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Amoris Laetitia: On Love in the Family is the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Francis offering pastoral guidance to help families grow together in their faith and to encourage them in the face of mounting challenges, as well as highlighting insights from the two-year process of the Synod on The Family. This document is addressed to bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons, Christian couples, and all the lay faithful; however, it is directed primarily to those engaged in family apostolate and to families themselves, with a recommendation that each part be “read patiently and carefully." Because of all the media attention to the controversial sections of the eighth chapter, many people think this Apostolic Exhortation is limited to only issues about divorce, remarriage, and discerning “irregular” situations. Focusing on this controversy detracts from the beautiful message of fidelity to the “Gospel of the family” this document contains.
Here I summarize chapter four, “Love in Marriage,” which at forty-two pages in length is the longest chapter of this letter. It discusses the transformation of love, using Saint Paul’s famous passage about love from First Corinthians (1 Cor 13:4-7). Love is patient, but that “does not mean letting ourselves be constantly mistreated, tolerating physical aggression or allowing other people to use us.”[1] Francis quotes Saint Ignatius: “Love is shown more by deeds than by words.”[2[ Love does not see others as a threat and rejoices in their gifts and happiness. Love is not self-centered or self-serving; it seeks to build up others. “In family life, the logic of domination and competition… destroys love.”[3] Love knows how to listen and is “capable of speaking words of comfort, strength, consolation, and encouragement.”[4] Love is generous – it can “transcend and overflow the demands of justice.”[5] Love is not irritable or resentful. Francis suggests: “Our first reaction when we are annoyed should be one of heartfelt blessing, asking God to bless, free and heal that person.”[6] Love seeks to understand other people’s weaknesses and is always ready to forgive. Francis tells us when Saint Paul says that love bears all things, “it has to do with the use of the tongue… Being willing to speak ill of another person is a way of asserting ourselves, venting resentment and envy without concern for the harm we may do.”[7] Love requires trust and believes all things, but it does not naïvely accept deceit, falsehood, and lies. Love hopes for the future and looks for some good in the evil we must endure in this life. Finally, love endures all things, meaning: “In family life, we need to cultivate that strength of love which can help us fight every evil threatening it.”[8]
Pope Francis ends the fourth chapter with a section on the importance of conjugal love, strengthened by the gift of grace, nurtured by being truly present, enriched by open and candid communication, sustained through true affection and concern for each other, and enlivened with pleasure or passion that is marked by fidelity, respect, and care.
[1] Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia: On Love in the Family. (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 2016), ¶92.
[2] Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Contemplation to Attain Love (230), quoted by Francis, Amoris Laetitia, ¶94.
[3] Francis, Amoris Laetitia, ¶98.
[4] Ibid., ¶100.
[5] Ibid., ¶102.
[6] Ibid., ¶104.
[7] Ibid., ¶112.
[8] Ibid., ¶118.
