1. The Church is the family of God (Father). The Second Vatican Council has described the Church as a sign and instrument (sacrament in the broad sense) of union with God and among men. This is what it calls a "mystery of communion". Many Council Fathers asked that the Church be further explained as the "family of God". John Paul II - who wanted to be remembered as "the Pope of the family" - pushed this theological and pastoral task forward.the Trinity of God is like the "prototype" of this family that is the Church. The Christian tradition presents God as a father who gives us to participate in the divine life, from baptism, through our incorporation into Christ thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit.The Second Vatican Council presents the Church as a structured family: all the baptized participate in the mediating priesthood of Christ. Some - ordained ministers - represent him and act in his name before the ecclesial community. The Pope and the bishops must govern it in a "family" style. Christians, having Mary as their spiritual mother, aspire to extend this family spirit to all humanity, seeing brothers and sisters in each of the men and women who compose it.

This vision of the Church as a family vivified by the love of the Holy Spirit in unity and diversity, touches especially closely some peoples where the family plays a fundamental role, as is the case with the Latin American peoples (cf. Puebla Document1979, nn. 239-249).

These peoples can teach all the Christians of the world how the family home, together with liturgical celebrations and popular religiosity, are sources from which culture, traditions and language are preserved, as well as special attention for the weakest.

It is in this perspective that the last pontificates are situated. For Benedict XVI, the framework and the nucleus of the Church as the family of God is charity. The Church is the "we", the home of faith, hope and love. The Church is also the seed for the integral human development of peoples. Its heart is the Eucharist, "sacrament of charity," as St. Thomas Aquinas put it. The "notes" of the Church (unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity) acquire a special brilliance in this light of the Church as the family of God.

And the Church, by transmitting the Word of God, reveals to the family its identity, its deep meaning and its mission statement (that is why every family should have and use the Bible at home).

2. The Christian family is "domestic Church, that is, like a Church in a small way, like the Church in the home, constituted on the basis of the sacrament of marriage, which transmits sacramental grace to the spouses to live and sanctify marriage and the natural family. The sacrament of marriage makes the baptized a living sign of God's loving covenant with humanity and of the real love between Christ and the Church, both family and Church, willed by God for promote in the world a culture of life and hospitality, a civilization of love and joy. St. John Chrysostom says that the family home, gathered around the table, prolongs the table of the Eucharist.we Christians must all contribute to the Church being the Church for families, the mother that engenders, educates and edifies them. The Christian training and Education of the families is an essential task for the Church. At present, premarital courses, Christian schools for parents and family orientation courses are taking shape more and more. This attention to families should be intensified in circumstances of crisis, illness, problems of work, migrant families, families in difficult or irregular situations. Likewise, the Church as a mother should take special care of those Christians who lack a family.

 

3. But not only the Church financial aid to the family, but also the family must help and serve the Church. Not only the family is the way for the Church, but also the Church is the way for the family. This is already the case if the family is what it is: a community of life and love that finds its fullness by assuming and promoting Christian life in its midst; the family is the place of the first experience of God - a place of initiation into prayer and liturgical life - a school of virtues - where people are valued for what they are and not for what they have or do - and of evangelization, of special care for the most needy and fragile - such as children and the elderly - and a seedbed of vocations*.All this is reflected above all in the relationship between spouses, where prayer must have a central place, helping to overcome difficulties and trials. The union with God of each spouse strengthens their mutual attention , symbolized by Pope Francis with three words: "Permission, thanks and forgiveness".

In this way, in the perspective of the Church, the Christian family rediscovers its profoundly human role of promote trust, to care for and serve people, to be a sign of God's love in the world. To help in this, it is important for all of us to foster this "family" in our work, beginning within our family and at attention with other families, in social life as well as in ecclesial life, in the school as well as in the parish, in groups, movements and other institutions of the Church. In this way we will also be able to extend this "air" of family to the most distant environments.

St. Josemaría liked to refer to the families of the first Christians, "those families that lived for Christ and made Christ known. Small Christian communities that were like centers of irradiation of the Gospel message. Homes like other homes of those times, but animated by a new spirit, which infected those who knew them and treated them. That is what the first Christians were, and that is what we Christians must be today: sowers of peace and joy, of the peace and joy that Jesus has brought us (Christ Is Passing By, n. 30)".