To help the Church and families observe the United Nations International Year of the Family in 1994 the U.S. Catholic Bishops wrote a pastoral message to families entitled Follow the Way of Love.

You can read this message online and order a copy in an attractive booklet.

In addition, we present the following essay which summarizes Follow the Way of Love (FWL) and suggests ways you can apply the message to your family(s life simply, practically, and immediately.

The Committee on Marriage and Family Life is very grateful to Mrs. Susan Vogt for her extensive work on the following essay. Susan is a wife, mother, writer, family life minister, and a former advisor to the Committee.

The following essay has been posted with the approval of Bishop J. Kevin Boland, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Marriage and Family Life.

1. The family is all important. As Pope John Paul II said in his 1981 Apostolic Exhortation On the Family, “The future of humanity passes by way of the family.”
   
2. The family is holy. By ‘holy’ we don’t just mean that the family does religious things like going to Mass and saying prayers, but we also mean that the family is a domestic church of the home -- as the Second Vatican Council taught (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, no. 11). This means that there are parallels in the home to the sacred actions that take place in our parish churches. For example, the family gathered for a meal embodies many of the elements of Eucharist. Spouses forgiving each other after a fight reflect the forgiving nature of Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
   
3. The family is not only where we mature physically but the family can also be where we learn how to really love. Not the cheap love of many movies and TV, but the generous, self-sacrificing, unconditional, faithful love of people who are traveling together on a sacred journey. We may not always like each other but we aim to come as close as possible to the kind of love God showers on us – always willing to forgive no matter how terrible the offence, always believing in the inherent dignity of each person.

1. LIVING FAITHFULLY
   Fidelity in a marriage certainly presumes sexual fidelity, but adulterous affairs seldom start with sex. They start with a lessening of the marital bond. “To live faithfully in a marriage requires humility, trust, compromise, communication, and a sense of humor. It is a give-and-take experience, involving hurt and forgiveness, failure and sacrifice. The very same thing is true of fidelity in other family relationships.” (FWL) So what might this mean for your family?
   
   Reflection Questions:
   
   • Who in your family do you find it difficult to love at the present moment? Are there any black sheep, any relatives from whom you feel estranged?
     
   • When have you had to renew a decision to love your spouse, child, or another family member? What made it difficult or easy?

   Act on your belief:
   

   • What form of recreation refreshes your marriage or your family life? Has it been too long since you did it? Fix that.
     
   • What would it take to reconcile with the person you identified above? What’s keeping you from acting? Perhaps this is the time to swallow pride, pick up the phone, write a letter, send an e-mail, or make a visit. These are often actions that we resist and thus we procrastinate. Sometimes it helps to share your resolve with another family member and set a deadline lest your resolve drift into some day, one day, and then the person is gone.
   
   
2. GIVING LIFE
   Giving life in a family is usually associated with becoming a parent. But some families don’t yet have children, some have raised their children, and some will never have children. Regardless, all are called to be life-giving. “The children of other families need your guidance, as do other parents who can benefit from your hard-earned experience. Likewise, you cannot raise your own children alone. All families – even those with two parents – need a wider circle of aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents, and other faith-filled families…Each generation is challenged to leave the world a more beautiful and beneficial place than it inherited.” (FWL)
   
   Reflection Questions:
   
   • Who are the ancestors who sacrificed their time and lives so that you might grow up? Who influenced your faith, your morals, your values?
     
   • What is the one quality that you would most like to pass on to your children? What virtue do you think the world most needs to cultivate if we are not only to give life but sustain it?
   
   Act on your belief:
   
   • Make a difference in the life of a woman with an untimely pregnancy. Consider not only prayer and monetary contributions to a crisis pregnancy center but also donating baby items, helping the woman to become self-supporting through aiding her education, employing her yourself, or assisting her with job applications. Volunteer time in a pregnancy center or phone counseling, agree to babysit to give her respite if she keeps her child, become knowledgeable about adoption options and support women who make an adoption plan. Support ‘at risk mothers’ not only during the first years of their baby’s life but even through the crucial teen years. Contribute to the ongoing education of her child.
     
   • Make a difference in the life of struggling parents. Perhaps it is your own family that feels stretched. Take a parenting class. Invite others to attend with you. Perhaps you have time to volunteer with agencies that support parents. Support governmental legislation that supports families. Be a foster parent. If not in an official way, perhaps you could informally adopt a neighborhood child who seems to need a little extra attention. Be a coach. Work for the P.T.A. Welcome the neighborhood children into your home and realize you will need to live with more mess. Give up buying that next luxury and spend the money on a child who needs the basics. You get the idea. Do something.
   
   
3. GROWING IN MUTUALITY
   Mutuality is about sharing – sharing power and sharing responsibility. It assumes that husbands and wives have equal value even though they may choose to exercise this equality in different roles. “It is all too easy for couples to bring an unhealthy competitive spirit to their relationship. The Gospel demands that all of us critically examine such attitudes. Marriage must never become a struggle for control.
   
   For unlike other relationships, marriage is a vowed covenant with unique dimensions. In this partnership, mutual submission – not dominance by either partner – is the key to genuine joy…True equality…is not measuring out tasks (who prepares the meals, who supervises homework, and so forth). It thrives at a much deeper level where the power of the Spirit resides.” (FWL)
   
   Reflective Questions
   
   • How did your upbringing shape your understanding of the roles of men and women, husbands and wives? Do you see roles differently now?
     
   • Who makes the major decisions in your family? It may differ depending on the issue (house, car, child discipline, etc.) How do you decide who has the final word? Is it who pays the bills, who has the most knowledge, who has the most interest or conviction?
   
   Act on your belief:
   
   • Assuming that you accept the principle of mutuality are there any changes you’d like to consider in how your family makes decisions? This may have to start with improving communication or conflict resolution skills. Read a book or take a class to hone your skills. Marriage Encounter and Christian Family Movement are just two of many programs that you can attend that are grounded in mutuality.
     
   • Have you ever tried a family meeting? Invite family members to put issues they’d like the family to discuss on an agenda. During the meeting everyone gets a chance to be respectfully heard. Most successful family meetings operate on a consensus model which means you don’t vote but try to reach a decision that everyone can live with, including the parents.
   
   
4. TAKING TIME
   Perhaps the greatest challenge to families’ ability to love is that we are too often in a hurry. We pass each other as we race to job, school, sporting events, and taking the car to be serviced. If we aren’t with each other in a relaxed setting that’s conducive to communication, laughing, and forgiving, it’s hard to know what each other really needs and how to respond to those needs. But how can a busy family slow down? There are bills to be paid, commitments to keep, and important things to do – or at least they seem important right now. “To thrive, love requires attention, communication, and time – to share a story or confide a need, to play a game, to tell a joke, to watch and cheer on – time to be present to another’s failure or success, confusion, despair or moment of decision.” (FWL)
   
   Reflection Questions:
   
   • What are the most important priorities in your life right now – spouse, children, job, school, church, personal time, health, spiritual and personal growth, making ends meet…?
     
   • Does the way you spend your time match your priorities? If not, is there a good reason? Is it temporary or ongoing?
   
   Act on your belief:
   
   • If you have decided that you would like to spend more time with your spouse, make a plan. Often such good intentions slip away when up against the legitimate needs of children and the demands of a job which pays the bills. Schedule a regular date. It doesn’t have to cost money or mean leaving the home. It does have to be the two of you doing something you both enjoy.
     
   • Family vacations can be stressful but mixed in with the sights bonding usually slips in while you’re not watching. Has it been too long since you’ve traveled together? But vacations don’t happen often enough to carry the full burden of creating good family time. Most of the time has to be daily. Are meetings, TV, or individual recreation robbing you of daily family time? Make a list of how much face time you spend with each child on a typical day. If you are not satisfied, suggest a regular child date. For the whole family, choose one night a week that everybody stays home. Perhaps you’ll do something as a group or perhaps just having unscheduled time will allow the Spirit to fill it with opportunities for connecting and love.

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