Posted on 06/02/2025 10:34:51 AM PDT by ebb tide
As soon as we were born, we needed others in order to live; left to ourselves, we would not have survived. Someone else saved us by caring for us in body and spirit. All of us are alive today thanks to a relationship, a free and freeing relationship of human kindness and mutual care.
That human kindness is sometimes betrayed. As for example, whenever freedom is invoked not to give life, but to take it away, not to help, but to hurt. Yet even in the face of the evil that opposes and takes life, Jesus continues to pray to the Father for us. His prayer acts as a balm for our wounds; it speaks to us of forgiveness and reconciliation. That prayer makes fully meaningful our experience of love for one another as parents, grandparents, sons and daughters. That is what we want to proclaim to the world: we are here in order to be “one” as the Lord wants us to be “one,” in our families and in those places where we live, work and study. Different, yet one; many, yet one; always, in every situation and at every stage of life.
Dear friends, if we love one another in this way, grounded in Christ, who is “the Alpha and the Omega,” “the beginning and the end” (cf. Rev 22:13), we will be a sign of peace for everyone, in society and the world. Let us not forget: families are the cradle of the future of humanity.
In recent decades, we have received a sign that fills us with joy but also makes us think. It is the fact that several spouses have been beatified and canonized, not separately, but as married couples. I think of Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus; and of Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who raised a family in Rome in the last century. And let us not forget the Ulma family from Poland: parents and children, united in love and martyrdom. I said that this is a sign that makes us think. By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies.
For this reason, with a heart filled with gratitude and hope, I would remind all married couples that marriage is not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful (cf. Humanae Vitae, 9). This love makes you one flesh and enables you, in the image of God, to bestow the gift of life.
I encourage you, then, to be examples of integrity to your children, acting as you want them to act, educating them in freedom through obedience, always seeing the good in them and finding ways to nurture it. And you, dear children, show gratitude to your parents. To say “thank you” each day for the gift of life and for all that comes with it is the first way to honour your father and your mother (cf. Ex 20:12). Finally, dear grandparents and elderly people, I recommend that you watch over your loved ones with wisdom and compassion, and with the humility and patience that come with age.
In the family, faith is handed on together with life, generation after generation. It is shared like food at the family table and like the love in our hearts. In this way, families become privileged places in which to encounter Jesus, who loves us and desires our good, always.
Sermon - Jubilee of Families
St. Peter's Square, June 1, 2025 (excerpt)
Ping
Ecclesiastes 4:11-16
Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
“Marriage is not an ideal”? What is an “ideal” pope? A good marriage is ideal for a man, woman and children. The family is the greatest collective in the history of humankind. It is the backbone of civilization.
What a great way to kick off Pride Month. I may become a fan of this pope.
I imagine that many liberal heads exploded while reading this.
At least, I hope they did!!!
Those couples-4 kids minimum. That will give the childless cat ladies a place to go when their assistance is helpful.
I think the Pope is using “ideal” here to mean a state of abstract perfection, and contrasting that unattainable standard with the actual living reality of a marriage as the full expression of love between a man and a woman, with a family being the natural outgrowth of that love. Thus understood, he’s absolutely stating the Christian truth.
He’s saying it’s not *just* an abstract ideal, but a living breathing relationship, an ideal that is lived out day by day in countless acts of love — not just some pie-in-the-sky ideal floating about in one’s head.
I thought his words were beautiful.
No, it is not some lofty ideal to which none can really aspire.
Marriage is a legitimate, practical, sacramental reality, which many of us are truly blessed with in our daily lives.
In Amorim’s Letitia, Francis referred to the Church’s teaching on marriage as an “ideal”, meaning a nice idea, but unattainable on a practical level, especially in the “lived reality” of the divorced and “remarried”.
Leo is directly repudiating this idea.
Well said.
What a change from the previous antipope. I like this new American pope.
Can I still come into the Catholic Caucus and say that I really like Leo XIV?
What a refreshing thing it is to have a pope who understands and proclaims such things!
This is true....
non aesthetic things
@PicturesFoIder
Marriage in 17 seconds
https://x.com/PicturesFoIder/status/1929533347513934152
Do not marry a woman like that. Do not marry a woman whose mother behaves that way.
My wife and I will be celebrating our 44th wedding anniversary on Fri. June 6th. The priest that married us was our pastor, who ended up leaving the church a few months later, because he and the church organist were having an affaire, and she became pregnant. Ironically, his name was Leo, as well.
I have a good feeling about this Holy Father.
read the rest of the sentence, “...but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful (cf. Humanae Vitae, 9).”
IOW, marriage isn’t just some notion.
I think you need to review the definition of “ideal” as a noun, which is how he used it, compared to the definition of “ideal” in adjectival form, which is the way you are expressing it.
Blessings to you.
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