EVANGELISATION THROUGH MARRIAGE AND FAMILY Dr Brigid McKenna - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
EVANGELISATION THROUGH MARRIAGE AND FAMILY Dr Brigid McKenna Director, Office of Life Marriage and Family Archdiocese of Hobart The Christian family not only rec ecei eive the love of Christ and become a saved ed community, but they are
Dr Brigid McKenna Director, Office of Life Marriage and Family Archdiocese of Hobart
The Christian family …not only rec ecei eive the love of Christ and become a saved ed community, but they are also called upon to co comm mmunica unicate te Christ’s love to their brethren, thus becoming a saving community”.
John Paul II. Familiaris Consortio, 49.
Evangelisation to engaged/married couples and their families Evangelisation by married couples and their families
“…we must not underestimate the evangelising potential represented by a couple’s request that their marriage be celebrated in the Church. Few human situations are as favourable to the proclamation of the Gospel and to an encounter with Christ as the event of the love between a man and a woman, which allows them to experience something of the God who is love.”
Ouellet, Communio, Summer 2014
“…in order to eliminate as far as possible the difficulties that many married
couples find themselves in, and even more in order to favour positively the establishing and maturing of successful marriages".
…"journey of faith, which is similar to the catechumenate", and a
presentation of the fundamental Christian truths that may help acquire or strengthen the maturity of the faith of the persons contracting marriage. Preparation for the Sacrament of Marriage, Pontifical Council for the Family, 1996
McCrindle (2015); ABS (cat. 3310.0)
370 269 230 161 78 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Catholic Marriages Tasmania 1995-2015
“As Catholics, our biggest pastoral struggle is also our greatest pastoral
families who have little or no connection to the Church regularly come knocking on our doors seeking baptism or marriage. If we as a Church can navigate these waters well, we will be able to harvest what amounts to be the low-hanging fruit of the New Evangelisation.”
Fr James Mallon, Divine Renovation
Jose Granados
Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia
arms and love, no matter how limited their faith or understanding of what they are seeking.
conversion and transformation.
However this begs the question of what it means to say “yes.”
quick marriage preparation class.
are ready to celebrate the sacrament and be accompanied with a clear definition of what readiness looks like.
Divine Renovation, p.198.
“Those who request the sacrament should receive a positive welcome and should be confronted with the exciting and demanding mystery of Christian marriage. This would give them the chance to choose, that is, either to commit themselves or, supposing a real resistance to faith on their part, to seek an alternative. For this purpose, a pre- matrimonial catechumenate could certainly be useful, even if it is not a comprehensive or fully satisfying solution.”
Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization.
“The Church, therefore, with a renewed sense of responsibility, continues to propose marriage…not as an ideal for the few… but as a reality that, in Christ’s grace, can be lived by all baptised faithful. And therefore this gives greater importance to the pastoral urgency that involves all structures of the Church in convergence towards a common intention, an adequate preparation for marriage, as a sort of new catechumenate, greatly hoped for by some Synod Fathers”.
To the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, Jan 2016.
Some dioceses in the US have already drawn inspiration from the catechumen-model for engaged couples who have
little grasp of their faith and an understanding of marriage shaped by secular
Couples go through a 9 month formation process intended to help bring about conversion.
“The goal of marriage preparation is spiritual encounter with Jesus Christ” “Every human heart is made by God to respond to this message.”
(Mike Phelan, Office of Marriage and Respect Life)
preparation that integrates modern principles of psychology and the virtues to help couples facilitate an authentic dialogue about their relationship.
concrete connection and integration into the parish.
about marriage through Jesus to the engaged couple.
process and inviting them to set out on a spiritual journey involving:
marriage .
support and pray for the engaged couple as they journey towards the sacrament.
CatholicCare courses: typically cover practical relationship skills > spiritual and sacramental Engaged Encounter; Of Life and Love (Syd), When Two Become One (Melb): typically cover spiritual and sacramental > practical relationship skills
Engage
https://smartloving.org/engaged/face-to-face/
Marriage Resource Center; co-developed by Byron and Francine Pirola (Australia) and Ron and Kathy Feher (USA) Parish-based, marriage formation programme Presented by trained married couple ‘Mentors’ Integrates contemporary relationship psychology with Catholic theology Core content is presented on DVD
supplemented by personal witness and mentoring supported by comprehensive Couple Workbook
in total)
couple to couple mentoring, small home-centred groups
Provides flexible, quality marriage preparation from within your own parish. Designed to be experienced over a period of two to four months, Engaged Online responds to the call of the recent Synods on the Family for marriage preparation to be more like a catechumenate than a once off course that is completed in a day or weekend.
“The complexity of today’s society and the challenges faced by the family require a greater effort on the part of the whole Christian community in preparing those who are about to be married.” (AL 206)
and the other sacraments
(AL 207)
Emphasising the role of pastoral accompaniment before and after the actual celebration of the sacrament
“Nowadays, pastoral care for families has to be fundamentally missionary, going out to where people are. We can no longer be like a factory, churning out courses that for the most part are poorly attended.” (AL 230)
What other opportunities exist to evangelise to married couples and their families
“The marriage liturgy is a unique event, which is both a family and a community celebration.... Frequently, the celebrant speaks to a congregation that includes people who seldom participate in the life
valuable opportunity to proclaim the Gospel of Christ”. (AL 216)
(AL 230)
“Although she constantly holds up the call to perfection and asks for a fuller response to God, “the Church must accompany with attention and care the weakest of her children, who show signs
confidence…Let us not forget that the Church’s task is often like that of a field hospital.” (AL 291)
For the Church’s pastors are not only responsible for promoting Christian marriage, but also the “pastoral discernment of the situations of a great many who no longer live this reality. Entering into pastoral dialogue with these persons is needed to distinguish elements in their lives that can lead to a greater openness to the Gospel of marriage in its fullness” …“to identify elements that can foster evangelization and human and spiritual growth”. (AL 293)
“The future of evangelisation depends in great part on the Church of the home” (FC 52).
Amoris Laetitia 63
man and a woman celebrate the sacrament of marriage, God is, as it were, ‘mirrored’ in them; he impresses in them his own features and the indelible character of his love. Marriage is the icon of God’s love for us. Indeed, God is also communion: the three Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit live eternally in perfect unity….(AL 121)
This has concrete daily consequences, because the spouses, “in virtue of the sacrament, are invested with a true and proper mission, so that, starting with the simple ordinary things of life they can make visible the love with which Christ loves his Church and continues to give his life for her”. (AL 121)
Have you come here freely and without reservation?
Christ’s love is feely given; He chose to become one of us and die for our sins
…to give yourselves to each other in marriage?
Christ’s love is total. He held nothing back. He gave everything, including his life.
Will you love and honour each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?
Christ’s love is
even though we turned away from him.
Will you accept children lovingly from God…?
Christ’s love is
us, he gave birth to the Church.
By demonstrating Christ’s freely given, total, faithful and fruitful love spouses help
experience God’s grace and presence in the world.
Social love, as a reflection of the Trinity, is what truly unifies the spiritual meaning of the family and its mission to others, for it makes present the kerygma in all its communal imperatives. The family lives its spirituality precisely by being at one and the same time a domestic church and a vital cell for transforming the world. (AL 324)
The experience of communion among persons within the family reflects, through grace, the mystery of the Holy Trinity. (AL 86)
learn to appreciate the meaning and beauty of the faith, to pray and to serve our neighbour.
the whole family in its evangelizing mission. It naturally begins to spread the faith to all around them, even outside of the family circle. (AL 287 – 289)
Led by the Spirit, the family circle is not only open to life by generating it within itself, but also by going forth and spreading life by caring for
finds particular expression in hospitality…(AL 324)
No family can be fruitful if it sees itself as overly different or “set apart”. To avoid this risk, we should remember that Jesus’ own family, so full of grace and wisdom, did not appear unusual or different from others. …theirs was an ordinary family, close to others, a normal part of the community. Jesus did not grow up in a narrow and stifling relationship with Mary and Joseph, but readily interacted with the wider family, the relatives of his parents and their friends. (AL 182.)
Christian marriages…enliven society by their witness of fraternity, their social concern, their outspokenness on behalf of the underprivileged, their luminous faith and their active hope. Their fruitfulness expands and in countless ways makes God’s love present in society. (AL 184)
When a family is welcoming and reaches out to others, especially the poor and neglected, it is “a symbol, witness and participant in the Church’s motherhood.” (AL 324)
By their witness as well as their words, families speak to
desire for God and they reflect the beauty of the Gospel and its way of life. AL 184
“How do we keep our faith? Do we keep it for ourselves, in
by our witness, by our acceptance of others, by our
We all know that families, especially young families, are often “racing” from one place to another, with lots to do. But did you ever think that this “racing” could also be the race
Christian families are missionary families, in their everyday life, in their doing everyday things, as they bring to everything the salt and the leaven of faith! “
All of us should be able to say, thanks to the experience of our life in the family: “We come to believe in the love that God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16). Only on the basis of this experience will the Church’s pastoral care for families enable them to be both domestic churches and a leaven of evangelization in society. AL 290
“The family is evangelized and evangelizing to the extent that the beauty of her ‘community of life and love’ allows the witness of Trinitarian Love to shine through it, a little like the splendor of the Cathedral
Cardinal Marc Ouellet
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Cardinal Marc Ouellet
“There is no reason to regret that I cannot finish the church…I will grow old but others will come after me. What must always be conserved is the spirit of the work, but its life has to depend on the generations it is handed down to and with whom it lives and is incarnated.”
“The main contribution to the pastoral care of families is
small communities, ecclesial movements and associations live in harmony”. Along with a pastoral outreach aimed specifically at families, this shows the need for “a more adequate formation... of priests, deacons, men and women religious, catechists and other pastoral workers”. In the replies given to the worldwide consultation, it became clear that ordained ministers often lack the training needed to deal with the complex problems currently facing families. The experience of the broad oriental tradition of a married clergy could also be drawn upon. (AL 202)