Walking Together Towards the Fullness of Christian Life

Picture: Freepick

On the tenth anniversary of the canonization of the Martins, the Emmanuel Community organized a Seminar on the Holiness of Married Couples, held from 17 to 19 October at Trinità dei Monti.

Gambino: “Taking seriously the words of the Holy Father on marriage and family”

On 19 October, Undersecretary Gabriella Gambino gave the concluding address, retracing the holy lives of some married couples who, as Pope Leo XIV explained on 1 June during the Jubilee of Families, were proclaimed saints and blessed “not separately, but as married couples. By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies.” This is a strong a statement, which calls us back to the role of the family and to the mission of spouses, at a time when Christian marriage struggles to be understood and even to be chosen as a life project by younger generations. Therefore, taking seriously the words of the Holy Father is essential if we are to proclaim adequately the vocation of marriage and the path of holiness it opens to those who choose to embrace it.

“When in the Gospel of Luke we hear the Lord ask ‘to send out workers into his harvest field’,” Prof. Gambino began, “we must not think that these workers are only pastors or religious. By virtue of Baptism, we are all workers in the harvest, necessary to build up the Church: priests, religious, consecrated persons, and lay people, and above all, Christian spouses, who have a specific mandate to evangelize and to transmit the faith to new generations, to be a ‘sign’ of the presence of God’s love through their human love, expressed in marriage.”

“The Lord sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go” (Luke, 10:1). Where else but in the family does the Lord send his children to proclaim him and to precede his coming through the marriage of man and woman? Two by two, man and woman together, in every family, united in the sacrament in which Christ makes himself present, elevating their relationship: here lie the roots of family holiness.”

Marriage is a co-vocation, and every family can achieve its own path of holiness within the fabric of relationships it experiences

Yet, when today we speak of holiness in relation to families, it is important to explain what we mean. It is a theologically rich term that often feels distant from our daily lives – an abstract ideal which doesn’t concern us as it seems unattainable. In reality, like all the Gospel’s teachings, it is much easier than it appears: holiness is rooted in our Baptism and is nothing other than walking towards the fullness of Christian life! This is what it means to set out on the path of holiness – and everyone can do it! This is why, for example, in Gaudete et exsultate (15) we are all encouraged to let the grace of our Baptism “bear fruit in a path of holiness.” This holds all the more true for spouses, for whom the sacrament of marriage is a specific means of setting out on that path.

Marriage is a co-vocation: a call to two persons to live one vocation – a reality that today must be proclaimed and explained to young people! When the Church presents the holiness of canonized families, it does not intend to impose unattainable models of human heroism, but to bear witness to how God’s love is revealed in those who seek to be faithful to Him. Therefore, every family can achieve its own path of holiness within the fabric of relationships it experiences and in which it is rooted. In a world like ours, marked by individualism, the new message to be proclaimed is that no one is saved alone.

A “flight plan” for Christian couples: seeking God and reflecting his light

Building on these initial reflections, Prof. Gambino then offered some practical considerations on how to accompany families towards the fullness of Christian life, whatever their circumstances and in the midst of life’s difficulties. She proposed suggestions to help Christian couples develop a clear and shared “flight plan” for seeking God and becoming a reflection of His glory.

At the end of the seminar, after Holy Mass, participants spent time in prayer before the holy relics of the Martins, their daughter Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, and the relics of the Blessed Ulma Family.