Through the renewal of the domestic church of the family we find insights needed for the renewal of the Universal Church.

CHESAPEAKE,VA (Catholic Online) - In his encyclical letter entitled, "The Splendor of Truth" the late Servant of God John Paul II referred to the Sermon on the Mount as the "Magna Carta" of the Christian life. When the history of his Pontificate is written, another one of his wonderful letters, entitled, "The Christian Family in the Modern World" will be referred to as the "Magna Carta" of Christian Family life.

The wealth of teaching and practical foundations set forth in that letter could help immensely in the needed recovery of the Christian family, and, through the Christian Family, the renewal of the Church, which is a family of families. It can also lay the groundwork for a new “family politics”, as the late Pope called it, a family based outreach to a secular culture pining for a return to healthy and happy family life.

The letter develops a much-needed missionary model that is family-centered. It helps us to recover the ancient Christian understanding that the Christian family is a "church in miniature", a missionary cell of the broader family of the Church. Only when we see this can we comprehend the relational model that the early church used to transform the world of the first millennium.

This relational model is the one through which the "New Evangelization" of the Church and the contemporary age must now be undertaken. This family-based missionary outreach will help to bring about the "New Springtime" of Christianity that John Paul prophetically proclaimed. The task is now ours, as Christian families, to undertake the work in earnest. We live in a new missionary age. The challenge and the opportunity are unparalleled!

John Paul reminded us "the future of humanity passes by way of the family." He stated that as the "domestic church"," a society in its own original right" and the "first and vital cell of society" the baptized Christian family is the key which unlocks the treasure house of the "new humanism"(authentic Christianity) which we are called to build. It also provides the roadmap.

This "culture of life" and "civilization of love", which is an authentically human culture, one which recognizes the dignity of every human life at every age and stage along the spectrum of life, can only be established upon an authentically renewed Christian family life.

This teaching on family as the foundation for authentic human flourishing is the antidote to the sickness caused by drinking at the poisoned well of the "culture of death" which characterized the last twenty years. There is a "close link between Catholic teaching on this matter and the view of the human person which the Church proposes" wrote John Paul, and he was absolutely correct. In fact, only this renewed view of the human person as truly flourishing in and through the first community of the family can transform our current culture of use into a culture of love.

The devastation which modern secularism has reaped upon the family will require extraordinary prayer and heroic sacrifice to heal. The wisdom of this encyclical letter, a distillation of classical Christian teaching, is presented in a well written format which lends itself well to study groups and can be assimilated and applied in the practical stuff of daily family life—if we will do the work.

This missionary methodology proposed engages families as the new missionary communities of the new evangelization. It is a hope filled approach to cultural recovery. That is because the virtue of hope was at the heart of the late Pope's pastoral and prophetic style. It has also been carried forward and developed even more fully by his beloved successor in the Chair of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI.

Both Popes want those living Christian family vocations to understand that in order to fully comprehend the meaning of marriage and family we must go back to the "beginning". The letter presents the deeper meaning of marriage and family through a brilliant biblical exegesis, showing that the family is God’s plan for the entire human race and it is fulfilled and perfected through the Paschal Mystery, the Saving Incarnation, Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ..

After rooting the deeper meaning of marriage within the extraordinary insights gained from the Book of Genesis, John Paul II explained this transformation and elevation of marriage, and family, through Jesus Christ. Marriage has become a real Sacrament for Baptized Christians, a true participation in Christ and an invitation to holiness. That is why Catholic Christians proclaim that Christian marriage and family is a vocation. It is a response to the Gospel. Living family life in the Lord right in the "stuff" of daily life makes the family a real school for holiness. Love becomes real and grows.

Only when we begin to grasp this Sacramental and redemptive dimension of Christian family can we ...