I would like to
continue the theme that I began last month, directing our attention as families
within the Church, to the teaching of Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation
The Joy of Love. On this occasion I will focus on the first chapter.
The Holy Father
encourages us to a deep understanding of family life, and he tries to remind us
that the grace that we live in the Church is intimately present in this
reality. Some commentators have suggested that the Pope writes too much about
the difficulties that are lived in family life today. I think we run the risk
of distorting the Pope's thinking if we do not remember that from the point of
view of the Gospel the difficulties of family life were precisely where the
Lord Jesus focused his attention. The Lord came to heal the human being, and
human beings are encountered in the context of their relationships, and among
these the family relationship is the most fundamental. The root of human life is
in the family; and the Lord always aims to heal the root of things. This is why
in Amoris Laetitiae number 21 the Pope does not tire of calling our attention
to the example of the Lord:
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The Raising of the Daughter of Jairus
Ilya Repin, 1871
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Jesus himself was
born into a modest family that soon had to flee to a foreign land. He visits
the home of Peter, whose mother-in-law is ill (cf. Mk 1:30-31) and shows
sympathy upon hearing of deaths in the homes of Jairus and Lazarus (cf. Mk
5:22-24, 35-43; Jn 11:1-44). He hears the desperate wailing of the widow of Nain
for her dead son (cf. Lk 7:11-15) and heeds the plea of the father of an
epileptic child in a small country town (cf. Mk 9:17-27). He goes to the homes
of tax collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus (cf. Mt 9:9-13; Lk 19:1-10), and
speaks to sinners like the woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee (cf. Lk
7:36-50). Jesus knows the anxieties and tensions experienced by families and he
weaves them into his parables: children who leave home to seek adventure (cf.
Lk 15:11-32), or who prove troublesome (Mt 21:28-31) or fall prey to violence
(Mk 12:1-9). He is also sensitive to the embarrassment caused by the lack of
wine at a wedding feast (Jn 2:1-10), the failure of guests to come to a banquet
(Mt 22:1-10), and the anxiety of a poor family over the loss of a coin (Lk
15:8-10).
It would be a source
of great benefit to the daily family environment if we took the time to read,
as a family and aloud, day by day, each Gospel passage cited by the Pope. If
several times during the week we gathered to hear the words and to contemplate
the works of the Lord, we would realize quickly that the Lord did not disdain
to encounter the family reality, so often battered by the bruises of life.
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Christ and the Woman with the Hemorrhage
Paolo Veronese, c. 1584
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As the Holy Father
explains in number 22, the word of the Lord is a source of comfort and
companionship for every family that experiences difficulties of suffering. For
he shows them the goal of their journey, when God "will wipe away every
tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, either shall there be
mourning nor crying nor pain any more". (Rev 21, 4).
Often we feel embarrassed as a family when we recognize that we are not perfect, or that we
have suffered and also that we have caused wounds. Also there are times when we
think that in our neighbors’ families all is fine and everything is well put
together! But it is not that way; we all have situations and circumstances that
need the grace of God. It is of great comfort to hear in the Gospel the way the
Lord Jesus addressed the people he met. His words are addressed to us also.
It should be noted
that the Pope teaches us that the Lord comes into the family by his word to
encourage us to make our way to the goal that his word itself promises. The
Book of Revelation, the great prophetic narration of the final triumph of the
Lord of history, speaks of wiping away our tears and putting an end to our
sorrows and pains. The road to the victory of justice and mercy at the end of
time begins today with the words of the Word Incarnate who himself heals and
strengthens us for the road ahead. We first encounter the grace of God as a
medicine gently applied to the wound, and then, it extends its effects to
strengthen us for the journey toward him.
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The Good Samaritan
Pelegrí Clavé i Roquer, c. 1831
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The Fathers of the
Church (like St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great) noted that the figure of
the Good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10: 25-37) teaches us about the mission of Christ
and the Church. Like the Samaritan, the Lord went out of his way, he
"came down from heaven," as the Creed says, to find us, and to apply
"oil and wine" to our wounds. In the parable of the Good Samaritan,
the Fathers of the patristic era also noted the importance of the inn where the
Samaritan left the injured man so he could convalesce. The inn is a figure of
the Church, a place of healing, or better said, a space where one can gather
strength. The parable itself indicates that the Good Samaritan will one day
return to pay the bill, and in this way it directs our attention to the return
of the Lord at the end of time. In the meantime, the Church offers space and
time so that the grace of the Risen Christ can heal us and strengthen us. This
is the space of the believing community, incorporated into Christ through
Baptism, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and destined to glorify the Father.
The Church, where
there is a communion of faith, hope and charity, manifests herself in a
privileged way within the environment of the family. The family is also an
inn-Church so that members can gather strength for life. This is why the Holy
Father emphasizes so much that the vocation of the family is to ask, to receive
and to share the grace that the Lord offers through the Church. Pope Francis
says the following in number 29 of Amoris Laetitiae:
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Cathedral of Valencia
Most Holy Trinity
L. Antonio Planes, XVIII century
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With a gaze of faith
and love, grace and fidelity, we have contemplated the relationship between human
families and the divine Trinity. The word of God tells us that the family is
entrusted to a man, a woman and their children, so that they may become a
communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit. Begetting and raising children, for its part, mirrors God’s
creative work. The family is called to join in daily prayer, to read the word
of God and to share in Eucharistic communion, and thus to grow in love and
become ever more fully a temple in which the Spirit dwells.
It is true, the
"begetting and raising children" within the family is a vital
expression of the mission of the Church itself. With "daily prayer,
reading the word of God and sharing in Eucharistic communion" the Lord
himself heals us and strengthens us for the road ahead. Our homes should "become
ever more fully a temple where the Spirit dwells."
I think that for the
Pope, speaking to us as a father of a large family, exhorts us to acknowledge
tenderness as the first expression of the Holy Spirit’s action within our
families. Let us see here in number 28, how the Holy Father speaks to us about
tenderness:
Against this backdrop
of love so central to the Christian experience of marriage and the family,
another virtue stands out, one often overlooked in our world of frenetic and
superficial relationships. It is tenderness. Let us consider the moving words
of Psalm 131. As in other biblical texts (e.g., Ex 4:22; Is 49:15; Ps 27:10),
the union between the Lord and his faithful ones is expressed in terms of
parental love. Here we see a delicate and tender intimacy between mother and
child: the image is that of a babe sleeping in his mother’s arms after being
nursed. As the Hebrew word gamûl suggests, the infant is now fed and clings to
his mother, who takes him to her bosom. There is a closeness that is conscious
and not simply biological. Drawing on this image, the Psalmist sings: “I have
calmed 20 and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast” (Ps
131:2). We can also think of the touching words that the prophet Hosea puts on
God’s lips: “When Israel was a child, I loved him… I took them up in my arms… I
led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them
as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them” (Hos
11:1, 3-4).
Tenderness is an
expression of affection that caresses the wounds of our loved ones. Tenderness
heals precisely because it is not deserved, it is offered. And if we do not
have hearts made of stone, we respond to tenderness with a tenderness seasoned
with gratitude. The presence of tenderness in the family is a sign that we are
truly building a temple in the family "where the Holy Spirit dwells."
The Lord says by the words of the prophet Ezekiel (Ez 36:26): “I will give you
a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of
stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Since it is sin that often causes us to
cling to our resentments, it is a work of the Holy Spirit to humanize us, that
is to say, to make our hearts more tender.
May God grant that
our homes become spaces where compassion, love and tenderness, reign more and
more each day. Amen.
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