https://doi.org/10.56898/st.10010
A man and a woman embarking on the journey of married life need continuous and gradual learning about themselves, maturing in humanity and in fulfilling the role of husband and wife, and after the conception and birth of a child/children, also the role of father and mother. Marriage is also a time of continuous and gradual learning of the Gospel truth about what the sacramental marriage relationship is, what marital love is, which is at the foundation of marriage, and how it should be lived and expressed in different periods of life.
This gradual learning of the truth brings the spouses closer to each other, allows them to build marital communion, as well as communion with God, and makes it possible that, in situations where it is forgotten or rejected on they can embark on the path of gradual conversion and return to that love which brought them together, and which finds its source and fullness in „God who is love”. The path of conversion requires an understanding of one's error, sin, and therefore also the ability to apologize and forgive. Gradualism and conversion also encompasses in family life the entire educational process, beginning up to the moment of the child's conception and the preparation of space for the child to be „revealed as a gift”.
Gradualism also applies to the Church's pastoral activity in communicating the evangelical truth about marriage and conjugal love, the requirements flowing from the sacrament of marriage and the marriage vow, and conversion in adapting the ways of communicating it in increasingly dynamic changing social, cultural and moral conditions.
We will demonstrate the importance of this gradualness and conversion in marital and family life, and pastoral activity, based on an analysis of the teachings of Pope John Paul II, in particular the adhortation Familiaris consortio, and the teachings of Pope Francis. These are important insofar as not all married couples are able to receive the same amount of truth, assimilate it and live it, due not only to different perceptions, but above all to the different situations in which they find themselves (cf. FC 1).
Język Polski
English