The Crisis of "Relation" in Marriage and Family, and the Response of the Church Through the Christian Initation

Armando Medina Vargas

Studium Theologicum Galilaeae , Israel
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3974-3373

Abstract

All creatures have been created by God in order to live in relation among themselves, and also between themselves and their Creator. No creature has been created in order to live in solitude. The relationship is an expression of love. God is love, and his love isexpressed in the permanent relationship He has with the other Person of the Trinity, and also with entire creation. Therefore, man, created in the image and likeness of God, is called to live in a relation with his Creator, as well as with other creatures surrounding him. Post-modern currents contrary to the family reduce marriage to only a legal contract, without any stable and lasting dimension. Pope Francis stated that there is a kind of world war with the purpose of destroying marriage. The consequences of this “war”, not only fall on the spouses, but also on children, and ultimetely, on God Himself, because it destroys the design that He had thought for the family. The relationship that God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, has wanted to manifest to humanity, finds its highest realization in the “love of the enemy”. This is the beauty of the relationship of Christian love, of the new man, of marriage and family, according to the original design of God.

Keywords:

person, relation, marriage, family, Christian initiation