From: kriz@skat.usc.edu (KRIZ)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Cath. Christianity 101 - JP II's letter "On the Family" - 8 (repost)
Date: 25 Jul 1992 19:56:46 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: skat.usc.edu


The following is a portion of Pope John Paul II's 1981 Apostolic
Exhortation "Familiaris Consortio" (On the Family).  The document
is organized in the following way:

     Introduction.
     Part 1. Bright Spots and Shadows for the Family Today.       
     Part 2. The Plan of God for Marriage and the Family.
(*)  Part 3. The Role of the Christian Family.
          I. Forming a Community of Persons.
          II. Serving Life.
               A. The Transmission of Life.
               B. Education.
          III. Participating in the Development of Society.       
--->      IV. Sharing in the Life and Mission of the Church.      
    Part 4. Pastoral Care of the Family.
          I. Stages of Pastoral Care of the Family.
          II. Structures of Family Pastoral Care.
          III. Agents of the Pastoral Care of the Family.
          IV. Pastoral Care of the Family in Difficult Cases.     
     Conclusion.

Note: (-->) denotes which portion of the document is presented
herein.

In Christ,

Dennis
kriz@skat.usc.edu

------------------------------------------------------------------
John Paul II's 1981 Apostolic Exhortation "On the Family" - Pt 3IV


                           PART THREE
                THE ROLE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY
                             (cont)


IV. SHARING IN THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH.
--------------------------------------------------

  Among the fundamental tasks of the Christian family is its
ecclesial task: The family is placed at the service of the building
up of the kingdom of God in history by participating in the life
and mission of the church.

  In order to understand better the foundations, the contents and
the characteristics of this participation, we must examine the many
profound bonds linking the church and the Christian family and
establishing the family as a "church in miniature" (ecclesia
domstica) [114], in such a way that in its own way the family is a
living image and historical representation of the mystery of the
church.

  It is, above all, the church as mother that gives birth to,
educates and builds up the Christian family by putting into effect
in its regard the saving mission which she has received from her
Lord.  By proclaiming the word of God the church reveals to the
Christian family its true identity, what it is and should be
according to the Lord's plan: by celebrating the sacraments the
church enriches and strengthens the Christian family with the grace
of Christ for its sanctification to the glory of the Father: by the
continuous proclamation of the new commandment of love the church
encourages and guides the Christian family to the service of love
so that it may imitate and relive the same self-giving and
sacrificial love that the Lord Jesus has for the entire human race.

  In turn, the Christian family is grafted into the mystery of the
church to such a degree as to become a sharer, in its own way, in
the saving mission proper to the church: By virtue of the sacrament
Christian married couples and parents "in their state and way of
life have their own special gift among the people of God" [115]. 
For this reason they not only receive the love of Christ and become
a saved community, but they are also called upon to communicate
Christ's love to their brethren thus becoming a saving community. 
In this way, while the Christian family is a fruit and sign of the
supernatural fecundity of the church, it stands also as a symbol,
witness and participant of the church's motherhood [117].


50. A specific and original ecclesial role.
-------------------------------------------

  The Christian family is called upon to take part actively and
responsibly in the mission of the church in a way that is original
and specific by placing itself in what it is and what it does as an
"intimate community of life and love" at the service of the church
and of society.

  Since the Christian family is a community in which the
relationships are renewed by Christ through faith and the
sacraments, the family's sharing in the church's mission should
follow a community pattern: The spouses together as a couple, the
parents and children as a family, must live their service to the
church and to the world.  They must be "of one heart and soul"
[1176] in faith, through the shared apostolic zeal that animates
them and through their shared commitment to works of service in the
ecclesial and civil communities.

  The Christian family also builds up the kingdom of God in history
through the everyday realities that concern and distinguish its
state of life.  It is thus in the love between husband and wife and
between the members of the family -- a love lived out in all its
extraordinary richness of values and demands: totality, oneness,
fidelity and fruitfulness [118] -- that the Christian family's
participation in the prophetic, priestly and kingly mission of
Jesus Christ and of his church finds expression and realization. 
Therefore, love and life constitute the nucleus of the saving
mission of the Christian family in the church and for the church.

  The Second Vatican Council recalls this fact when it writes:
"Families will share their spiritual riches generously with other
families too.  Thus the Christian family, which springs from
marriage as a reflection of the loving covenant uniting Christ with
the church, and as a participation in that covenant will manifest
to all people the savior's living presence in the world, and the
genuine nature of the church.  This the family will do by the
mutual love of the spouses, by their generous fruitfulness, their
solidarity and faithfulness, and by the loving way in which all the
members of the family work together" [119].

  Having laid the foundation of the participation of the christian
family in the church's mission, it is now time to illustrate its
substance in reference to Jesus Christ as prophet, priest and king
-- three aspects of a single reality -- by presenting the Christian
family as 1) a believing and evangelizing community, 2) a community
in dialogue with God, and 3) a community at the service of man.


A. A CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A BELIEVING AND EVANGELIZING COMMUNITY.
----------------------------------------------------------------

51. Faith as the discovery and admiring awareness of God's plan for
-------------------------------------------------------------------
the family.
-----------

  As a sharer in the life and mission of the church, which listens
to the word of God with reverence and proclaims it confidently
[120], the Christian family fulfills its prophetic role by
welcoming and announcing the word of God: It thus becomes more and
more each day a believing and evangelizing community.

  Christian spouses and parents are required to offer "the
obedience of faith" [121].  They are called upon to welcome the
word of the Lord, which reveals to them the marvelous news -- the
good news -- of their conjugal and family life sanctified and made
a source of sanctity by Christ himself.  Only in faith can they
discover and admire with joyful gratitude the dignity to which God
has deigned to raise marriage and the family, making them a sign
and meeting place of the loving covenant between God and man,
between Jesus Christ and his bride, the church.  

  The very preparation for Christian marriage is itself a journey
of faith.  It is a special opportunity for the engaged to
rediscover and deepen the faith received in baptism and nourished
by their Christian upbringing.  In this way they come to recognize
and freely accept their vocation to follow Christ and to serve the
kingdom of God in the married state.

  The celebration of the sacrament of marriage is the basic moment
of the faith of the couple.  This sacrament, in essence, is the
proclamation in the church of the good news, concerning married
love.  It is the word of God that "reveals" and "fulfills" the wise
and loving plan of God for the married couple, giving them a
mysterious and real share in the very love with which God himself
loves humanity.  Since the sacramental celebration of marriage is
itself a proclamation of the word of God, it must also be a
"profession of faith" within and with the church, as a community of
believers, on the part of all those who in different ways
participate in its celebration.

  This profession of faith demands that it be prolonged in the life
of the married couple and of the family.  God, who called the
couple to marriage, continues to call them in marriage [122].  In
and through the events, problems, difficulties and circumstances of
everyday life, God comes to them, revealing and presenting the
concrete "demands" of their sharing in the love of Christ for his
church in the particular family, social and ecclesial situation in
which they find themselves.

  The discovery of and obedience to the plan of God on the part of
the conjugal and family community must take place in
"togetherness," through the human experience of love between
husband and wife, between parents and children, lived in the spirit
of Christ.

  Thus the little domestic church, like the greater church, needs
to be constantly and intensely evangelized: hence its duty
regarding permanent education in the faith.


52. The Christian family's ministry of evangelization.
------------------------------------------------------

  To the extent in which the Christian family accepts the Gospel
and matures in faith, it becomes an evangelizing community.  Let us
listen again to Paul VI: "The family, like the church, ought to be
a place where the Gospel is transmitted and from which the Gospel
radiates.  In a family which is conscious of this mission, all the
members evangelize and are evangelized.  The parents not only
communicate the Gospel to their children, but from their children
they can themselves receive the same Gospel as deeply lived by
them.  And such a family becomes the evangelizer of many other
families and of the neighborhood of which it forms a part" [123].

  As the synod repeated, taking up the appeal which I launched at
Puebla, the future of evangelization depends in great part on the
church of the home [124].  This apostolic mission of the family is
rooted in baptism and receives from the grace of the sacrament of
marriage new strength to transmit the faith, to sanctify and
transform our present society according to God's plan.

  Particularly today the Christian family has a special vocation to
witness to the paschal covenant of Christ by constantly radiating
the joy and love and the certainty of hope for which it must give
account: "The Christian family loudly proclaims both the present
virtues of the kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed life to
come" [125].

  The absolute need for family catechists emerges with particular
force in certain situations that the church unfortunately
experiences in some places: "In places where anti-religious
legislation endeavors even to prevent education in the faith, and
in places where widespread unbelief or invasive secularism makes
real religious growth practically impossible, 'the church of the
home' remains the one place where children and young people can
receive an authentic catechesis" [126].


53. Ecclesial service.
----------------------

  The ministry of evangelization carried out by Christian parents
is original and irreplaceable.  It assumes the characteristics
typical of family life itself, which should be interwoven with
love, simplicity, practicality and daily witness [127].

  The family must educate the children for life in such a way that
each one may fully perform his or her role according to the
vocation received from God.  Indeed the family that is open to
transcendent values, that serves its brothers and sisters with joy,
that fulfills its duties with generous fidelity and is aware of its
daily sharing in the mystery of the glorious cross of Christ,
becomes the primary and most excellent seedbed of vocations to a
life of consecration to the kingdom of God.

  The parents' ministry of evangelization and catechesis ought to
play a part in their children's lives also during adolescence and
youth, when the children, as often happens, challenge or even
reject the Christian faith received in earlier years.  Just as in
the church the work of evangelization can never be separated from
the sufferings of the apostle, so in the Christian family parents
must face with courage and great interior serenity the difficulties
that their ministry of evangelization sometimes encounters in their
own children.

  It should not be forgotten that the service rendered by Christian
spouses and parents to the Gospel is essentially an ecclesial
service.  It has its place within the context of the whole church
as an evangelized and evangelizing community.  Insofar as the
ministry of evangelization and catechesis of the church of the home
is rooted in and derives from the one mission of the church and is
ordained to the upbuilding of the one body of Christ [126], it must
remain in intimate communion and collaborate responsibly with all
the other evangelizing and catechetical activities present and at
work in the ecclesial community at the diocesan and parochial
levels.


54. To preach the Gospel to the whole creation.
-----------------------------------------------

Evangelization, urged on within by irrepressible missionary zeal,
is characterized by a universality without boundaries.  It is the
response to Christ's explicit and unequivocal command: "Go into all
the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation" [129].

  The Christian family's faith and evangelizing mission also
possesses this Catholic missionary inspiration.  The sacrament of
marriage takes up and reproposes the task of defending and
spreading the faith, a task that has its roots in baptism and
confirmation [130], and makes Christian married couples and parents
witnesses of Christ "to the end of the earth" [131], missionaries,
in the true and proper sense, of love and life.

  A form of missionary activity can be exercised even within the
family.  This happens when some member of the family does not have
the faith or does not practice it with consistency.  In such a case
the other members must give him or her a living witness of their
own faith in order to encourage and support him or her along the
path toward full acceptance of Christ the savior [132].

  Animated in its own inner life by missionary zeal, the church of
the home is also called to be a luminous sign of the presence of
Christ and of his love for those who are "far away," for families
who do not yet believe and for those Christian families who no
longer live in accordance with the faith that they once received. 
The Christian family is called to enlighten "by its example and its
witness those who seek the truth" [133].

  Just as at the dawn of Christianity Aquila and Priscilla were
presented as a missionary couple [134], so today the church shows
forth her perennial newness and fruitfulness by the presence of
Christian couples and families who dedicate at least a part of
their lives to working in missionary territories, proclaiming the
Gospel and doing service to their fellow man in the love of Jesus
Christ.

  Christian families offer a special contribution to the missionary
cause of the church by fostering missionary vocations among their
sons and daughters and, more generally, "by training their children
from childhood to recognize God's love for all people" [136].


B. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A COMMUNITY IN DIALOGUE WITH GOD.
------------------------------------------------------------

55. The church's sanctuary in the home.
---------------------------------------

  The proclamation of the Gospel and its acceptance in faith reach
their fullness in the celebration of the sacraments.  The church
which is a believing and evangelizing community is also a priestly
people invested with the dignity and sharing in the power of Christ
the high priest of the new and eternal covenant [137].  

  The Christian family too is part of this priestly people which is
the church.  By means of the sacrament of marriage, in which it is
rooted and from which it draws its nourishment, the Christian
family is continuously vivified by the Lord Jesus and called and
engaged by him in a dialogue with God through the sacraments,
through the offerings of one's life and through prayer.

  This is the priestly role which the Christian family can and
ought to exercise in intimate communion with the whole church
through the daily realities of married and family life.  In this
way the Christian family is called to be sanctified and to
sanctifiy the ecclesial community and the world.


56. Marriage as a sacrament of mutual sanctification and an act of
------------------------------------------------------------------
of worship.
-----------

  The sacrament of marriage is the specific source and original
means of sanctification for Christian married couples and families. 
It takes up again and makes specific the sanctifying grace of
baptism.  By virtue of the mystery of the death and resurrection of
Christ, of which the spouses are made part in a new way by
marriage, conjugal love is purified and made holy: "This love the
Lord has judged worthy of special gifts, healing, perfecting and
exalting of grace and of charity" [138].

  The gift of Jesus Christ is not exhausted in the actual
celebration of the sacrament of marriage, but rather accompanies
the married couple throughout their lives.  This fact is explicitly
recalled by the Second Vatican Council when it says that Jesus
Christ "abides with them so that just as he loved the church and
handed himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other
with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal ... For this
reason, Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they
are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and
dignity of their state.  By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses
fulfill their conjugal and family obligations they are penetrated
with the spirit of Christ, who fills their whole lives with faith,
hope and charity.  Thus they increasingly advance toward their own
perfection as well as toward their mutual sanctification, and hence
contribute jointly to the glory of God" [139].  

Christian spouses and parents are included in the universal call to
sanctity.  For them this call is specified by the sacrament they
have celebrated and is carried out concretely in the realities
proper to their conjugal and family life [140].  This gives rise to
the grace and requirement of an authentic and profound conjugal and
family spirituality that draws its inspiration from the themes of
creation, covenant, cross, resurrection and sign, which were
stressed more than once by the synod.

  Christian marriage, like the other sacraments, "whose purpose is
to sanctify people, to build up the body of Christ, and finally, to
give worship to God" [141], is in itself a liturgical action
glorifying God in Jesus Christ and in the church.  By celebrating
it, Christian spouses profess their gratitude to God for the
sublime gift bestowed on them of being able to live in their
married and family lives the very love of God for people and that
of the Lord Jesus for the church, his bride.

  Just as husbands and wives receive from the sacrament the gift
and responsibility of translating into daily living the
sanctification bestowed on them, so the same sacrament confers on
them the grace and moral obligation of transforming their whole
lives into a "spiritual sacrifice" [142].  What the council says of
the laity applies also to Christian spouses and parents, especially
with regard to the earthly and temporal realities that characterize
their lives: "As worshippers leading holy lives in every place, the
laity consecrate the world itself to God" [143].


57. Marriage and the eucharist.
-------------------------------

  The Christian family's sanctifying role is grounded in baptism
and has its highest expression in the eucharist, to which Christian
marriage is intimately connected.  The Second Vatican Council drew
attention to the unique relationship between the eucharist and
marriage by requesting that "marriage normally be celebrated within
the Mass" [144].  To understand better and live more intensely the
graces and responsibilities of Christian marriage and family life,
it is altogether necessary to rediscover and strengthen this
relationship.

  The eucharist is the very source of Christian marriage.  The
eucharistic sacrifice in fact represents Christ's covenant of love
with the church, sealed with his blood on the cross [145].  In this
sacrifice of the new and eternal covenant, Christian spouses
encounter the source from which their own marriage covenant flows,
is interiorly structured and continuously renewed.  As a
representation of Christ's sacrifice of love for the church, the
eucharist is a fountain of charity.  In the eucharistic "communion"
and its "mission": By partaking in the eucharistic bread, the
different members of the Christian family become one body which
reveals and shares in the wider unity of the church.  Their sharing
becomes a never-ending source of missionary and apostolic dynamism
for the Christian family.


58. The sacrament of conversion and reconciliation.
---------------------------------------------------

  An essential and permanent part of the Christian family's
sanctifying role consists in accepting the call to conversion that
the Gospel addresses to all Christians, who do not always remain
faithful to the "newness" of the baptism that constitutes them
"saints."  The Christian family too is sometimes unfaithful to the
law of baptismal grace and holiness proclaimed anew in the
sacrament of marriage.

  Repentance and mutual pardon within the bosom of the Christian
family, so much a part of daily life, receive their specific
sacramental expression in Christian penance.  In the encyclical
HUMANAE VITAE, Paul VI wrote to married couples: "And if sin should
still keep its hold over them, let them not be discouraged, but
rather have recourse with humble perseverance to the mercy of God,
which is abundantly poured forth in the sacrament of penance"
[146].

  The celebration of this sacrament acquires special significance
for family life.  While they discover in faith that sin contradicts
not only the covenant with God, but also the covenant between
husband and wife and the communion of the family, the married
couple and the other members of the family are led to an encounter
with God, who is "rich in mercy" [147], who bestows on them his
love which is more powerful than sin [148], and who reconstructs
and brings to perfection the marriage covenant and the family
communion.


59. Family Prayer.
------------------

  The church prays for the Christian family and educates the family
to live in generous accord with the priestly gift and role received
from Christ the high priest.  In effect, the baptismal priesthood
of the faithful exercised in the sacrament of marriage constitutes
the basis of a priestly vocation and mission for the spouses and
family by which their daily lives are transformed into "spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" [149].  This
transformation is achieved not only by celebrating the eucharist
and the other sacraments and through offering themselves to the
glory of God, but also through a life of prayer, through prayerful
dialogue with the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

  Family prayer has its own characteristic qualities.  It is prayer
offered in common, husband and wife together, parents and children
together.  Communion in prayer is both a consequence of and a
requirement for the communion bestowed by the sacraments of baptism
and matrimony.  The words with which the Lord Jesus promises his
presence can be applied to the members of the Christian family in
a special way: "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth
about anything they ask it will be done for them by my Father in
heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am
I in the midst of them" [150].

  Family prayer has for its very own object family life itself,
which in all its varying circumstances is seen as a call from God
and lived as a filial response to his call.  Joys and sorrows,
hopes and disappointments, births and birthday celebrations,
wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures, separations and
homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of
those who are dear, etc -- all of these mark God's loving
intervention in the family's history.  They should be seen as
suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting
abandonment of the family into the hands of their common Father in
heaven.  The dignity and responsibility of the Christian family as
the domestic church can be achieved only with God's unceasing aid,
which will surely be granted if it is humbly and trustingly
petitioned in prayer.


60. Educators in Prayer.
------------------------

  By reason of their dignity and mission, Christian parents have
the specific responsibility of educating their children in prayer,
introducing them to gradual discovery of the mystery of God and to
personal dialogue with him: "It is particularly in the Christian
family, enriched by the grace and the office of the sacrament of
matrimony, that from the earliest years children should be taught,
according to the faith received in baptism, to have a knowledge of
God, to worship him and to love their neighbor" [151].

  The concrete example and living witness of parents is fundamental
and irreplaceable in educating their children to pray.  Only by
praying together with their children can a father and mother --
exercising their royal priesthood -- penetrate the innermost depths
of their children's hearts and leave an impression that the future
events in their lives will not be able to efface.

  Let us again listen to the appeal made by Paul Vi to parents:
"Mothers, do you teach your children the Christian prayers?  Do you
prepare them, in conjunction with the priests, for the sacraments
that they receive when they are young: confession, communion and
confirmation?  Do you encourage them when they are sick to think of
Christ suffering, to invoke the aid of the Blessed Virgin and the
saints?  Do you say the family rosary together?  And you, fathers,
do you pray with your children, with the whole domestic community,
at least sometimes?  Your example of honesty in thought and action,
joined to some common prayer, is a lesson for life, an act of
worship of singular value.  In this way you bring peace to your
homes: Pax huic domui.  Remember, it is thus that you build up the
church" [152].


61. Liturgical prayer and private prayer.
-----------------------------------------

  There exists a deep and vital bond between the prayer of the
church and the prayer of the individual faithful as has been
clearly reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council [153].  An
important purpose of the prayer of the domestic church is to serve
as the natural introduction for the children to the liturgical
prayer of the whole church, both in the sense of preparing for it
and of extending it into personal, family and social life.  Hence
the need for gradual participation by all the members of the
Christian family in the celebration of the eucharist, especially on
Sundays and feast days, and of the other sacraments, particularly
the sacraments of Christian initiation of the children.  The
directives of the council opened up a new possibility for the
Christian family when it listed the family among those groups to
whom it recommends the recitation of the Divine Office in common
[154].  Likewise, the Christian family will strive to celebrate at
home and in a way suited to the members the times and feasts of the
liturgical year.

  As preparation for the worship celebrated in church and as its
prolongation in the home, the Christian family makes use of private
prayer, which presents a great variety of forms.  While this
variety testifies to the extraordinary richness with which the
spirit vivifies Christian prayer, it serves also to meet the
various needs and life situations of those who turn to the Lord in
prayer.  Apart from morning and evening prayers, certain forms of
prayer are to be expressly encouraged, following the indications of
the synod fathers, such as reading and meditating on the word of
God, preparation for the reception of the sacraments, devotion and
consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, various forms of
veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grace before and after meals
and observance of popular devotions.

  While respecting the freedom of the children of God, the church
has always proposed certain practices of piety to the faithful with
particular solicitude and insistence.  Among these should be
mentioned the recitation of the rosary: "We now desire, as a
continuation of the thought of our predecessors, to recommend
strongly the recitation of the family rosary ... There is no doubt
that ... the rosary should be considered as one of the best and
most efficacious prayers in common that the Christian family is
invited to recite.  We like to think and sincerely hope that when
the family gathering becomes a time of prayer the rosary is a
frequent and favored manner of praying" [155].  In this way
authentic devotion to Mary, which finds expression in sincere love
and generous imitation of the Blessed Virgin's interior spiritual
attitude, constitutes a special instrument for nourishing loving
communion in the family and for developing conjugal and family
spirituality.  For she who is the mother of Christ and of the
church is in a special way the mother of Christian families, of
domestic churches.


62. Prayer and life.
--------------------

  It should never be forgotten that prayer constitutes an essential
part of Christian life, understood in its fullness and centrality. 
Indeed, prayer is an important part of our very humanity: It is
"the first expression of man's inner truth, the first condition for
authentic freedom of spirit" [156].  

  Far from being a form of escapism from everyday commitments,
prayer constitutes the strongest incentive for the Christian family
to assume and comply fully with all its responsibilities as the
primary and fundamental cell of human society.  Thus the Christian
family's actual participation in the church's life and mission is
the direct proportion to the fidelity and intensity of the prayer
with which it is united with the fruitful vine that is Christ the
Lord [157].

  The fruitfulness of the Christian family in its specific service
to human advancement, which of itself cannot but lead to the
transformation of the world, derives from its living union with
Christ, nourished by the liturgy, by self-oblation and by prayer
[158].


C.THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A COMMUNITY AT THE SERVICE OF MAN.
------------------------------------------------------------

63. The new commandment of love.
-------------------------------

  The church, a prophetic, priestly and kingly people, is endowed
with the mission of bringing all human beings to accept the word of
God in faith, to celebrate and profess it in the sacraments and in
prayer, and to give expression to it in the concrete realities of
life in accordance with the gift and new commandment of love.

  The law of Christian life is to be found not in a written code,
but in the personal action of the Holy Spirit who inspires and
guides the Christian.  It is the "law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus" [159]: "God's love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" [160].  

  This is true for the Christian couple and family.  Their guide
and rule of life is the Spirit of Jesus poured into their hearts in
the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony.  In continuity with
baptism in water and the Spirit, marriage sets forth anew the
evangelical law of love, and with the gift of the Spirit engraves
it more profoundly on the hearts of Christian husbands and wives. 
Their love, purified and saved, is a fruit of the Spirit acting in
the hearts of believers and constituting, at the same time, the
fundamental commandment of their moral life to be lived in
responsible freedom.

  Thus the Christian family is inspired and guided by the new law
of the Spirit and, in intimate communion with the church, the
kingly people, it is called to exercise its "service" of love
toward God and toward its fellow human beings.

  Just as Christ exercises his royal power by serving us [161], so
also the Christian finds the authentic meaning of his participation
in the kingship of his Lord in sharing his spirit and practice of
service to man.  "Christ has communicated this power to his
disciples that they might be established in royal freedom and that
by self-denial and a holy life they might conquer the reign of sin
in themselves (cf. Rom. 6:12).  Further, he has shared this power
so that by serving him in their fellow human beings they might
through humility and patience lead their brothers and sisters to
that King whom to serve is to reign.  For the Lord wishes to spread
his kingdom by means of the laity also, a kingdom of truth and
life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love
and peace.  In this kingdom, creation itself will be delivered out
of its slavery to corruption and into the freedom of the glory of
the children of God (cf. Rom. 8:21)" [162].


64. To discover the image of God in each brother and sister.
------------------------------------------------------------

  Inspired and sustained by the new commandment of love, the
Christian family welcomes, respects and serves every human being,
considering each one in his or her dignity as a person and as a
child of God.

  It should be so especially between husband and wife and within
the family, through a daily effort to promote a truly personal
community, initiated and fostered by an inner communion of love. 
This way of life should then be extended to the wider circle of the
ecclesial community of which the Christian family is part.

  Thanks to love within the family, the church can and ought to
take on a more homelike or family dimension, developing a more
homan and fraternal style of relationships.

  Love, too, goes beyond our brothers and sisters of the same faith
since "everybody is my brother or sister."  In each individual,
especially in the poor, the weak and those who suffer or are
unjustly treated, love knows how to discover the face of Christ,
and discover a fellow human being to be loved and served.

  In order that the family may serve man in a truly evangelical
way, the instructions of the Second Vatican Council must be
carefully put into practice: "That the exercise of such charity may
rise above any deficiencies in fact and even in appearance, certain
fundamentals must be observed.  Thus attention is to be paid to the
image of God in which our neighbor has been created, and also to
Christ the Lord to whom is really offered whatever is given to a
needy person" [163].

  While building up the church in love, the Christian family places
itself at the service of the human person and the world, really
bringing about the "human advancement" whose substance was given in
summary form in the synod's message to families: "Another task for
the family is to from persons in love and also to practice love in
all its relationships, so that it does not live closed in on
itself, but remains open to the community, moved by a sense of
justice and concern for others, as well as by a consciousness of
its responsibiltiy toward the whole of society" [164].

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Footnotes:

[114] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 11; APOSTOLICAM
ACTUOSITATEM, 11; Pope John Paul II, Homily for the Opening of the
Sixth Synod of Bishops (Sept. 26, 1980), 3: AAS 72 (1980) 1008.

[115] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 11.

[116] Cf. Ibid, 41.

[117] Acts 4:32.

[118] Cf. Paul VI, HUMANAE VITAE, 9.

[119] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.

[120] Cf. Second Vatican Council, DEI VERBUM, 1.

[121] Rom. 16:26.

[122] Cf. Paul VI, HUMANAE VITAE, 25.

[123] EVANGELII NUNTIANDI, 71.

[124] Cf. Address to the Third General Assembly of the Bishops of
Latin America (Jan. 28, 1979(, IV, A: AAS 71 (1979), 204.

[125] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 35.

[126] John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, CATECHISI TRADENDAE, 68:
AAS 71 (1979), 1334.

[127] Cf. Ibid, 36, loc. cit. 1308.

[128] Cf. 1 Cor. 12:4-6; Eph. 4:12-13.

[129] Mk. 16:15.

[130] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 11.

[131] Acts. 1:8.

[132] Cf. 1 Pt. 3:1-2.

[133] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 35; cf. APOSTOLICAM
ACTUOSITATEM, 11.

[134] Cf. Acts 18; Rom. 16:3-4.

[135] Cf. Second Vatican Council, AD GENTES, 39.

[136] Second Vatican Council, APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM, 30.

[137] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 10.

[138] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 49.

[139] Ibid, 48.

[140] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 41.

[141] Second Vatican Council, SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM, 59.

[142] Cf. 1 Pt. 2:5; Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 34.

[143] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 34.

[144] SACROSANTUM CONCILIUM, 78.

[145] Cf. Jn. 19:34.

[146] Section 25: AAS (1968), 499.

[147] Eph. 2:4.

[148] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical DIVES IN MISERICORDIA, 13: AAS
72 (1980), 1218-1219.

[149] 1 Pt. 2:5.

[150] Mt. 18:19-20.

[151] Second Vatican Council, GRAVISSIUM EDUCATIONIS, 3; cf. Pope
John Paul II, CATECHESI TRANDENDAE, 36: AAS 71 (1979), 1308.

[152] General Audience Address, Aug. 11, 1976: INSEGNAMENTI DI
PAOLO VI, XIV (1976), 640.

[153] Cf. SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM, 12.

[154] Cf. INSTITUTIO GENRALIS DE LITUGIA HORARUM, 27.

[155] Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation MARIALIS CULTUS, 52, 54: AAS
66 (1974), 160-161.

[156] John Paul II, Address at the Mentorella Shrine (Oct. 28,
1978): INSEGNAMENTI, I (1978), 78-79.

[157] Cf. Second Vatican Council, APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM, 4.

[158] Cf. John Paul I, Address to the Bishops of the 12th Pastoral
Region of the United States (Sept. 21, 1978): AAS, 70 (1978), 767.

[159] Rom. 8:2.

[160] Rom. 5:5.

[161] Cf. Mk. 10:45.

[162] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 36.

[163] APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM, 8.

[164] Cf. Synod of Bishops' Message to Christian Families (Oct. 24,
1980), 12.

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