Pope Francis’ 6/14/15 Address to Rome Conference on Parents as Witnesses of the Beauty of Life

"As you know, for some years we have been reflecting on and asking ourselves how to transmit the faith to the new generations....this commitment is all the more important when we speak of the education of kids and young people, who begin to hear these strange ideas, these ideological colonizations that poison the soul and the family: one must act against this. Two weeks ago a person, a very Catholic, good, young man said to me that his kids were in first and second grade and that in the evening he and his wife so often had to 're-catechize' the children....

"With your conjugal relationship, exercising paternity and maternity, you give your life and are proof that it is possible to live the Gospel: it is possible to live the Gospel and it renders one happy....I would like to speak of vocation, communion and mission.

"The first word is vocation.....The Lord has chosen you to love one another and transmit life. These two things are the vocation of parents. This is a most beautiful call because it makes us be, in an altogether special way, in the image and likeness of God. To become a father and a mother truly means to be completely fulfilled, because it is to become similar to God. This is not said in the newspapers, it does not appear, but it is the truth of love. To become a father and a mother makes us much more similar to God....

"Conjugal love is a good, which not even the greatest difficulties of life are able to darken....

"Children look. They look so much and when they see that father and mother love each other, the children grow in that atmosphere of love, of happiness and also of security, because they are not afraid....They scrutinize you -- they don’t only look at you, they scrutinize you -- to see if it’s possible to be good and if it’s true that with mutual love every difficulty is surmounted....

"Parents have the vocation to love one another. God has sowed in their heart the vocation to love, because God is love. And this is your vocation as parents: love. However, always think of the children, always think of the children!

"The second word that comes to me, the second thought on which to reflect is communion. We know that God is communion in the diversity of the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. One’s being parents is founded in the diversity of being, as the Bible reminds, male and female. This is the 'first' and most fundamental difference, constitutive of the human being. It is a richness. Differences are riches. There are so many people who are afraid of differences, but they are riches. And this difference is the 'first' and fundamental difference, constitutive of the human being. When engaged couples come to be married, I like to say to him, after speaking of the Gospel: 'But don’t forget that your vocation is to render your wife more woman!'; and I say to her: 'your vocation is to render your husband more man!' And thus they love one another, but they love one another in the differences, more man and more woman. And this is the craftsmanship of marriage, of the family, every day; to make the other grow, to think of the other: the husband of the wife and the wife of the husband. This is communion....

"I tell you that often couples come to Mass at Saint Martha’s who are observing their 50th, sometimes 60^thwedding anniversary. And they are happy; they smile....And in these old marriages, which are like the good wine that becomes better when it is older, one sees this daily work of man to make his wife more a woman and the wife to make her husband more a man. They are not afraid of the differences!....

"It is very painful when a family lives a tension that can’t be resolved, a break that they don’t succeed in healing. It is painful. When there are the first signs of this, a father and a mother have the duty to themselves and to their children to ask for help, to be supported. Ask help first of all from God. Remember Jesus’ account, you know it well: it is that Father who is able to take the first step towards his two sons, one who left home and spent everything, the other who remained at home ... The Lord will give you the strength to understand that evil can be surmounted, that unity is greater than conflict, that the wounds we have inflicted in one another can be healed, in the name of a greater love, of that Love that He has called you to live with the Sacrament of Marriage.

"And also now, when separation -- we must also speak of this -- seems inevitable, know that the Church carries you in her heart....Never, never speak badly of the other to the children! Never! -- because they are the first victims of this fight and -- allow me the word -- also of this so often hatred between the two. Children are sacred. Don’t wound them!....

"However, there is also the way of forgiveness. Forgive one another and take up mutually your limitations, which will also help you to understand and accept the fragilities and weaknesses of your children....

"And the gift of marriage, which is so beautiful, is also a mission. A mission that is very important.

"You are collaborators of the Holy Spirit who whispers to you Jesus’ words! Be so also for your children! Be missionaries of your children. They will learn from your lips and from your life that to follow the Lord gives enthusiasm, the desire to spend oneself for others, it always gives hope, even in face of difficulties and sorrow, because one is never alone, but always with the Lord and with brothers. And this is important especially in the pre-adolescent age, when the search for God becomes more conscious and the questions call for well-founded answers.

"And I don’t want to end without saying a word to grandparents, to our grandparents....do grandparents, who are the wisdom of a people, who are the memory of a people, who are the wisdom of the family, have a worthy place? The grandparents who have saved the faith in so many countries where it was prohibited to practice religion and took children secretly to have them baptized, and grandparents who taught prayers....They give us wisdom, prudence, they help us so much. And when they get sick they ask us for so many sacrifices, it’s true. Sometimes there isn’t another solution than to take them to a rest home. But may it be the last, the last thing that is done. Grandparents at home are a richness" (Pope Francis’ 6/14/15 Address to Rome Conference on Parents as Witnesses of the Beauty of Life).