The Importance of the Family

The Importance of the Family ZENIT

The newly published Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church dedicates one of its first chapters to the institution of the family, described as "the vital cell of society."

The opening number of the section of the family begins with how Sacred Scripture repeatedly underlines the importance and centrality of the family. The book of Genesis narrates the creation of the first man and woman, and the family is portrayed as having a central role in creation. Other Old Testament books speak of the love to be found in the family, which is also where children are taught wisdom and the virtues.

The Compendium recalls Paul VI’s words during his visit to Nazareth in 1964, when the Pontiff spoke of Jesus being born and living within a family, "accepting all its characteristic features, and he conferred the highest dignity on the institution of marriage." (No. 210)

The Church, continues the text, sees in the family "the first natural society, with underived rights that are proper to it, and places it at the center of social life." (No. 211) The family founded on marriage between a man and a woman is important both for natural reasons, as the principal place of interpersonal relationships, and also for supernatural reasons, as a divine institution.

The Compendium then explains the importance of the family for society. For each individual the family is the cradle of life and love where they are born and grow. (No. 212) The climate of affection that unites the family is also where we learn about truth and goodness.

Moreover, the family unit is a community of persons where moral values are taught and the spiritual and cultural heritage of society are passed on.

The family is also essential in ensuring people are strong in their commitments, and promote both social responsibility and solidarity.

Given its vital importance the family has priority over society and the state. "Every social model that intends to serve the good of man must not overlook the centrality and social responsibility of the family." (No. 214)

Invoking the principle of subsidiarity the text affirms that public authorities must not take away from the family tasks that it can carry out by itself, or in association with other families.

Marriage - foundation of the family

With regards to marriage the Compendium explains that the family is founded on the free choice of spouses to unite themselves. The institution of marriage, while it is regulated by human institutions and laws, is, even more importantly, a partnership established by God and endowed with its own laws. (No. 215)

Marriage’s divine character, and the natural right to marriage, places limits on what society can legitimately do in regulating marriage. The dignity and specific characteristics of marriage must be safeguarded. The fundamental characteristics of marriage are: totality, in which the spouses give themselves to each other mutually; unity, created by the union of the couple; indissolubility and fidelity, which a definitive mutual self-giving requires; and fruitfulness, to which marriage is open.

An important part of marriage is the transmission of life through the birth and nurturing of children. Nevertheless, number 218 adds that procreation is not the only reason for marriage and that when a couple is unable to have children the value of communion between the spouses remains.

The Compendium also deals with the sacrament of marriage, explaining that it unites couples within the Church according to God’s plan. In fact, the sacrament makes the family a sort of "domestic Church" in which the family is called to be a sign to the world. And the love of the married couple is also raised to a new level by the sacramental grace.

Love and the family

The role of love within marriage and the family is another theme dealt with in the text. The family is a place where communion is brought about, and thanks to love each person is recognized, accepted and respected. (No. 221)

Love, affirms the Compendium, is essential for human beings. But marital love is more than just emotions or sexual expression. It is a full and total gift, marked by unity and fidelity. Moreover, the nature of conjugal love requires the marital union to be stable. The introduction of civil divorce "has fueled a relativistic vision of the marriage bond" and can be termed "a plague on society." (No. 225)

For those couples who have divorced and remarried the Compendium adds that the Church does not abandon them. "She prays for them and encourages them in the difficulties that they encounter in the spiritual life, sustaining them in faith and hope." (No. 226) Nevertheless, they cannot receive the Eucharist until they obtain reconciliation through the sacrament of penance.

The text also rejects attempts to redefine marriage through the introduction of new concepts that see gender as dependent merely on social and cultural factors. "Physical, moral and spiritual difference and complementarities are oriented towards the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life." (No. 224) It is therefore incongruous to demand that same-sex unions receive the status of marriage. At the same time the Compendium calls for homosexuals to be fully respected in their human dignity, but also encouraged to exercise chastity. (No. 226)

The Compendium is also critical of de facto unions as they are based on a false conception of the freedom to choose. Marriage is more than a simple agreement to live together but is a social instrument and the principal means for helping each person to grow in an integral manner. (No. 227)

A sanctuary of life

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Another section addresses themes related to life matters within the family. "Conjugal love is by its nature open to the acceptance of life." (No. 230)

This is particularly the case for Christian families, that by virtue of the sacrament should be witnesses of the gospel of life. The Compendium acknowledges the weight of this responsibility, but encourages couples to take decisions based on "a generous acceptance of life." (No. 232)

Excluded, as being morally unacceptable, are anti-life means such as abortion, sterilization and contraceptive methods. Couples, however, may decide to use methods based on periodic abstinence to regulate the number of children, based on a consideration of the personal, family and social factors.

On the other side of the coin the Compendium excludes the idea that parents have a right to children. A desire for children at any cost leads to the use of reproductive techniques that are ethically unacceptable.

Nurturing children

The Compendium also explains the family’s function in bringing up children, "a completely original and irreplaceable role." (No. 239) The parents’ love is placed at the service of their children and animates all educational activity. Parents have both a right and a duty to educate their children, which the state should respect. The text also insists that to carry out this function parents have a right to found educational institutions and that the state should provide economic support to these non-public schools.

The primary role of the parents in education is particularly the case when it comes to religious and moral formation. But it must also be respected in the area of sexual education. The Compendium stresses the importance of linking sexual education with an instruction in moral norms and the human values.

Children’s dignity must also be protected, first of all by protecting their right to be born within a real family. As well, the Compendium draws attention to problems such as child labor, lack of health care and sexual exploitation.

The concise and complete treatment of the family in the Compendium provides a useful resource for pastors and lay people interested in knowing more about the position of the Church regarding many of the fundamental issues touching marriage and family.

Order the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, here.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ZENIT is an International News Agency based in Rome whose mission is to provide objective and professional coverage of events, documents and issues emanating from or concerning the Catholic Church for a worldwide audience, especially the media.

Excellent sources:

Covenant: The Heart of This Mystery
Part of the understanding of the “Why?” of this mystery can be found in the understanding of covenant, which is the vehicle by which a man and a woman are to establish the lifelong, faithful relationship in which physical sexual interaction is meant to operate.

Covenant is also the fundamental tool that God has designed to construct and order His relationship with man.

Dr. Scott Hahn (whose research I will be sharing with you in this [article]) notes that a covenant is an exchange of persons, as opposed to a contract, which is an exchange of promises.

Covenants are established by making an oath—an oath that creates kinship between the two who are making the covenant.

Christ strikes a covenant with us at our baptism—one that is stronger than blood, one that establishes a divine, everlasting kinship bond. In making covenant with Him, God adopts us into His family and treats us as heirs to the family fortune.

The Hebrew word for “oath” is “shevah,” meaning “to seven oneself” (In Gen 21:27 31, Abraham makes a treaty with Abimelech using seven ewe lambs, and they called the place “Beersheva,” which means, “the place of the oath” or “the well of the sevens.”)

If you don’t have an oath, you don’t have a covenant.

Another Hebrew word for oath is “I raise my hand” (See Deut 32:40ff). When we raise our hands in worship, for example, we are swearing an oath. We lift up God’s name when we invoke God’s name in an oath.

Making an oath is to call upon the power of God to bind Satan and evil. It is a mystery of drawing down the presence of God, of engaging God for help and power so that we can do whatever it is we are pledging to do.

Hahn quotes Old Testament Prof. Barker, who noted:

The cosmic order is restored by means of the oath and the name of the Son of Man. The oath is the means of creating order. It is the means of binding the fallen spirits who operate through nature in order to make them serve a higher purpose. To be initiated into the oath, according to the Jewish outlook, gives great power. It enables the initiate to summon and bind the spirits in his service by means of the even greater name whose authority he uses. When the great oath was broken [referring to Adam’s sin and the Fall] the system began to collapse. The name of the Son of Man is the most powerful means of restoring order to a broken world.

Scott Hahn concludes Prof. Barker’s thought by saying: “Whenever you invoke the name of Jesus, you tap the power of God’s oath.” That is why God gave saints the power to bind evil and release or loose righteousness in this world.

Another Hebrew term is “to put oneself under a curse” in order to receive God’s blessing. We are therefore placing ourselves under a curse, to be damned if we don’t keep our part of the oath.

Only in Christianity does God bind Himself to man by swearing an oath. God put Himself under a curse if He didn’t keep the terms of the covenant to Abraham and his seed. Since we did not keep our part of the covenant, God became man and became a curse for us in order to make us His covenant family.

Hahn concludes:

We are sitting on a stockpile of spiritual power that we have barely begun to tap. Do not be stingy with your blessings. Do not withhold from your [loved ones] the invocation of God’s name. Whenever you give the benediction; every time you make the sign of the Cross; every time you invoke the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; every time you do anything in the name of God, you are tapping the power of creation and the great oaths that God swore when He fashioned the world; but even more, you are tapping the greater power of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, who has brought about a new creation, having sworn a new covenant oath, having taken upon Himself the curse for our sin.

Let’s bring the concept of swearing an oath into our New Testament understanding. Guess what the Greek word for oath is? The Greek word for “oath” is “mysterion”—mystery—a concept which is found throughout the New Testament—a concept used in Eph 5:32 that describes the marital relationship between a man and woman as a type of the marriage between Christ and the Church.

When we ask for God’s blessing and submit ourselves to His curse by oath, God comes down and empowers us to do what we would otherwise not be capable of doing.

Another Greek word for “oath” is “horkia” or “horkos”—the English term “exorcism,” or “to oath out” When you exorcise demonic spirits in ministry to someone, you literally “oath out” evil.

We have married Christ in word but have never consummated the marriage by giving ourselves to Him with the trust and abandon that we were designed to give.

Dr. Hahn notes that “Cross my heart and hope to die” is a medieval oath formula. The martyrs in heaven before the throne with raised hands are bearing witness under oath to Christ’s faithfulness. As a result, the accuser of the brethren is cast out.

When we assemble at the Lord’s Table or Eucharist, we are engaging in spiritual warfare.

The word “sacrament” comes from the Latin word for “oath”—“sacramentum.” And so, the sacraments of the church are oaths set in symbolic form which Christ has left us to conquer powers that exceed our meager strength. Our faith, our testimony, binds evil and conquers Satan.

It is a real war on a real battlefield, a real trial in a real courtroom. It’s also a clan struggle, a family united against forces that are determined to deface and destroy all that is good and pure and holy.

In having made our eternal covenant with God through Christ, we have united ourselves with Him and become one flesh. And because His name is now attached to our lives, to our ministries, to our words, He can use us to bind evil. We are now extensions of His very body through which He can continue to physically touch the world with His healing power.

Just as your offspring will carry on your name and legacy, so we carry on His name and legacy.

The power of Almighty God is not being released in many of our lives because we have never embraced this high calling. We have married Christ in word but have never consummated the marriage by giving ourselves to Him with the trust and abandon that we were designed to give. Rather than giving our all to Him, rather than submitting to the source of our life with joyful obedience, we have grumbled and complained and questioned Him at every turn in the road.

We have rejected the call to love, which is a call to sacrificially give ourselves to Him just as He has sacrificially given Himself to us. We have defiled the marriage bed with other gods, with other idols. We have remained fixed on ourselves, offering only periodic, emotion laden gestures of love that only tease but never deliver.

The Lord might well think some of the same thoughts as Romeo as he waited outside Juliet’s bedroom balcony for the slightest glimmer of hope that she shared in his love for her. God may see us at a worship service, erupting with a sudden burst of romantic sentiment as we sing our love songs to Him.

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks,” He might exclaim. “It is my lady. Oh, it is my love. Oh, that she knew she were.”

But so often, His hope is dashed as we leave the service and return to our self involved lives without putting any of those sentiments into practice—without any change in our lives, without any deepening of our pursuit of Him, without any reality beyond the sentimental notions of those love songs that we mouthed.

Christ has made promises and sworn and faithfully executed oaths to bind Himself to us and to bind evil and cast it off, if we will simply be true to Him in ways that are real.

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