Part 6 of 6
Marriage for Christian spouses implies a response to God's vocation and the acceptance of the mission to be a sign of God's love for all the members of the human family by partaking in the definitive covenant of Christ with the Church. The Holy Father has stated it so clearly: “The family is the heart of the New Evangelization.”
The witness of Christian married life has always had a powerful impact on society. In one of the early Christian documents, the “Letter to Diognetus,” we read: “Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by either country, speech, or customs; yet, the whole tenor of their way of living stamps it as worthy of admiration and admittedly extraordinary. They marry like all others and beget children; but they do not expose their offspring to the elements to kill them. Their table is spread for all, but not their bed. They find themselves in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh.”
Christian marriages, sanctuaries of life and love, are a leaven in our world, a beacon of hope for a better future. As a community of faith, we must recommit ourselves to foster this vocation in the Church. We have before us the Holy Family at Nazareth, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Theirs was a community of love and fidelity, and a testimony of the centrality of marriage and family in the history of salvation.
May the spirit of Nazareth reign in the homes of all our Catholic families and may we be able to communicate that spirit to the young men and women preparing to receive the Sacrament of Matrimony in this millennium.
Strengthening marriage and families could be the most important accomplishment of this New Millennium. Let us embark on this task, following the advice of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits who said, “Work as if everything depended on you, pray as if everything depended on God.”
