Pope Francis encouraged the faithful “not to idealize marriage” this Friday and assured them that “fragility, which always remains and also accompanies married life, will not lead to rupture thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit.”

On the morning of January 27, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Jubilee Year, Pope Francis held an audience with the Prelate Auditors, Officials, Advocates, and Collaborators of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, to whom he spoke about the gift of marriage.

The Holy Father shared with those present some reflections on marriage because “in the Church and the world, there is a strong need to rediscover the meaning and value of the conjugal union between a man and a woman, on which the family is founded.”

He further stressed that one of the aspects of the crisis affecting so many families “is the practical ignorance, both personal and collective, about marriage.”

“It can be said that the whole Church is a great family, and extraordinarily, through the life of those who form a domestic Church, it receives and transmits the light of Christ and his Gospel in the family setting.”

The Holy Father then pointed out that “the Church considers service to the family one of her essential tasks,” and in this sense, “both man and the family constitute ‘the way of the Church.'”

For Pope Francis, “the Gospel of the family refers back to the divine design of the creation of man,” and the fact “of being one flesh is part of the divine plan of redemption.”

Marriage is not a social event

Along these lines, the Holy Father stressed that “marriage according to Christian Revelation is not a ceremony or a social event, nor a formality; neither is it an abstract ideal: it is a reality with its precise consistency.”

Later, he invited the faithful to ask themselves, “How is it possible for such an involving union to take place between man and woman, a faithful and forever union from which a new family is born? Given the limitations and fragility of the human being, how is it possible?”

“We must ask ourselves these questions and allow ourselves to be surprised by the reality of marriage. Jesus gives us a simple and, at the same time, profound answer: let no one divide what God has joined together,” he added.

The Holy Father clarified that “the spouses give life to their union with free consent, but only the Holy Spirit has the power to make a man and a woman one.”

“All this leads us to recognize,” the Pope continued, “that every valid marriage, even the non-sacramental one, is a gift of God to the spouses.

“Marriage is always a gift. Conjugal fidelity rests on divine fidelity, and conjugal fecundity rests on divine fecundity,” he affirmed.

Moreover, he noted that “man and woman are called to accept this gift and with it, give the reciprocal gift of themselves, freely.”

Although this vision seems “utopian, since it seems to ignore human frailty,” Pope Francis assured that “indissolubility is often conceived as an ideal, and the mentality that marriage lasts as long as there is love tends to prevail.”

“But what love is involved? Here, too, there is often ignorance of true conjugal love, reduced to the sentimental plane or mere selfish satisfaction,” he explained.

“Instead, conjugal love is inseparable from marriage itself, in which human love, fragile and limited, meets divine love, always faithful and merciful.”

The Holy Father said God sustains spouses with his grace since “the love between husband and wife needs continual purification and maturation, mutual understanding and forgiveness.”

Do not idealize marriage

The Holy Father also warned against “idealizing marriage, as if it only exists where there are no problems.”  

“When we live in a family, it is difficult to pretend and lie, and we cannot show a mask. If love animates this authenticity, the Lord reigns there with his joy and peace.”

“The spirituality of family love comprises thousands of real and concrete gestures. In this variety of gifts and encounters that bring communion to maturity, God has his dwelling place.”

Pope Francis also explained that if “the bond is understood precisely as a bond of love, then it is revealed as the core of marriage, as a divine gift that is the source of true freedom and guardian of married life.”

The Holy Father reiterated that “marriage, a gift of God, is not an ideal or a formality, but a reality with its precise substance.”

“Now I would like to emphasize that it is good! A good of an extraordinary value for everyone: for the spouses themselves, for their children, for all the families to which they relate, for the whole Church, for all humanity.”

Moreover, the Pope recalled that “in the Christian economy of salvation, marriage constitutes above all the path to the holiness of the spouses themselves, a holiness lived in the everydayness of life: it is an essential aspect of the Gospel of the family.”

“Significantly, the Church today proposes some married couples as examples of holiness; and I am also thinking of the countless spouses who sanctify themselves and edify the Church with that holiness.”

Help in crises

The Holy Father also told the faithful that in crises, couples could count on the help of the other faithful and the Church and that also “a fundamental resource for facing and overcoming problems is to renew our awareness of the gift received in the sacrament of marriage, an irrevocable gift, a source of grace on which we can always rely.

“In this way, fragility, which always remains and also accompanies married life, will not lead to rupture, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit,” the Holy Father concluded.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News.