“Living a full and happy life also depends on acknowledging and being grateful to those who have put us into the world.” Thus Pope Francis, commenting on the Fourth Commandment, indicated the family as the link between the generations that bring life to the world. It is true that today many “clouds” cover the sun: fragile loves and repeated betrayals, separations and “divorces,” demographic winter. And yet, in the dark, the light can be more clearly visible. Thus, in the post-modern society, acts of love within the family become extraordinary: spouses who forgive failures, parents who carry on amid the pains of educating adolescent children, daughters and daughters-in-law who, with great care are dedicated to parents or even to their in-laws. Here is the heroism of ordinary families!
This is the grace that guides faithful spouses. “It is a love that never gives up, even in the darkest hour. It shows a certain tenacious heroism, a power to resist every negative current, an irrepressible commitment to goodness.” (Amoris Laetitia 118).
Faith is not limited to reproducing religious acts, but grows by incarnating the love of Jesus in daily life. Today it is probably more complicated than before to be a parent, but it is equally so to be a child and certainly to become a spouse as well. This is why the adventure of conjugal love is an even greater challenge: “God corrects us for our good, to make us sharers in his holiness” (see Heb 12,10).
