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SIMBAHAYAN DOCTRINAL COMPILATION
"DOMESTIC CHURCH"
in Gratissimam Sane (1994 Letter to Families), Par. 3

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 an excerpt from Pope John Paul II's letter to families on the occasion of the 1994 International Year of the Family. Gratissimam Sane was issued on February 1994. The excerpt below explains the significance of the year-long celebration in honor of the "Domestic Church".
         We have have used the official translation; emphases and subtitling have been added, however, to facilitate your personal study and reflection.
YEAR OF THE FAMILY
Significance of the 1994 Year of the Family +
3.     x   x   x
        On the feast of the Holy Family in 1993 the whole ecclesial community began the Year of the Family as one of the important steps along the path of preparation for the great jubilee of the year 2000, which will mark the end of the second and the beginning of the third millennium of the birth of Jesus Christ. This year ought to direct our thoughts and our hearts toward Nazareth, where it was officially inaugurated this past Dec. 26 at a solemn eucharistic liturgy presided over by the Papal Legate.
"Domestic Church" is the way of the Church +
What the Church should be doing +
        Throughout this year it is important to discover anew the many signs of the Church's love and concern for the family, a love and concern expressed from the very beginning of Christianity when the meaningful term "domestic Church" was applied to the family. In our own times we have often returned to the phrase "domestic Church", which the council adopted (LG, 11) and the sense of which we hope will always remain alive in people's minds. This desire is not lessened by an awareness of the changed conditions of families in today's world. Precisely because of this there is a continuing relevance to the title chosen by the council in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes in order to indicate what the Church should be doing in the present situation: "promoting the dignity of marriage and the family" (GS, Part II, Ch.1). Another important reference point after the council is the 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio. This text takes into account a vast and complex experience with regard to the family, which among different peoples and countries always and everywhere continues to be the "way of the Church". In a certain sense it becomes all the more so precisely in those places where the family is suffering from internal crises or is exposed to adverse cultural, social and economic influences which threaten its inner unity and strength, and even stand in the way of its very formation.
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