefore, be clearly seen that our Christian religious tradition, inherited from Judaism, attributes a fundamental value to "housing" which we can still recognize today. The direct relation between "housing" and family, also stressed in the Charter of the Rights of the Family, is presumed in the New Testament. Actually, the term "house" often signifies "family" (cf. Lk 19:5-9; Acts 10:2; 1Cor 16, etc.). Thus, the "house" of God is his "family", that is "the Church of the living God" (1 Tm 3:15; Acts 3:6; 1Pt 4:17).
"Home" = "Spiritual Temple"
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The meaning of "housing" therefore goes far beyond a purely material notion. It is in direct relationship with the characteristics of the human person that are, at one and the same time, social, affective, cultural and religious.
Consistently, in the Christian tradition, the home, the Christian household, is rooted in the sacrament of marriage. The home is like a temple in which the family, the "domestic church" (Cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 11.) leads its daily life. The variety of activities and relationships that form its very texture find their highest expression in worship given to God, the One who gives meaning to the existence of the persons that he has created and fully enriches it.
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