Preacher Gives Families Strategy to Win Back World

Says Key Is Not Trying to Change Laws
MEXICO CITY, JAN. 14, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Christians should not focus all their energies on combating a secular concept of marriage. Rather they should rediscover its beauty for themselves and propose this ideal to the world, says the preacher of the Pontifical Household.   Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa affirmed this today at the 6th World Meeting of Families, inaugurated today in Mexico Cityby Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, president of the Pontifical Council forthe Family. 

Christians "need to rediscover the biblical ideal of marriage and family" so they can promote this ideal to the world, the preacher exhorted in his address titled "Family Relationships and Values in the Bible."

The Christian idea of matrimony and family does not just need "defending," he affirmed. The most important thing is the "task of Christians rediscovering it and living it in plenitude, such that they again propose it to the world with their actions, more than with their words."
The address was divided into three sections. First, the preacher considered God's original project formarriage and family, and how this was lived out in the history of the Chosen People. Then, he spoke of the renewal wrought by Christ, and how this was lived by the first communities of Christians. Finally, Father Cantalamessa had a look at what Revelation has to offer to the problems faced by marriages and the family today.  The preacher explained that forcenturies, the spousal meaning of marriage, strongly present in the Bible, has been left to one side, in favorof a more institutional understanding.

Primary goals

But behind the current "unacceptable" proposals of the "relativistic deconstruction" of the traditional family, he contended, there is a "positive resource" that should be welcomed, and it is the vision of matrimony as union and gift between the spouses.
Father Cantalamessa suggested that ideas from this critique coincide with the biblical understanding, and he noted that the Second Vatican Council highlighted this when it recognized mutual love and donation between spouses as an equally primary good of marriage.

"Even believing couples fail to rediscover [...] this treasure of the initial significance of the sexual union, due to the concepts of concupiscence and original sin associated with this act over centuries," he said. And he affirmed that sexual union must be rediscovered as an image of the love of God.

"Two people who love each other -- and the case of the man and the woman in marriage is the strongest -- reproduce something of what happened in the Trinity," he explained. "In this light one discovers the deep sense of the prophets' messages regarding human marriage, which is therefore a symbol and reflection of another love, that of God forhis people."
This implies "revealing the true face and the final objective of the creation of man as male and female: that of going out of individual isolation and 'egotism,' opening oneself to the other and, through the temporal ecstasy of the carnal union, elevating oneself to the desire of love and joy without end," the Capuchin added.

The preacher of the Pontifical Household suggested that "Deus Caritas Est" received such an ""uncommonly positive" welcome around the world, precisely because it is an encyclical that insists on this vision of human love as a reflection of the love of God.
Women

Another issue, Father Cantalamessa went on, "is the equal dignity of the woman in matrimony. As we have seen, this is at the very heart of the original project of God and the thinking of Christ, but it has almost always been disregarded."
Faced with the current situation of an "apparently global rejection of the biblical project regarding sexuality, matrimony and family," the Capuchin suggested that it is necessary to "avoid the errorof spending all our time rebutting contrary theories."  The strategy, he said, is not "to combat the world" but to "dialogue with it, drawing out the good even from criticisms."
Another errorthat should be avoided, he proposed, is "directing everything toward national laws to defend Christian values."

"The first Christians changed the laws of the state with their customs; we cannot expect today to change the customs with the laws of the state," the preacher reflected.
Regarding the current "deconstruction of the family" or"gender revolution," the priest explained that it is something analogous to Marxism, and recalled that faced with this ideology, the Church's reaction was "to apply the ancient Pauline method of examining everything and remaining with what is good," developing "its own social doctrine."

"Precisely the choice fordialogue and self-critique gives us the right to denounce the deranged projects of the gender revolution as inhuman, that is, contrary not only to the will of God but also to the good of humanity," he added. "Our only hope is that people's common sense, united to this 'desire' forthe other sex, to the necessity of maternity and paternity that God has inscribed in human nature, resists these attempts to substitute God, dictated more by man's belated sentiments of guilt than by genuine respect and love forthe woman."

THE EUCHARIST, A MYSTERY
TO BE BELIEVED

"This is the work of God: that you believe
in him whom he has sent" (Jn 6:29)

The Church's eucharistic faith

6. "The mystery of faith!" With these words, spoken immediately after the words of consecration, the priest proclaims the mystery being celebrated and expresses his wonder before the substantial change of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, a reality which surpasses all human understanding. The Eucharist is a "mystery of faith" par excellence: "the sum and summary of our faith." (13) The Church's faith is essentially a eucharistic faith, and it is especially nourished at the table of the Eucharist. Faith and the sacraments are two complementary aspects of ecclesial life. Awakened by the preaching of God's word, faith is nourished and grows in the grace-filled encounter with the Risen Lord which takes place in the sacraments: "faith is expressed in the rite, while the rite reinforces and strengthens faith." (14) For this reason, the Sacrament of the Altar is always at the heart of the Church's life: "thanks to the Eucharist, the Church is reborn ever anew!" (15) The more lively the eucharistic faith of the People of God, the deeper is its sharing in ecclesial life in steadfast commitment to the mission entrusted by Christ to his disciples. The Church's very history bears witness to this. Every great reform has in some way been linked to the rediscovery of belief in the Lord's eucharistic presence among his people.

The Blessed Trinity and the Eucharist

The bread come down from heaven

7. The first element of eucharistic faith is the mystery of God himself, trinitarian love. In Jesus' dialogue with Nicodemus, we find an illuminating expression in this regard: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (Jn 3:16-17). These words show the deepest source of God's gift. In the Eucharist Jesus does not give us a "thing," but himself; he offers his own body and pours out his own blood. He thus gives us the totality of his life and reveals the ultimate origin of this love. He is the eternal Son, given to us by the Father. In the Gospel we hear how Jesus, after feeding the crowds by multiplying the loaves and fishes, says to those who had followed him to the synagogue of Capernaum: "My Father gives you the true bread from heaven; for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world" (Jn 6:32-33), and even identifies himself, his own flesh and blood, with that bread: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (Jn 6:51). Jesus thus shows that he is the bread of life which the eternal Father gives to mankind.

A free gift of the Blessed Trinity

8. The Eucharist reveals the loving plan that guides all of salvation history (cf. Eph 1:10; 3:8- 11). There the Deus Trinitas, who is essentially love (cf. 1 Jn 4:7-8), becomes fully a part of our human condition. In the bread and wine under whose appearances Christ gives himself to us in the paschal meal (cf. Lk 22:14-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26), God's whole life encounters us and is sacramentally shared with us. God is a perfect communion of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. At creation itself, man was called to have some share in God's breath of life (cf. Gen 2:7). But it is in Christ, dead and risen, and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, given without measure (cf. Jn 3:34), that we have become sharers of God's inmost life. (16) Jesus Christ, who "through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God" (Heb 9:14), makes us, in the gift of the Eucharist, sharers in God's own life. This is an absolutely free gift, the superabundant fulfilment of God's promises. The Church receives, celebrates and adores this gift in faithful obedience. The "mystery of faith" is thus a mystery of trinitarian love, a mystery in which we are called by grace to participate. We too should therefore exclaim with Saint Augustine: "If you see love, you see the Trinity." (17)

The Eucharist: Jesus the true Sacrificial lamb

The new and eternal covenant in the blood of the Lamb

9. The mission for which Jesus came among us was accomplished in the Paschal Mystery. On the Cross from which he draws all people to himself (cf. Jn 12:32), just before "giving up the Spirit," he utters the words: "it is finished" (Jn 19:30). In the mystery of Christ's obedience unto death, even death on a Cross (cf. Phil 2:8), the new and eternal covenant was brought about. In his crucified flesh, God's freedom and our human freedom met definitively in an inviolable, eternally valid pact. Human sin was also redeemed once for all by God's Son (cf. Heb 7:27; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10). As I have said elsewhere, "Christ's death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form." (18) In the Paschal Mystery, our deliverance from evil and death has taken place. In instituting the Eucharist, Jesus had spoken of the "new and eternal covenant" in the shedding of his blood (cf. Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24; Lk 22:20). This, the ultimate purpose of his mission, was clear from the very beginning of his public life. Indeed, when, on the banks of the Jordan, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him, he cried out: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29). It is significant that these same words are repeated at every celebration of Holy Mass, when the priest invites us to approach the altar: "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper." Jesus is the true paschal lamb who freely gave himself in sacrifice for us, and thus brought about the new and eternal covenant. The Eucharist contains this radical newness, which is offered to us again at every celebration. (19)

Source:  Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation - Sacramentum Caritatis of the Holy Father Benedict XVI