Team ICM –
Today’s families face innumerable challenges. The Holy Father Pope Francis exhorts the church to see how best her pastoral care can be at the service of the married couples and their families, said Fr. Arul Raj, CSC, National Director of Holy Cross Family Ministries during his talk on our Pope’s Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, the “Joy of Love,” The talk was held at Catholic Club, Bengaluru August 18 (Friday).
In his presentation, Fr Arul Raj said that Pope begins with an opening chapter inspired by the Scriptures, to set a proper tone. He then examines the actual situation of families, in order to keep firmly grounded in reality. The Holy Father goes on to recall some essential aspects of the Church’s teaching on marriage and the family, thus paving the way for two central chapters dedicated to love. (Chapter 4 – on 1 Corinthians 13 and Chapter 5 – on children and parenting)
“The Church is a Field Hospital”
“The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugar! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. … And you have to start from the ground up.” – Pope Francis
Pope then highlights some pastoral approaches that can guide faithful in building sound and fruitful homes in accordance with God’s plan, with a full chapter devoted to the raising of children, said Fr. Arul Raj.
Finally, he offered an invitation to mercy and the pastoral discernment of those situations that fall short of what the Lord demands of us (Chapter 7), and conclude with a brief discussion of family spirituality.
Do not be judgemental
According to Fr. Arul Raj, Amoris Laetitia is also the Pope’s reminder that the church should avoid simply judging people and imposing rules on them without considering their struggles.
Pope Francis affirms church teaching on family life and marriage, but strongly emphasizes the role of personal conscience and pastoral discernment. He urges the church to appreciate the context of people’s lives when helping them make good decisions.
The goal is to help families—in fact, everyone—experience God’s love and know that they are welcome members of the church. All this may require what the pope calls “new pastoral methods”
Much of Amoris Laetitia consists of reflections on the Gospels and church teaching on love, the family and children. But it also includes a great deal of practical advice from the pope, sometimes gleaned from exhortations and homilies regarding the family. Pope Francis reminds married couples that a good marriage is a “dynamic process” and that each side has to put up with imperfections.
The pope, speaking as a pastor, encourages not only married couples, but also engaged couples, expectant mothers, adoptive parents, widows, as well as aunts, uncles and grandparents. He is especially attentive that no one feels unimportant or excluded from God’s love.
What might work in one place may not work in another
The pope is not only speaking in terms of individuals, but geographically as well. “Each country or region…can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs”.
Traditional teachings on marriage are affirmed, but the church should not burden people with unrealistic expectations.
Marriage is between one man and one woman and is indissoluble; and same-sex marriage is not considered marriage. The church continues to hold out an invitation to healthy marriages.
Children must be educated in sex and sexuality
In a culture that often commodifies and cheapens sexual expression, children need to understand sex within the “broader framework of an education for love and mutual self-giving” (280). Sadly, the body is often seen as simply “an object to be used” (153). Sex always has to be understood as being open to the gift of new life.
Gay men and women should be respected
While same-sex marriage is not permitted, the pope says that he wants to reaffirm “before all else” that the homosexual person needs to be “respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, and ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression or violence.” Families with LGBT members need “respectful pastoral guidance” from the church and its pastors so that gays and lesbians can fully carry out God’s will in their lives.
The church must help families of every sort, and people in every state of life, know that, even in their imperfections, they are loved by God and can help others experience that love. Likewise, pastors must work to make people feel welcome in the church. Amoris Laetitia offers the vision of a pastoral and merciful church that encourages people to experience the “joy of love.” The family is an absolutely essential part of the church, because after all, the church is a “family of families”.
Key Chapter: Chapter 4
Pope Francis interprets the famous hymn to love in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (90-119). Following the great missionary Apostle, he argues that love is not primarily a feeling, but rather a commitment of the will to do some pretty definite and challenging things: to be patient, to bear with one another, to put away envy and rivalry, ceaselessly to hope.
Pope Francis wants the truths regarding marriage, sexuality, and family to be unambiguously declared, but that he also wants the Church’s ministers to reach out in mercy and compassion to those who struggle to incarnate those truths in their lives, summarised Fr Arul Raj.