The Family: Protagonist of Evangelization

The upcoming Ordinary Synod of Bishops, which will discuss The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church in the Contemporary World, is rapidly approaching.  A month before the bishops meet in October, Pope Francis will celebrate the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. St. John Paul II initiated the World Meeting of Families in 1994; the "pope of the family" understood the family to be the way of the Church, especially in our contemporary climate.

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LOS ANGELES, CA - It is evident today that families all over the world are experiencing afflictions heretofore unknown in previous times. The Extraordinary Synod of Bishops last October, which discussed The Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization, made this clear. Needless to say, the breakdown of marriages is one of the most profound wounds people can suffer. Pope Francis says, it is "a cultural crisis. because the family is the fundamental cell of society" (Evangelii Gaudium, 66).

However, all things considered, it is important to acknowledge an important shift in the focus of the 2015 Synod from the 2014 Synod. This shift coincides with the recent history of the development of the theology of marriage and the family, which has barely begun to take root in our Catholic consciousness. Understanding this shift will help give perspective not only for the upcoming Synod, but for the profound development that has been taking place in the Church with regard to her understanding of these realities.

In 1979, St. John Paul II prophetically declared that the future of evangelization depends on the family, the "domestic Church." He expounded on this in the 1981 Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (=FC). For his part, Benedict XVI echoed this theme on several occasions, calling the family the way of the Church. Today, Pope Francis has also drawn considerable attention to the importance of marriage and family for the Church. 

This shift sees the family not so much as the end point of evangelization and pastoral endeavors, although these are certainly necessary. Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the family has become seen as sharing intimately in the mission of the Church. Even more, the family as domestic Church is where the Church is essentially manifested. Simply put: there is no Church without the family.

St. John Paul II exhorted families to faithfully live this truth: "Family, become what you are" (FC, 17). In this regard, it is the family - precisely as family - that is the protagonist of evangelization.  While the Extraordinary Synod last year focused on the challenges families face, the upcoming Ordinary Synod will focus on precisely this shift in the consciousness of the Church. As the Relatio Syondi from last year states regarding the focus of the 2015 Synod: "The family needs to be rediscovered as the essential agent of evangelization" (2).

What does it mean, concretely speaking, to call the family the protagonist, the essential agent, of evangelization?

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First of all, it is important to know that the mission of evangelization is not something "added" to the family, as if it consisted in each member having an itemized list of duties to perform in order to "make" Christ known in the world. This activistic mindset appeals to our contemporary culture, but this is not the mind of the Church.

As Saint Paul tells us, the first work of the Christian is faith (Gal 5:6). This theme has been discussed in recent times by Benedict XVI (Porta Fidei) and Francis (Lumen Fidei). In its essence, faith is a deep knowledge of reality, and abandonment to reality.  Reality consists in knowing we are created and redeemed in Jesus Christ. As such, marriage and the family have their center and source precisely in this reality, in Christ. In faith, the family witnesses to this reality. 

In this light, evangelization does not first mean "doing" things; rather, it means being a faithful witness to Christ who is the center and meaning of everything. As Benedict XVI reminds us, Christianity is not about making a lofty decision about the direction of one's life, but about encountering reality, which has its source a priori in Jesus Christ (see Deus Caritas Est,1).

Up until the time of the Second Vatican Council, it was often thought that pastoral and evangelistic efforts are solely to be "applied" to the family. This time is gone, as is evidenced by the wealth of material Saint John Paul II (and his successors) have given the Church. The family is the place where the Church is manifested, where pastoral ministries and evangelization find their proper home. As the pope of the family put it, the family is not only a saved community, but called to be a saving community (see FC, 49).

Pope Francis has brought the family ever closer to the consciousness of the Church by inaugurating a double synodal path for her to follow. Yet it will be the Ordinary Synod of 2015 that will indicate this shift of the Church's development in understanding marriage and the family.

T.S. Elliot in Choruses from the Rock asked: "Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the Church?" We can have this provocative question in mind as we think about the reality of marriage and the family in the Church's mind. Much has been addressed since the Second Vatican Council, on both the theological and pastoral level, not least of all in St. John Paul II's magna carta Familiaris Consortio. It may not be that these things have not been well addressed, or that pastoral initiatives have not been sufficiently "applied" to families. It may be that families, as the domestic Church, have not lived up to this great calling to manifest the Church's witness to Christ in her most essential core. The domestic Church is not, after all, "like" the Church, but is the Church. Without the family, there is no Church. "Family, become what you are."

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