Formation in the Domestic Church
In his consideration of the Christian home as “domestic church”, Marc Cardinal Ouellet asks whether “the Magisterial and theological claims concerning the family’s ecclesial character rest on a real theological foundation, or are we dealing merely with generous pastoral rhetoric lacking any sufficient conceptual basis?”[1] Providing an adequate answer to this question is integral to developing a deeper understanding of Christian moral formation as it takes place in the home, the latter being based upon the former. Thus, in order to begin thinking about how the home, precisely as an “ecclesial reality”[2] which we call the “domestic church,” is the primary locus of where we are formed as Christians, the following discussion will proceed by way of two main steps. First, a brief overview of the theology of the family related by Cardinal Ouellet in his work, Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization, will be given. Having given an overview of this theology, we will turn to consider how Christian formation takes place within the home via the concept of spiritual motherhood and fatherhood.[3]
The theology of the family put forth by Cardinal Ouellet is founded upon the sacrament of baptism. The sacrament of baptism unites individuals to Christ, which in turn enables them to utter the efficacious “yes” which effects the sacrament of marriage,[4] Christ acting through the couples who function as the ministers of the sacrament in this case. Important for the discussion at hand is to notice that there are both Incarnational and Trinitarian dynamics at work here. These dynamics once characterized the individual by virtue of their baptism, and now characterize the couple as a unity. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the couples’ consent to the sacramental bond at once makes Christ present in them as one body, and thereby incorporates the couple into the Trinitarian dynamics of love through, with, and in Christ.[5] Consequently, insofar as the couple disposes themselves to the grace of the sacrament, they can love both one another with the love of Christ, and make that same love manifest to the world.[6] The couple’s ability in Christ to make His life present to the world is the Incarnational dynamic.
This ability to make the love of Christ manifest to the world through the couple’s sacramental marriage can be expressed in a couple different ways. First, we can say that the mutual exchange of self-gift in Christ “establishes the couple as a permanent sacrament and transforms its history into salvation history—in other words, into a sign that bears the gift of God to his people.”[7] Put differently, the married couple becomes both the locus of God’s saving work, and an agent of the same salvific mission, which they share with the universal Church,[8] as the Body of Christ. Oullet draws from the teaching of St. John Paul II here, who writes of the married couple in Familiaris Consortio, “they not only receive the love of Christ and become a saved community, but they are also called upon to communicate Christ’s love to their brethren, thus becoming a saving community” (FC, 49). Oullet argues that this is precisely why referring to the family as the “domestic church” carries theological weight. Accordingly, the second way we might name how the couple makes the love of Christ present to the world is as “domestic church.”[9] It is within the married couple’s life as “domestic church” that Ouellet situates the traditional three goods of marriage: fidelity, unity, and fecundity. Thus, we might say that it is in the exercise of these three goods that the couple exercises their unique contribution to the salvific activity of the Church as a married couple. That said, the couple’s contribution to the mission of the Church as the sacrament of salvation should not be thought of as being limited to these three goods.
In order to begin to thinking about how a theology of the family impacts our understanding of Christian formation, I want to focus on the good of marriage known as fecundity. This good of marriage is rightly associated with the natural offspring of the couple. However, there is another dimension to this good of marriage no less important that Cardinal Ouellet calls spiritual motherhood and fatherhood,[10] and it is this dimension of the couple’s fecundity which touches more directly upon Christian formation.
To do this it is helpful to go beyond Ouellet and draw from the work of St. Augustine of Hippo. In accordance with what has already been said, Augustine too asserts the biological aspect of this good of marriage. Moreover, his corpus contains discussion of the couple’s giving a second birth to their children, making them spiritual mothers and fathers in a threefold manner. First, they do so by bringing their child to the lifesaving waters of baptism, so that through the power of the Holy Spirit the child is re-born as a member of the Body of Christ.[11] Though the child is not baptized by their parents, we can rightly say that the couple who brings their child to the sacred waters of baptism participates in the salvific mission of the universal Church, and thereby functions as domestic church in doing so.
The second aspect of the spiritual parenthood exercised by Christian parents as communicated by Augustine is that of education.[12] By properly educating their children, parents enable their children’s development and formation as members of the body of Christ.[13] In the case of Augustine, this will first and foremost mean education in the Scriptures. And if we extend Augustine’s thought here a bit, we might say that as “domestic church,” the home ought to be a classroom where the scriptures are studied in a fashion similar to that which takes place within the more formal liturgical setting, where “…we are indeed all listening to Christ. We all learn from him, and in his school all of us together are students.”[14]
Finally, the Christian couple gives spiritual birth to their children by exemplifying the Christian life to them.[15] Here, once again, we can stretch Augustine’s thought on liturgical dynamics to the domestic church. Thus, just as he tells a group of newly converted “When you come to church, put aside empty talk; concentrate your attention on the Scriptures. We are your books,”[16] we might readily apply this to the relationships in the home. If we recall that for Ouellet, all the actions of the couple are manifestations of their life as living sacrament, the exemplarity of the couple takes on a sacramental nature.[17] Consequently, when the couple lives as Christ’s lives, they simultaneously make His life present to their children by way of example, even as their example draws the children’s attention toward Christ through them. Said differently, children see Christ in their parents’ action and thereby learn to live as He lived and indeed, lives through their parents.
In sum, these three dimensions of spiritual motherhood and fatherhood allow us to begin thinking about how specifically through their exercise of the procreative good of marriage the couple serves as an agent in salvation history, and thereby why the life they share is rightly referred to as the “domestic church.” And, while the exercise of this good will have the most immediate impact on those within the domestic church proper, just as at the end of every Sunday Mass we are sent to go forth and proclaim the Gospel by our lives, so too will the members of the family go forth from the domestic church to evangelize the world. Giving greater importance to the formation that takes place in the domestic church, which thereby functions as a hub from where the evangelization of the world takes place.
[1] Marc Cardinal Ouellet, Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization trans. Michelle K. Borras & Adriaan J. Walker (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015), 174.
[2] Ibid., 175.
[3] Ibid., 187; cf. 97.
[4] Ibid., 64.
[5] Ibid., 84-85.
[6] Ibid., 84 & 102-103.
[7] Ibid., 70.
[8] Ibid., 101.
[9] Ibid., 184 & 189.
[10] Ibid., 97-98 & 187.
[11] Augustine of Hippo, Holy Virginity 6,6-7,7 in Marriage and Virginity trans. Ray Kearney (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999).
[12] Ibid., 12.
[13] Augustine of Hippo, The Excellence of Marriage 20,23 in Marriage and Virginity: The Excellence of Marriage, Holy Virginity, The Excellence of Widowhood, Adulterous Marriages, Continence trans. Ray Kearney (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999).
[14] Augustine of Hippo, Exposition 1 of Psalm 34.1, in Expositions on the Psalms, vol. 2 trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B. (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000).
[15] Augustine of Hippo, Holy Virginity 5,5.
[16] Augustine, Sermon 227 in Sermons on the Liturgical Seasons, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation vol. 38., trans. by Sr. Mary Sarah Muldowney, R.S.M. (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1959).
[17] Marc Cardinal Ouellet, Mystery and Sacrament of Love, 70; here of course the sacramental nature of the couple’s exemplarity can be mitigated by the reality of sin.
