What do Catherine of Sienna, Thersa of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux have in common? Not when they lived (500 years apart). Not the economic status of their families. Not formal education. All three were saints, and are Doctors of the Church. These three are the only women who have been elevated to such status. A Doctor of the Church is first recognized as having lead a life of great sanctity and is declared to be a Saint in heaven. Second, a Doctor is recognized as having produced writings through which the entire Church gains great advantage. All three women had only limited formal education, and never considered themselves theologians or scholars. Each of these three imparted a unique understanding of the revelation of God to man that is recognized throughout history. All three came to such profound understandings through the impact of their family life and their personal openess to to the inner teaching of our Lord. It is important to recognize that through the lives and teachings of the family members, they were each schooled in ways of spiritual life that surpasses that of the most important of Universities.
CELEBRATION - Growth in love- 4th stage
MEDITATION- SACRAMENTS-79-MATRIMONY 9
The Church has through the ages of the Old and New Testaments, up to the present age emphasized the need for family in the formation of its children in the ways of the world and in the ways of God. The Hebrew family of the Old Testament was a close knit group, who learned the ways of the world by working with the father and the mother within the household and most daughters became mothers and fulfilled the role taught by their mothers and sons learned their trade from their fathers. In the transmission of spiritual knowledge, the entire family followed the rule of their faith and expressed their devotion through communal, family and personal prayer. As the first Christians, including Jesus, were Hebrew, these traditions passed into the Christian discipline of life.
The importance of family life is well expressed in the Book of Genesis, where, “in the beginning” when God created Eve from the flesh and blood of Adam while he was in an ecstatic state. The ecstatic conjugal union of husband and wife assuring the begetting of children at the same time provides a source of joy and happiness passed on to the children.
This teaching is expressed by the Bishops of the world in the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et spes (Joy and peace) in 1965. In this document article 50 states; “While not making the other purposes of matrimony of less account, the true practice of conjugal love, and the whole meaning of the family life which results from it, have this aim: that the couple be ready with stout hearts to cooperate with the love of the Creator and the Savior. Who through them will enlarge and enrich His own family day by day.”
In 1981, Pope John Paul II in article 28 of his Apostolic Exhortation; “The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World.” Writes the following. “The fruitfulness of conjugal love is not restricted solely to the procreation of children, even understood in its specifically human dimension: it is enlarged and enriched by all those fruits of moral, spiritual and supernatural life which the father and mother are called to hand on to their children and through the children to the Church and to the world.”
It is important that during preparation for celebration of the Sacrament of Matrimony that both members of the couple clearly understand that this sacrament is not a matter of their personal fulfillment. Although it is important that each partners are fulfilled through marital union is most importantly about a total giving of self to the spouse throughout life and when children are born, a total giving of both “selves” to each of the children. When this is done with intention and care, not only will children be successful in the world of industry, but they will also be successful in the spiritual world. It is from such determination that saints are made.
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