26 July 1989
Salvador, Brazil

My dear Friends in Jesus Christ,

I do not think that there is any married couple, apart from St. Joachim and St. Anne, who have the distinction of being honored by the Church in her universal calendar as saints and as a married couple. Individual married people are to be found in the Church's feast day cycle, but on no other day of the year does the Church honor two people together who were married and who are now proclaimed saints. The parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joachim and St. Anne, alone have this distinction in the course of the Church's cycle of feast days.

When I was reflecting on that, I thought that it is a pity that the Church's calendar does not offer us one or two more feast days of married couples, in order to underline the truth that, not only is it possible for individual married people to reach the heights of holiness, but that both partners in marriage together can reach eminent holiness. After all, a good married couple pray and plan and work and suffer together. It is surely possible and is a fact that many married couples reach holiness together in and through their vocation.

We hear much today about marriages that break down, of infidelity within marriage. Would it not be desirable to have a day or two in the year when the Church would focus our minds on some married couples who became saints through their relationship with each other in marriage? Married couples have been the ministers to each other of the Sacrament of Matrimony. In my own home I often heard it said that, if all the sacraments give as much grace as does the Sacrament of Matrimony, then there must be very great grace to be received in the sacraments. The grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony must be capable of bringing, not only one, but two partners in marriage to the heights of holiness.

Since Vatican Council II, the family has often been referred to as the domestic Church. The family has a special mission in the Church. Rather like the Church, it is called to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Thanks to the domestic Church in the house of Joachim and Anne, God was able to find one whom He could make worthy to be the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed indeed were the eyes and the ears of Joachim and Anne.

Although the term, domestic Church, was not used in St. Vincent de Paul's day, he did much in his lifetime to strengthen the stability of individual families. Through his foundation of the Confraternities of Charity in France, he helped many lay people to become aware of what they could do for those domestic Churches which were suffering from poverty. It is rather remarkable, too, that the Society which bears his name today, should have been founded by a group of laymen some one hundred fifty years ago in Paris, the most distinguished of whom will hopefully be beatified in the future. As the years pass, the memory of Frederic Ozanam, a devoted husband and dedicated father, instead of fading, seems to be becoming fresher. Interest in him as a human character has grown. It would seem, too, that the Spirit of God has been whispering gently to us that here was a man, not only of profound intelligence and of great heart, but also a man of great personal holiness. I like to think that Frederic Ozanam chose St. Vincent de Paul as Patron of his Society, not only because St. Vincent was a man of great charity, but because he showed real sensitivity to the importance of the vocation of the laity.

Of the family, the document of Puebla makes this observation: "It was not abolished, either by the penalty of original sin or by the punishment of the flood, but it continues to suffer from the hardness of the human heart." (Puebla, p581).

Yes, the family suffers from the hardness of the human heart outside the home and from within it. Speaking to societies and associations that take their inspiration in part from the life of St. Vincent de Paul, I feel confident in asking all of you to do what you can to give stability to the Christian family in your society. The hardness of the human heart of which Puebla speaks is a consequence of original sin. The heart of an infant is tender. It only grows hard when it encounters coldness, indifference, lack of understanding, first within the family and then outside it. If the domestic Church is properly supported by those who live within it and those outside it, the spiral of violence, drug addiction and injustice in the world would be, if not exactly halted, at least considerably weakened and reduced.

So my prayer for all of us on this day, when we are honoring the domestic Church which gave us Mary, the Mother of God, is that we will not lose faith in the possibilities for good that can be realized by each baptized person and by each family.

When I speak to members of Vincentian societies or Marian Associations, one of my prayers for them is that they will not lose heart in their vocation to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. My prayer for them is that weariness will not overtake them, that they will see the light around them, rather than the darkness. May you take comfort in these words of St. Vincent: "Rarely is any good done without difficulty; the devil is too subtle and the world too corrupt not to attempt to nip such a good work in the bud. Courage....It is God Himself who has established you in the place and duty where you are. If His glory is your goal, what can you fear or, rather, for what should you not hope?" (Coste IV, Eng. ed., ltr. 1487, p. 361).