This June began with an event organized by the Catholic Church that can nourish our faith life in our CANA missions. On June 1, in this jubilee year, the magnificent “jubilee of families” took place in Rome. What if we allowed ourselves to be challenged and touched by this event?
What is a jubilee? In biblical tradition, a jubilee is equivalent to a Sabbath, but an exceptional Sabbath. It is a time when we return all things to the Creator. It is a time of blessing, joy, celebration, and rest. For the Jewish people, it is also a time of debt forgiveness, a time of building peace.
For us, living this jubilee journey means taking time personally, as a couple, and as a family to tell each other and contemplate the wonders that the Lord has done for us, to recognize his presence in the happy moments of our lives, as well as in our trials. It is also a time to recognize our poverty towards one another and to forgive each other without reserve.
We can do all this because we profess together that everything comes from God; that our love is fruitful in Him, through Him, and with Him. The family jubilee is about welcoming this favorable time of grace, forgiveness, reparation, renewed trust, and regained esteem. It is about living a time of gratitude and generosity.
The Church invites us to make this time concrete by taking a step: passing through the Holy Door as a family. This act, which requires a journey, signifies our common profession that Jesus Christ is Lord and that we want to live the new life He gives us. The Holy Door is the concrete translation in our lives of what Jesus told us: “I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved.” Jn 10:9
The jubilee, in addition to being a celebration of gratitude and forgiveness, is also a time to look ahead. And for that, let us be challenged by the words of Pope Leo, who addressed families during this Roman jubilee. At the closing Mass, the pope issued seven challenges to couples, insisting that “today’s world needs the marriage covenant to know and welcome God’s love.” (cf. link to be added)
In particular, in his first challenge, he implores couples to be “one,” in the image of the Trinity, in the image of holy couples. Indeed, it is in this great mystery of the Trinity that we find the source of our unity, in the circulation of love between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. We are a very imperfect analogy, but it is in this divine love and by grace that unity can grow in our couple. This desire for unity is dear to Pope Leo XIV, and it is also at the heart of our journey in CANA. And this conjugal union is not impossible. The pope cites as proof these holy couples, Louis and Zélie Martin, Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrochi, and the Ulma family. They were canonized “not separately, but together, as married couples.”
In this season of Pentecost, in order to grow in this unity, let us abandon ourselves to the Holy Spirit, particularly in two areas:
- May we recognize the seriousness of our commitment to each other as spouses and as parents, and may we take it to heart. Our children and the world need our marital love in order to recognize and welcome God’s love.
- Let us take counsel from the simplicity of our children, who trust in what God wants to give them, step by step. Let us choose the simplicity of trusting in God, even when we do not know where the path is leading. For, to use the image given by Cardinal Aveline to the Chemin Neuf Community during its General Chapter, we are moving forward with a headlamp that allows us to see just two meters ahead. But those two meters are the ones that the Lord, who accompanies us, gives us to accomplish now. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” says the psalm; but this light is a headlamp. And children know this: it is the simplicity of trusting in God.
Let us be sure that, if we entrust ourselves to Him, the Holy Spirit is working, in a way known only to God, toward our mission as a “sacrament of unity” for His glory!