Marriage is also the hinge of the wider family of relatives and members of a household. The Christian family is a new and richer experience of the purely human family, for the Holy Spirit gathers believers and links them with Christ and with each other in the Church. The Christian family is a specific revelation of the Church. So, every family member is called build the family into a community of persons, making the family the school of a deeper humanity. This happens through love, servive and sharing.
The basic opportunity for building communion is the educational exchange between parents and children. Through love, respect and obedience, children contribute to the construction of the family. Through an unrenounceable ministry, parents serve the needs of their children, especially by enabling children to acquire their freedom. This takes place through a living awareness of the gift which parents receive from their children.
Like any society, real communion in the family requires sacrifice, understanding, forebearance, forgiveness and reconciliation. Selfishness, discord, tension and conflict can wound coummunion. But every family is called by God to unity, and the Sacraments are the means by which the Christian family can move towards the kind of communion which is willed by God. (Familiaris Consortio, 21)
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