Holy Mass for Families, Madrid (2 November 1982)

On Tuesday, 2 November 1982, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass for families in Madrid. In hiis homily, the Pope spoke of the gift of the Holy Spirit promised by Christ. “Today more than ever this presence of the Spirit is necessary: ​​a presence that continues to corroborate the traditional sense of the family among you and makes you happily experience, in the depths of your being, the constant impulse to orient marriage and the family itself according to the words and gift of Christ.”

Dear brothers and sisters,
spouses and parents.

1. Allow us, following the Word of God proclaimed in today's liturgy, to remind you of the moment in which, with the sacrament of the Church, you became spouses before God and before men.

In such an important moment, the Church has above all solemnly invited and invoked the Holy Spirit to remain with you, according to the promise that the Apostles received from Christ: "The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you" ( Jn 14, 26).

He brings with him love and peace and for this reason Christ says: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you" ( John 14:27).

He, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of strength and for this same reason Christ says: "Do not let your heart be troubled or be afraid" ( Jn 14:27).

Thus you therefore became spouses through prayer to the Holy Spirit, or by virtue of the sacrament of the Church, and in this sacrament you will remain for the days, weeks and years of your life. In this sacrament, as spouses, you become parents and found the fundamental human and Christian community, made up of parents and children, a community of life and love. Today I address you first of all, I want to pray with you and also bless you, renewing the grace in which you participate through the sacrament of Marriage.

2. Before visibly leaving this world, Christ promised and gave the gift of his Spirit, so that we would not forget his words. We were entrusted to the Spirit so that the Lord's words regarding marriage would remain forever in the heart of every man and every woman united in marriage.

Today more than ever this presence of the Spirit is necessary: ​​a presence that continues to corroborate the traditional sense of the family among you and makes you happily experience, in the depths of your being, the constant impulse to orient marriage and the family itself according to the words and gift of Christ.

Today more than ever this interior impulse of the Spirit is also necessary. So that with him, you, Christian spouses, even living in environments where the norms of Christian life are not held in due consideration, or cannot find the necessary echo in social life or in the means of communication more accessible to the domestic hearth, be able to realize the Christian project of family life. Resisting and overcoming with the dynamism of faith any contrary pressure that may arise. Knowing how to discern between good and evil: not failing to obey the precepts of the Lord, continually remembered by the Spirit through the Magisterium of the Church.

Speaking about marriage, our Lord Jesus referred to "the beginning", that is, to God's original plan, to the truth of marriage (cf. Mt 19:8).

According to this project, marriage is a communion of indissoluble love. “This intimate union, as a mutual donation of two people, as well as the good of children, requires the full fidelity of the spouses and demands their indissoluble unity” ( Gaudium et Spes , 48). For this reason, any attack on marital indissolubility is contrary both to God's original plan and to the dignity and truth of conjugal love. It is therefore understandable that the Lord, by proclaiming a rule valid for all, teaches that it is not permissible for man to separate what God has united (cf. Mt 19:6).

Confident as you are in the Spirit, who continually reminds you of what Christ has said to us, you, Christian spouses, are called to bear witness to these words of the Lord: "Let not man separate what God has joined together".

You are called to live the interior fullness of your faithful and persevering union before others, even in the face of legal norms that may go in another direction. Thus you will contribute to the good of the family institution; and you will prove - contrary to what one might think - that man and woman have the ability to give themselves forever; without the true concept of freedom preventing voluntary and perennial donation. For this reason I repeat to you what I have already said in the apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio : "Witnessing the inestimable value of marital indissolubility and fidelity is one of the most precious and urgent duties of Christian couples of our time" (John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio , 20).

Furthermore, according to God's plan, marriage is a community of indissoluble love ordered to life as a continuation and completion of the spouses themselves. There is an inseparable relationship between conjugal love and the transmission of life, by virtue of which, as Paul VI taught: "Every conjugal act must remain open to the transmission of life" (Paul VI, Humanae Vitae , 11).

Instead - as I wrote in the apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio - "to the native language which expresses the mutual total self-giving of the spouses, contraception opposes an objectively contradictory language, that is, that of not giving oneself totally to the other: not only does the positive rejection of openness to life, but also a falsification of the interior truth of conjugal love” (John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio , 32).

But there is another aspect, even more serious and fundamental, which refers to conjugal love as the source of life: I am talking about absolute respect for human life, which no person or institution, private or public, can ignore. For this reason, anyone who denied defense to the most innocent and weak human person, to the human person already conceived even if not yet born, would be committing a very serious violation of the moral order. The death of an innocent person can never be legitimized. The very foundation of society would be undermined.

What sense would there be in talking about the dignity of man, his fundamental rights, if we do not protect an innocent person, or if we even go so far as to provide means or services, private or public, to destroy defenseless human lives? Dear newlyweds! Christ has entrusted you to his Spirit so that you do not forget his words. In this sense his words are very serious: “Woe to him who scandalizes one of these little ones. . . their angels in heaven always contemplate the face of the Father." He wanted to be recognized, for the first time, by a child still living in his mother's womb, a child who rejoiced and shook with joy in his presence.

3. But your service to life is not limited to its physical transmission. You are the first educators of your children. As the Second Vatican Council taught, “parents, since they have passed on life to their children, have a very serious obligation to educate their offspring: they must therefore be considered as their first and main educators. This educational function of theirs is so important that, if it is missing, it can hardly be supplied" ( Gravissimum Educationis , 3).

Since it is a duty based on the primary vocation of spouses to cooperate with the creative work of God, they have the right to educate their children. Given its origin, it is a primary right-duty compared to the educational task of others; irreplaceable and inalienable, that is, it cannot be totally delegated to others nor can others usurp it.

There is no doubt that, in the field of education, the public authority has rights and duties, as it must serve the common good. However, it cannot replace parents, because its mission is to help them, so that they can fulfill their right and duty to educate their children in accordance with their moral and religious convictions.

The public authority has a subsidiary role in this field and does not renounce its rights when it considers itself to be at the service of parents; on the contrary, this is precisely its greatness: defending and promoting the free exercise of educational rights. For this reason your Constitution establishes that "the public authorities guarantee the right of parents to have their children receive religious and moral education in accordance with their beliefs" (cf. Art . 27, 3).

In concrete terms, the right of parents to the religious education of their children must be particularly guaranteed. In fact, on the one hand, religious education is the fulfillment and foundation of every education which has as its object - as your Constitution also says - "the full development of the human personality" ( Ibid . 2). On the other hand, the right to religious freedom would be largely nullified if parents did not have the guarantee that their children, whatever school they attend, even public school, receive religious teaching and education. .

4. Dear brothers and sisters, beloved spouses and parents. I have recalled some essential points of God's plan for marriage, in order to make it easier for you to listen in your heart to the words directed to you by Christ and which the Spirit continually reminds you of.

“God's law is perfect, it refreshes the soul. . . / makes the simple wise. / The precepts of the Lord are right.” The law of the Lord which must govern your married and family life is the only path to life and peace. It is the school of true wisdom: "He who observes it will bear much fruit." However, it is not enough to recognize as right the law on which marriage and the family are built. Who does not see his daily experience described when he hears Saint Paul say: "I consent to the law of God in my heart, but in my members I see another law, waging war against the law of my mind" ( Rm 7, 22 -23).

A constant conversion of the heart, a constant opening of the human spirit, is necessary, so that all life is identified with the good safeguarded by the authority of the law. For this reason, in today's liturgy, we heard these words from the lips of the prophet Ezekiel: "I will give you a new heart, I will put a new spirit within you, I will take away the heart of stone from you and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and will make you live according to my precepts and will make you observe and put into practice all my laws" ( Ez 36, 26-27).

The Spirit writes God's law on marriage in your hearts. It is not only written externally: in Sacred Scripture, in the documents of Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church. It is also written inside you. This is the New and Eternal Covenant, of which the prophet speaks, which replaces the Ancient one and restores to its first splendor the original alliance with the creative Wisdom, inherent in the humanity of every man and every woman. It is the alliance in the Spirit, to which St. Thomas refers by saying that "the New Law is the very grace of the Holy Spirit" (cf. St. Thomas, Summa Teologiae , I-IIae, q. 108, a. 1).

The life of spouses, the vocation of parents requires persevering and permanent cooperation with the grace of the Spirit which has been given to you through the sacrament of Marriage; so that this grace can bear fruit in the heart and in the works; so that it can bear fruit continuously, and not become extinct because of our meanness, infidelity or indifference.

In the Spanish Church there are countless family spirituality movements. Their task is precisely to help their members to be faithful to the grace of the sacrament of Marriage, to realize their marital and family community according to God's plan, preserved in his law, written by the Spirit in the hearts of the spouses. This specific purpose must be combined at all times with the broader task of collaborating to make ecclesial communion real and effective; in this sense it is necessary that every apostolic commitment knows how to assimilate and put into practice the pastoral criteria issued by the Church, to which every pastoral operator must be faithful.

5. When the spouses walk in the truth of God's plan for marriage, the unity of spirits is achieved, the communion in charity, of which Saint Paul speaks to the Christians of Philippi.

Now I make the Apostle's words my own: “Do nothing out of a spirit of rivalry or vainglory, but each of you, with all humility, consider others superior to yourself. Each does not seek his own interest, but also that of others" ( Phil 2, 3-4).

Yes, the husband does not seek only his own interests, but also those of the wife, and she those of her husband; parents seek the interests of their children and the children in turn seek the interests of their parents. The family is the only community in which every man is "loved in himself", for what he is and not for what he has. The fundamental norm of marital conduct is not that of one's own usefulness and pleasure. The other is not loved for the usefulness or pleasure that he can provide: he is loved in himself and for himself. The fundamental norm is therefore the personalistic norm; each person (the person of the husband, wife, children, parents) is affirmed in her dignity as such, she is loved for herself.

Respect for this fundamental norm explains, as the Apostle himself teaches, that nothing should be done out of a spirit of rivalry or vainglory, but with humility, out of love. And this love, which is open to others, ensures that family members are authentic servants of the "domestic" Church, where everyone desires goodness and happiness for each one; where each and every one gives life to this love with the thoughtful search for such good and such happiness.

6. Understand why the Church looks at the institution of marriage and the family as a field to be cultivated with all possible commitment. How great is "the truth" of the vocation and of married and family life, according to the words of Christ and according to the model of the Holy Family! We know how to be faithful to this word and this model! At the same time, true love for Christ is expressed, the love of which he speaks in today's Gospel: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. . . the word you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me" ( Jn 14, 23-24).

This love for God, which comes from the family, must follow beyond death. Today, the day dedicated to the commemoration of the deceased, we remember the members of our families who have left us: parents, spouses, children, brothers. . . May they help orphans, widows and all those who mourn the absence of loved ones in their family to go towards the Father.

Dear brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, families of noble Spain, of the Nation and of the Church. Keep in your life the teachings of the Father who proclaimed the Son to you; the teachings that the Son confirmed with his cross and with his resurrection. Preserve these sacred teachings with the strength of the Holy Spirit given to you in the sacrament of Marriage.

May the Father who came to you in the Spirit dwell in your families through this sacrament, together with Christ his Eternal Son. Through these Spanish families, the great divine cause of man's salvation on earth continues to progress. Amen.

© Copyright 1982 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Copyright © Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice Vaticana