Letter to Families

A letter to families, dated 2 February 1994, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, written for the International Year of the Family proclaimed by the United Nations. It begins: 'The celebration of the Year of the Family gives me a welcome opportunity to knock at the door of your home', and takes as its starting point his first encyclical's words that 'man is the way of the Church', so that the family is 'the first and the most important' of those paths. The first part, 'The civilization of love', treats the family as a communion of persons, the marriage covenant, the genealogy of the person in God, the common good of marriage and the family, responsible fatherhood and motherhood, education, and the family and society, with a reading of the fourth commandment. The second part, 'The Bridegroom is with you', reads marriage in the light of Christ the Bridegroom, the 'great mystery' of Ephesians 5, Mary and Joseph, and the family's struggle between a civilization of love and its rejection. It draws closely on the language of his catecheses on the body.