IEC2012 Pt. 7: Strengthening Marriage and Family Life

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.

Part 7

Strengthening Marriage and Family Life

Mr. John Quinn, writer/broadcaster and Bishop Christopher Jones, President of the Council for Marriage and Family, Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference

Tuesday, June 12 - 11.30am

Bishop Jones' Remarks

Bishop Jones opened by explaining, via the Catechism, that marriage is "an efficacious sign of Christ's love." Marriage is not just a symbolic thing, but rather, it's something that makes Christ effectively present in the couple. Christ is the perfect self-gift, as the One God who became man and offered Himself as a totally innocent sacrifice on behalf of our sins. Catholic marriage is meant to be like the perfect self-gift of Christ; just as Christ wed Himself to the Church, the husband and wife must seek to make perfect self-gift of themselves to each other, and thus make Christ and His love present.

Good marriages create homes that make known and present the love of the family of God. Bishop Jones broke it down really nicely: the domestic church (probably my favorite name ever for the family) localize the joy and love of the People of God. We believe in a Triune God, a God in three persons that are in complete, reciprocal relation with one another. This loving relationship of the Trinity is realized and shared in the family and the home they create. The love experienced here is a foretaste of the love that we can know in eternal life and love with God.

This was the beginning of a day that taught me how the love of God is the love of a marriage and family and that a Eucharistic life is the means that establishes, renews, and reinforces this reality in the domestic church that is a family.

Mr. Quinn's Remarks

John Quinn is well-known in Ireland for a his radio program and related book, Letters to Olive. A reflection he did, in the form of a letter, on the life of his wife and their time together before her passing away as just a middle-aged woman. As they were quite fond of writing letters - their courtship began by correspondence at an infirmary for TB - his tribute to her followed this form as well. His presentation at the IEC was a letter he wrote to his wife, read aloud to all of us, full of insights, anecdotes, and heart-wrenching emotion. Some of the best...

• "One day, it will delight us to remember these things."
• "Happily ever after is for Hollywood and fairy tales... Marriage is about a 4-letter word: life."
• "Let there be spaces in your togetherness; if you don't, that's when troubles - deep freezes - arise."
• "Love may every day be implied but never declared." (actually, from Jane Austen)
• "The best way of giving is thanksgiving."