POPE Francis issued his encyclical “Amoris Laetitia – The Joy of Love.” This contains words of spiritual wisdom based on an acute observation of the human condition as well as the teachings of the Church. This is like a nurse telling us that each of us needs our own appropriate medication for our own healing process.
Another encyclical of Pope Francis is “Evangelii Gaudium – The Joy of the Gospel.” In this encyclical Pope Francis explains that time means time for growth, time for development, time to allow the grace of God to work within individuals and communities. The Pope sees space as an area we tend to want to dominate, to possess. It is the way of those who live by ideologies and insist on others falling into line with them.
Domination of space is also the characteristic of those who would rely on the law of the Church and on over-rigid application of its teachings, but an overdose or under-dose of the latter is dangerous for our spiritual health. Pope Francis wants us to take time with this document.
Regarding “love in marriage” how far do we still have to travel on the path of love? Those who are experienced in married life and the demands of bringing up children will probably nod their heads of what the Pope has to say about the phrase, “Love bears all things.” This has to do with the use of the tongue – and holding one’s peace about what may be wrong with another person. Keeping silent about another’s faults, proposes the Pope, reveals an interior attitude.
What Francis is proposing here can be transformational not just of married life but of our social and political life too. To love is like a journey in space and time. “Love recognizes that the failings of others are part of a bigger picture. We have to recognize that all of us are a complex mixture of light and shadow. Love does not have to be perfect for us to value it. The other person loves me as best as he can with all his limits, but the fact that love is imperfect does not mean it is unreal.”
Another important pastoral strategy of Pope Francis is that of accompaniment, which again was first proposed in Evangelii Gaudium.
Specifically, he mentions this in the context of the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried. “They are not excommunicated,” he stresses, and they remain part of the ecclesial community.
“The Christian community’s care of such persons,” he continues, “is not to be considered a weakening of its faith and testimony to the indissolubility of marriage; rather, such care is a particular expression of its charity.”
Accompaniment is a skill that has to be honored, involving as it does both listening to the individual, listening to the Church and discerning together what is for the spiritual good of the person within the community of the Church.
Pope Francis speaks about the need to accompany those who are grieving, at different stages of their grief. A parish priest reading this exhortation can begin to wonder about his own priorities and how he allocates his time and how others, not just clergy, can be encouraged and formed to give time to this important work.
Chapter 7 has some challenging things to say in the bringing up of children. In Chapter 6, the Pope drops hints that there may well be situations when the admission of individuals to Holy Communion would be an appropriate fruit of discernment, but you get the impression that the language is left "open," so as not to short circuit the process of discernment and allow it to be satisfied with “dominating the space” of quick and easy answers, rather than taking the time to discern what is the truth of each individual’s situation before God.
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