POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
AMORIS LÆTITIA
OF
THE HOLY FATHER
FRANCIS
CHAPTER
FIVE
Love made fruiTfuL
165. Love
always gives life. Conjugal love “does not end with the couple… The
couple, in giving themselves to one another, give
not just themselves but also the reality of children, who are a living
reflection of their love, a
permanent sign of their conjugal unity and a living and in- separable synthesis
of their being a father and a mother”.176
WeLcominG a neW
Life
166. The family is the
setting in which a new life is not only born but also welcomed as a gift of
God. Each new life “allows us to appreci-
ate the utterly gratuitous dimension of love, which never ceases to amaze us. It is the beau- ty
of being loved first: children are loved even before they arrive”.177 Here we see a reflection
of the primacy of the love of
God, who always takes the initiative, for children “are loved before having done anything to deserve
it”.178 And yet,
176 John pauL II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris
Consortio, (22 November 1981), 14: AAS 74 (1982), 96.
177 Catechesis (11 February 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 12 February 2015, p. 8.
178 Ibid.
“from the first moments of their lives, many children are rejected, abandoned,
and robbed of their childhood and
future. There are those who dare to say, as
if to justify themselves, that it was a
mistake to bring these children into the world. This is shameful! … How can we
issue solemn declarations on human rights and the rights of children, if we
then punish children for the errors of
adults?”179 If a child comes
into this world in unwanted circumstances, the parents and other members
of the family must do everything possible to accept that child as a gift from God and assume the
responsibility of accepting him or her
with openness and af- fection. For “when
speaking of children who come into the world, no sacrifice made by adults will
be considered too costly or too great, if it means the child never has to feel that he or she is a mistake, or worthless or abandoned to the four winds and the arrogance of man”.180 The
gift of a new child, entrusted by the
Lord to a father and a mother, begins with acceptance, continues with lifelong
protection and has as its final goal the joy of eternal life. By serenely
contemplating the ultimate fulfilment of each human person, parents will be
even more aware of the precious gift entrusted to them. For God
allows parents
179 Catechesis (8 April 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 9 April 2015, p.
8.
180 Ibid.
to choose the name by which he
himself will call their child for all eternity.181
167.
Large families are a
joy for the Church. They are an expression of the fruitfulness of love. At the same time, Saint John Paul II rightly explained that
responsible parenthood does not mean “unlimited procreation or lack of aware-
ness of what is involved in rearing children, but rather the empowerment of
couples to use their inviolable liberty wisely and responsibly, taking into account social and demographic
realities, as well as their own
situation and legitimate de- sires”.182
Love and pregnancy
168. Pregnancy is a
difficult but wonderful time. A
mother joins with God to bring forth the miracle of a new life. Motherhood is the fruit of a “particular creative potential of the female body,
directed to the conception and birth of a new human being”.183 Each woman
shares in
181 Cf. second vaTican ecumenicaL counciL, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium
et Spes, 51: “Let us all be convinced that human life and its transmission are realities whose
meaning is not limited by the
horizons of this life only:
their true evaluation and full meaning can only be understood in reference to our eternal
destiny”.
182 Letter
to the Secretary General of the United Nations Organization on Population and
Development (18 March 1994): Insegnamenti
XVII/1 (1994), 750-751.
183 John
pauL II, Catechesis
(12 March 1980), 3:
Insegnamenti
III/1 (1980), 543.
“the mystery of creation, which is
renewed with each birth”.184 The
Psalmist says: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps 139:13). Every child growing within the mother’s
womb is part of the eternal loving plan of God the Father: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before
you were born I consecrat- ed you” (Jer 1:5). Each child
has a place in God’s heart from all
eternity; once he or she is con- ceived, the Creator’s
eternal dream comes true. Let us pause to think of the great value of
that embryo from the moment of conception. We
need to see it with the eyes of God, who always looks beyond mere appearances.
169. A pregnant woman can
participate in God’s plan by dreaming
of her child. “For nine months every
mother and father dreams about their child… You
can’t have a family without dreams. Once a family loses the ability to
dream, children do not grow, love does not grow, life shrivels up and dies”.185 For Christian married
couples, baptism necessarily appears as a part of that dream. With their
prayers, parents prepare for baptism, entrusting their baby to Jesus even
before he or she is born.
170. Scientific advances
today allow us to know beforehand what colour a child’s hair will be or
184 Ibid.
185
Address at the
Meeting with Families in Manila (16 January
2015): AAS 107 (2015), 176.
what illnesses they may one day
suffer, because all the somatic traits of the person
are written in his or
her genetic code already in the embryonic stage. Yet
only the Father, the Creator,
fully knows the child; he alone knows his or her deepest identity and worth.
Expectant mothers need to ask God for the wisdom fully to know their children
and to accept them as they are. Some parents feel that their child is not
coming at the best time. They should ask the Lord to heal and strengthen them to accept their child
fully and wholeheart- edly. It is
important for that child to feel wanted. He or she is not an accessory or a
solution to some personal need. A child is a human being
of immense worth and may never be used for one’s own benefit. So it matters little whether this new life is convenient for you, whether
it has features that please you, or
whether it fits into your plans and aspirations. For “children are a gift. Each one is unique and irreplaceable… We love
our children because they are children, not because they are beautiful,
or look or think as we do, or embody
our dreams. We love them because they are children. A
child is a child”.186 The love of parents is the means by which God
our Father shows his own love. He
awaits the birth of each child, accepts that child unconditionally, and wel- comes him or
her freely.
186 Catechesis (11 February 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 12 February 2015, p. 8.
171. With great
affection I urge all future
moth- ers: keep happy and let nothing rob you of the interior joy of
motherhood. Your child deserves your
happiness. Don’t let fears, worries,
other people’s comments or problems
lessen your joy at being God’s means
of bringing a new life to the world. Prepare yourself for the birth of your
child, but without obsessing, and join in Mary’s
song of joy: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit exults
in God my Saviour, for he has looked
with favour on the lowliness
of his servant” (Lk 1:46-48). Try to experience this serene excitement
amid all your many concerns, and ask the Lord to preserve your joy, so that you can pass it on to your child.
The love of a mother and a father
172. “Children, once born,
begin to receive, along with nourishment and care, the spiritual gift of knowing with certainty that they are loved.
This love is shown to them through
the gift of their personal name, the sharing of language, looks of love and the brightness of a smile. In
this way, they learn that the beauty
of human re- lationships touches our soul, seeks our freedom, accepts the
difference of others, recognizes and respects them as a partner in
dialogue… Such is love,
and it contains a spark of God’s love!”187 Every child has a right
to receive love from
a
187 Catechesis (14 October 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 15 October 2015,
p. 8.
mother and a father; both are
necessary for a child’s integral and
harmonious development. As the
Australian Bishops have observed,
each of the spouses “contributes in a distinct way to the upbringing of a child. Respecting a child’s dignity means affirming his or her
need and nat- ural right to have a
mother and a father”.188 We
are speaking not simply of the love of father and mother as individuals,
but also of their mutual love, perceived
as the source of one’s life and the solid foundation of the family.
Without this, a child could become a mere plaything. Husband and wife,
father and mother, both “cooperate with the love of
God the Creator, and are, in a
certain sense, his interpreters”.189 They
show their children the maternal and paternal face of the Lord. Together they teach the value of rec- iprocity, of respect for differences and
of being able to give and take. If
for some inevitable rea- son one parent should be lacking, it is important to
compensate for this loss, for the sake of the child’s
healthy growth to maturity.
173. The sense of being
orphaned that affects many children and young people today is much deeper than
we think. Nowadays we acknowl- edge
as legitimate and
indeed desirable that
188 ausTraLian caThoLic bishops’ conference, Pastoral Letter Don’t Mess with Marriage (24 November
2015), 13.
189 second vaTican ecumenicaL counciL, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et
Spes, 50.
women wish to study, work, develop their skills and have personal goals. At the same time, we
cannot ignore the need that children have for
a mother’s presence, especially in
the first months of life. Indeed, “the woman stands before the man as a mother,
the subject of the new human life that is conceived and develops in her, and from her is born into the world”.190 The weak- ening of this maternal presence with
its femi- nine qualities poses a grave risk to our world. I certainly value
feminism, but one that does not demand uniformity or negate motherhood. For the grandeur of women includes all the
rights derived from their inalienable human dignity but also from their
feminine genius, which is essen- tial to society.
Their specifically feminine abilities
– motherhood in particular – also
grant duties, because womanhood also entails a specific mis- sion in this world, a mission
that society needs to
protect and preserve for the good of all.191
174. “Mothers are
the strongest antidote
to the spread of self-centred
individualism… It is they who testify to the beauty of life”.192 Certainly, “a society without
mothers would be dehumanized, for mothers are always,
even in the worst of times, witnesses to tenderness,
190 John
pauL II, Catechesis
(12 March 1980), 2:
Insegnamenti
III/1 (1980), 542.
191
Cf. id., Apostolic Letter Mulieris
Dignitatem (15 August 1988), 30-31: AAS 80 (1988), 1726-1729.
192
Catechesis (7 January 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 7-8 January 2015,
p. 8.
dedication and moral strength.
Mothers often communicate the deepest meaning of religious practice in the
first prayers and acts of devotion that their children learn… Without
mothers, not only would there be no new faithful, but the faith itself
would lose a good part of its simple and profound warmth… Dear mothers: thank
you! Thank you for what you are in your family and for what you give to the
Church and the world”.193
175. A mother who watches
over her child with tenderness and compassion helps him or her to grow in
confidence and to experience that
the world is a good and welcoming
place. This helps the child to grow in self-esteem and, in turn, to develop a
capacity for intimacy and em- pathy. A father, for his part, helps the child
to perceive the limits of life, to be open to the chal- lenges of the wider world, and to see the need for hard
work and strenuous effort. A father possessed of a clear and serene masculine
iden- tity who demonstrates affection and concern for his wife is just as
necessary as a caring mother. There can be a certain flexibility of roles and
responsibilities, depending on the concrete cir- cumstances of each particular family. But the clear and well-defined
presence of both figures, female and male, creates the environment best suited
to the growth of the child.
176. We often hear that ours is “a society without
fathers”. In Western culture,
the father figure is said to be symbolically absent, missing or vanished.
Manhood itself seems to be called into
question. The result has been an understandable confu-
sion. “At first, this was perceived
as a liberation: liberation from the father as master, from the father as the
representative of a law imposed from without, from the father as the arbiter of
his children’s happiness and an
obstacle to the emancipation and autonomy of young people. In some homes
authoritarianism once reigned and, at times, even oppression”.194 Yet, “as
of- ten happens, one goes from one
extreme to the other. In our day, the
problem no longer seems to be the overbearing presence of the father so much as his absence,
his not being
there. Fathers are often so
caught up in themselves and their work, and at times in their own
self-fulfilment, that they neglect their families. They leave the little ones
and the young to themselves”.195 The presence
of the father, and hence his authority, is also impacted by the amount of time
given over to the communications and entertainment media. Nowadays authority is
often considered suspect and adults treated with impertinence. They themselves
become uncertain and so fail to offer sure and solid guidance
to their children.
194 Catechesis (28 January 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 29 January 2015,
p. 8.
195 Ibid.
A reversal of the roles of parents
and children is unhealthy, since it hinders the proper process of development
that children need to experience, and it denies them the love and guidance needed to mature.196
177. God sets the father
in the family so that by the gifts of his masculinity he can be “close to
his wife and share everything, joy and sorrow, hope and hardship. And to be
close to his chil- dren as they grow –
when they play and when they work, when they are carefree and when they are
distressed, when they are talkative and when
they are silent, when they are daring and when
they are afraid, when they stray and when they get back on the right path. To
be a father who is always
present. When I say ‘present’, I do not mean ‘controlling’. Fathers who are too controlling overshadow their
children, they don’t let them develop”.197 Some
fathers feel they are useless or unnecessary, but the fact is that “children
need to find a father waiting for them
when they return home with their prob-
lems. They may try hard not to admit it, not to show it, but they need it”.198 It is not good for children to lack a father and to grow up before
they are ready.
196 Cf. Relatio Finalis 2015, 28.
197
Catechesis (4 February 2015), L’Osservatore Romano, 5 February 2015,
p. 8.
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