Ménager Couple (Tobec), “Sexual complementarity in marriage is essential for self-giving and collaborating with God”

The reference chosen by Emmanuel and Marie-Gabrielle Ménager (Tobec, France), who spoke this morning during the panel session on the importance of the complementarity of mothers and fathers, at the Pastoral Congress of the Dublin World Meeting of Families (21-26 August), was the story of man’s creation in Genesis: “God created man in his image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

“In other words,” they comment, “the sexual difference in our bodies says something about God!” For these two speakers, the family “is the living reflection of the communion of love of the Most Holy Trinity, and it is in the family that a mother and a father are called to live this communion through the gift of themselves.” In this perspective, “sexual complementarity and awareness of it are essential in marriage for mutual support and self-giving—through which father and mother become collaborators in God’s work—and are necessary for the integral and harmonious development of the children, as Pope Francis underlines in Amoris Laetitia.”

For the Ménager couple “Christians are called to support couples in their mutual donation, in conjugal love, and sexual complementarity” and, today, “it is urgent to propose means that help to transmit the Gospel of the family. Therefore, we have developed,” they concluded, “programs to support schools, parishes, and families, to help them to live the truth, significance, and call of the body. To help them live in the image of the God of love and to give God to the world.”