Amoris Laetitia, Chapter 5

My notes on Chapter 5, Love made fruitful.

A very readable chapter, yet one that does not shed light on today's questions. Questions like, how do we attract people to Christian marriage? How do we enable an understanding of the unity of the person, and of the unity of persons in marriage? How do we speak about the unity of the ends of marriage? How can we even speak about the ends of marriage today?

Although this chapter speaks well about the fruitfulness of married love, the reality is that many people today do not live this. The culture does not offer a good environment to live marriage. Nonetheless, the problem lies not with marriage and the family, the problem lies with individuals such as us, who have a fallen human nature. The proclamation of the Gospel and the call to encounter Christ is the keystone.

Marriage today is not necessarily seen as a source of unity for the person, nor necessarily as the place of procreation. Today there is a new normality, and indeed, today's remedy for concupiscence is to indulge in it!

Perhaps the Pope is here trying to re-interpret the ends of marriage (the good of the spouses, children, and a remedy for concupiscence) in a new vocabulary. However, the lived reality today is very different from faith and life in Christ. The cultural context affects the message of the Church about marriage and the family. Before the values of the Enlightenment became the lived culture, the family was seen as the basis of society. Marriage was the 'inner sanctum' of society, the preserve of spouses where humanity was engendered and nurtured, and whose inner unity was the place from which the human project sprung. Following the Enlightenment, the individual became the basis for society. The 'inner sanctum' has gone and now the state and social currents are the basis of society. Marriage and the family and now adapted for today's purposes.

At the recent Council the Church set aside the remedy for concupiscence as the third end of marriage. Perhaps this was done out of a sense of optimism. Human resourcefulness takes the place of the former, more realistic view. However, marriage as a remedy for concupiscence is still there, though hidden. We don't know how to speak about it today. Perhaps we do need a new vocabulary here.

Marriage is best seen in the light of grace, yet trying to speak about it in this way can seem very foreign. This is the problem. Yes, there is a great goodness in marriage, which Pope Francis highlights, but he does so without leading it into the life of grace. This is a shame, because the people who are not trying to life the life of grace, do not easily see the natural goodness either.

Christ Jesus is the centre. When people have him in their lives they are filled with faith-filled hope. This hope is the presence of Christ Jesus in them. He incarnates hope in marriage. Actually, we need a vision of how the theological virtues, given in baptism, are active within marriage.