Marriage, a “crafted” endeavour

In the Year of the Family, Pope Francis issued a “Letter to families”. A similar gesture was made by blessed John Paul II precisely 30 years ago, when he addressed world families with the letter “Gratissimam sane”. When compared, the two documents strikingly differ in terms of length. John Paul II wished to provide an accurate, in-depth explanation of the theology of marriage and the family, while at the same time, together with families, seek a pastoral response to the problems they were facing. Pope Francis intends to primarily inform families on three main initiatives of the universal Church dedicated to the family: the extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, scheduled to take place in October 2014 on the theme “The pastoral challenges on the family in the context of evangelization”; the ordinary Synod Assembly that will take place next year, the world Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, to be held during 2015. While Pope John Paul II showed to know what was the condition of the Christian family today and the problems it is experiencing, for Pope Francis’ a major effort of diagnosis is needed. “Let us pray together – Pope Bergoglio asks – so that, through these events, the Church may carry out a true process of discernment and adopt the appropriate pastoral tools to help families cope with the current challenges with the light and strength that come from the Gospel”. In this direction went the request of Pope Francis to Cardinal Kasper: not to provide answers in his opening speech at the recent extraordinary consistory on the family, but to raise questions. The questions are known. Respondents sent them via the pre-synodal questionnaire. Why are young people afraid of getting married? How can the preparation to the sacrament of marriage be changed so as to enable spouses to cope with the difficulties of family life and prompt their cooperative efforts through sacramental grace? How can the number of divorces be decreased? How to encourage parents to be more open to the gift of God that is present in each child? Why does the number of Catholics decrease by 20-30% within a generation? How can families be helped to become a fruitful place of evangelization, especially for their children? How can couples in crisis be helped to save their spousal love? In which way should concern be showed to those abandoned by their spouse? What form of accompaniment can be given to divorcees experiencing civil unions? In all likelihood, Pope Francis has provided the most comprehensive explanation to date on human love, responding to questions raised by engaged couples in a meeting in St. Peter’s square on St. Valentine’s Day, February 14. Living in “the fear of forever” many people are afraid of making definitive decisions. They are afraid of a commitment that will last more than “ten years”, but they’re also afraid to be “thrown away” one day. This “throwaway culture” recurs often in the pontifical documents. Not only with reference to migrants and poor people. The Pope employs this term also referring to the unborn child and to elderly parents. In this situation, there is a risk of treating the other person like “waste”. Thus it is plausible to adopt the same term when referring to married couples and abandoned children. A loving heart instinctively seeks love “that forgives everything, believes everything and endures everything” and wants love to last “forever”. For the Pope, that love “is not built on the shifting sands of emotions”. It is “a daily spiritual path of common growth, step by step”; marriage is “an art, a handcrafted endeavour, because the husband has a duty to make his wife more a woman and the wife to make her husband more of a man”. A loving relationship is not only a question of building a comfortable home on earth but also of undertaking a common pilgrimage in faith towards the house of the Father in the Heavens. Love is a concern whereby none of our “fellow others” are absent in the Home in the skies. Charles Péguy compares evangelization to a drop of holy water that we donate to one another when we enter a church and make the sign of the Cross. From hand to hand, from one finger to another, from one generation to the next, until the end of the world. In this way God’s mercy goes “from generation to generation”, from father to son and grandson, from mother to daughter and granddaughter, progressing against the tide of the “culture of the provisional”, until the end of the world.