CHRISTIAN VISION OF

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

• There are emerging issues and changes on
the nature of marriage and the family over
the past several years.
• Rapid social change which weakens
traditional values, moral and religious beliefs
greatly affect the basic structure or functions
of marriage and family life.
• The Filipino family is trapped between the
forces of traditional living and modern lifestyle.
• New set of values and new life-styles influence
the weakening of the life-long commitment in
marriage, that eventually cripples the stability
of family life.
• It is in this account that Unit 1 of Theology 2
will discuss the Christian Dimension of
Marriage and Family.
• It will expound on the meaning of marriage
and the fruitfulness of family life that is
blessed by God through the sacrament of
matrimony.  
• Unit I: Fundamental Christian Dimensions of the
Family
•  According to the Vatican II Decree on the
Apostolate of the Laity, Apostolicam
Actuositatem (11), “Since the Creator of all things
has established the conjugal partnership as the
beginning and basis of human society, the family
is the first and vital cell of society.”

FAMILY- the breath, the life of our society

It affects so much the quality of our society

• Family is a social institution that binds people together.
• It is also a group of people, who support, and love each
other unconditionally.
• A family unites each other through a strong bond and
traditionally related by blood. Through marriage, a man
and a woman who are completely independent to each
other, bind themselves together and create new lives
and establish their own family.
• Having children is one of the most binding and satisfying
tasks of marriage.
• The man and the woman are given the responsibility to
take care of their children, because the future of the
Church and the society depends on them.
• Parents must be concerned as to “how they can best
ensure that their children will grow up as genuine
Christians and successful adults”.
FAMILY AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION

• The progress of our society depends completely
on how strong the families are.
• If good values such as kindness, generosity,
honesty and the like, could be practiced in every
family life, this will result in having a tolerant,
self-giving, fair and just society as an outcome.
• Parents must see to it that they guide their children in
order to bring them up in the spirit of Christian maturity.
• If the family is dysfunctional and unhealthy, the whole
society will be dysfunctional and unhealthy as well.
• The family is the primary unit where children learn to
socialize.
• It is the major unit in which socialization happens and the
children learn the fundamental relational skills.
• The family provides its members with social identity.
• Endnotes

• 1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 214, 1656, 2207.

• 2. Vatican Council II used the expression “good of the spouses” in Gaudium et spes, no. 48

• 3. Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, no. 26.

• 4. Gaudium at Spes no. 41

• 5. Council’s Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem, no. 11.

• 6. Pius XI, Encyclical Casti connubii, no. 23

• 7. Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, no. 48

• 8. Code of Canon Law, canon 1055.

• 9. John Paul II, Apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio, 14 , 25, 45.

• 10. Humanae Vitae

• 11. Theology of the Body no. 35

• 12. Amoris Laeticia 86 and 200