The joy of marriage and family life

On April 8, 2016, the Vatican publicly presented the long awaited Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis on marriage and the family. The document, signed on March 19, 2016 – the Solemnity of St Joseph – is titled in Latin Amoris Laetitia (English: ‘The Joy of Love’) and is the fruit of two Synods of […]

On April 8, 2016, the Vatican publicly presented the long awaited Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis on marriage and the family. The document, signed on March 19, 2016 – the Solemnity of St Joseph – is titled in Latin Amoris Laetitia (English: ‘The Joy of Love’) and is the fruit of two Synods of Bishops convoked by Pope Francis to prayerfully reflecton and discuss the theme of the family. These two Synods are the Extraordinary General Assembly of October 2014 and the Ordinary General Assembly of October 2015. While the 2014 Synod dealt with “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization”, the 2015 Synod discussed “The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and Contemporary World.”
Amoris Laetitia contains 261 pages divided into eight chapters (325 paragraphs). Commentators have said that it is the longest if such documents in the history of papal magisterium. Its sheer size suggests the wisdom of Pope Francis’ plea that the document should not be rushed or read hurriedly: “The greatest benefit, for families themselves and for those engaged in the family apostolate, will come if each part is read patiently and carefully, or if attention is paid to the parts dealing with their specific needs” (AL 7). The Exhortation says many important things about love, marriage, the family and the current cultural crisis facing marriage and family life in today’s world. For this reason, there is no better appeal than to encourage Christians to patiently study the document. No review or summary can do full justice to the richness, content and profundity of the Exhortation.
Amoris Laetitiais in full continuity with the first Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis on Evangelisation, Evangelii Gaudium (‘The Joy of the Gospel’) published in November 2013. We can say therefore that the programmatic and paradigmatic orientation of Francis’ pontificate moves from “the joy of the Gospel” to “the joy of love” in the family. It is for this reason that the Pope opens the Exhortation with the following words: “The joy of love experienced by families is also the joy of the Church” (AL 1). For the Holy Father, in spite of all the problems of marriage and family life in today’s world, “the desire to marry and form a family remains vibrant, especially among young people, and this is an inspiration to the Church” (AL 1).
The Exhortation illustrates “a broader vision and a renewed awareness of the importance of marriage and the family” (AL 1) and serves “as an aid to reflection, dialogue and pastoral practice, and as help and encouragement to families in their daily commitments and challenges” (AL 4). It is also “an invitation to Christian families to value the gifts of marriage and the family, and to persevere in a love strengthened by the virtues of generosity, commitment, fidelity and patience” (AL 5). It encourages pastoral approaches that can guide us in building sound and fruitful homes in accordance with God’s plan.
The text brings together the diversity of experiences and points of view of the particular churches and makes numerous references to the Fathers of the Church, to medieval and modern theologians, to contemporary authors and documents by previous popes. The key to reading the Exhortation, in harmony with the Jubilee that the Church is living, is “the logic of pastoral mercy.” The Holy Father clearly affirms the doctrine of marriage and the family and he proposes it as an indispensable ideal. On the other hand, he does not overlook the fragility of families and even their failure. In this light, he asks us to make room for the Lord’s mercy, which spurs us on to do our best.
The document begins with a rich reflection on the Bible, which, as the Pope says, “is full of families, births, love stories, and family crises” (AL 8). Francis then speaks movingly of “the majestic early chapter of Genesis,” which “present the human couple in its deepest reality” (AL 10). Which is to say, the Biblical story of Adam and Eve is not a pious myth with no relevance for the 21st century; it speaks a truth about our being made male and female, and about the complementarity built into our difference, that is ageless and enduring.Moreover, Francis reminds us that,“the couple that loves and begets life is a true, living icon…capable of revealing God the Creator and Saviour” (AL 11). “The triune God is a communion of love, and the family is its living reflection” (AL 11).
The document also speaks of the pain and suffering involved in family life, which is like many other sorrows in the human condition. Francis’ catalogue of the crucial challenges besetting marriages and families today are quite comprehensive. At the root of the crises are issues of extreme individualism, the pace of life, which militates against decisions for permanent relationships, the mantra of “choice” which leads to an inability for people to give themselves generously to others, and confused modern ideas of freedom, which imply a right to live as one wants without any moral compass. Francis then discusses the challenges posed to marriage and the family by economic dislocation, migration, joblessness, human trafficking, the abuse of women, the sexual abuse of children, dire poverty, a rapidly evolving global economy and the ideology of gender.
The Christian family, according to Pope Francis, can be fully understood only in the light of God’s love revealed to us in Christ. This means that the Christian family will always be countercultural: not to be different for difference’s sake, but to offer a model of a nobler way of living. That way is rooted in God’s original plan for humanity and reaches its perfection in marriage and the family, which have been redeemed by Christ and restored in the image of the Holy Trinity, the mystery from which all true love flows. That is why the Catholic Church believes and teaches – and will always believe and teach – that marriage is indissoluble, sacramental, and ordered to both the sanctification of the spouses and the begetting and rearing of children.If 21st century Christians can learn to see the world through a lens grounded in biblical faith, they will see the truth about love, marriage, and the family clearly: that despite our tendency to make a mess of things, families are called to “become a communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (AL29).
Ojeifo is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Abuja.