The family is at the root of creation, because it was not fitting for the first man to be alone (cf. Gn 2:18). That is why the Almighty united Adam and Eve in one flesh, so as to populate the earth (cf. Gn 2:24; 1:28). Jesus Christ elevated this union to the status of a Sacrament, which has been compared to His covenant with the Church (cf. Eph 5:31-32).
Such a consortium is no mere abstraction. As in the past, “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” (LEO XIV. Homily, 1/6/2025).
What force unifies marriage and what forces break it down? It is no secret that the Revolution, in its multiple metamorphoses, is the most decisive factor in marital dissolution.
Even in the schismatic movements of the 16th century – by their very nature separatist – divorce was found to be the core of social disintegration. A paradigmatic example was King Henry VIII in England, who broke the marital pact and, with it, communion with Rome. Luther, too, by reducing marriage to a merely earthly institution, endorsed divorce.
Regarding the French Revolution, the French diplomat Talleyrand remarked that before it, people were allies of the family and afterwards they became allies of individualism. The growing secularism of the 19th century only accentuated the concept of marriage as a civil bond, detaching it from religion.
The Communist Revolution further confined the essence of marriage to merely economic categories, and pari passu denounced its supposed “oppression”.
The so-called “cultural revolution” of the 20th century was fuelled by Marxist elements and the libertine student rebellion of May 1968. The latter, with slogans such as “Neither God nor master!” and “imagination takes power!” ranted that it was essential to surpass traditional conventions like the family.
History has confirmed the disaster of all these types of breakdown. The ruin of the family has always preceded the decay of a society. As the Supreme Pontiff rightly emphasizes, it is necessary to return to marriage as a unifying factor, under the aegis of the love of God.
The archetype of the family is found in the House of Nazareth. However, to better discern the need to “supernaturalize” marriage, we should consider the concrete example of the parents of St. Therese of the Child Jesus: Louis and Zelie Martin, who were canonized together. Both were convinced that they needed to sanctify themselves together. That is why they went to Holy Mass together, together they prayed, together they suffered and together they formed a genuinely Catholic home, that is, a mirror of the Heavenly Homeland. And St. Therese rejoiced: “God gave me a father and mother more worthy of Heaven than of earth” (Letter 261).
Contrary to a naturalistic, revolutionary and even paltry view of marriage, it must be seen as a participation in the sacred conviviality that the saints enjoy in the beatific vision. In fact, in the heavenly dwelling place there is no longer any selfishness or separation; it is the place of complete harmony, where together, all glorify the Father, “from whom every family in Heaven and on earth is named” (Eph 3:15).
Therefore, it is in that Homeland – “in the place of the Father” – that the motto of a noble Catholic wife and mother, Dona Lucilia Corrêa de Oliveira, is realized: “To live is to be together, to look upon and to love one another.” ◊
