Today this stadium has resounded with passages from Holy Scripture bearing on the reality of the family. We have heard the plea and promise made by the young widow Ruth: “Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die I will die and there be buried” (Ro 1:16-17). To hear these words is to be moved with a deep feeling for the strength of family ties: stronger than the fear of hardships to be faced; stronger than the fear of exile in an unfamiliar land; stronger than the fear of possible rejection. The bond that unites a family is not only a matter of natural kinship or of shared life and experience. It is essentially a holy and religious bond. Marriage and the family are sacred realities.
The sacredness of Christian marriage consists in the fact that in God’s plan the marriage covenant between a man and a woman becomes the image and symbol of the covenant which unites God and his people (cf. Hos 2:21; Jer 3:6-13; Is 54:5-10). It is the sign of Christ’s love for his Church (cf. Eph 5:32). Because God’s love is faithful and irrevocable, so those who have been married in Christ are called to remain faithful to each other forever. Did not Jesus himself say to us: “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (cf. Mt 19:6)?
Contemporary society has a special need of the witness of couples who persevere in their union as an eloquent, even if sometimes suffering, sign in our human condition of the steadfastness of God’s love. Day after day Christian married couples are called to open their hearts ever more to the Holy Spirit, whose power never fails and who enables them to love each other as Christ has loved us. And, as St. Paul writes to the Galatians, “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness and chastity” (Gal 5:22-23). All of this constitutes the rule of life and the program of personal development of Christian couples. And each Christian community has a great responsibility to sustain couples in their love.
—Pope John Paul II in Columbia, South Carolina, during his U.S. Visit; Elizabeth and I were there together in the stands of William Brice Stadium on that day and remember it as a powerful witness to Christian unity. I did not note until this week that it was September 11–KSH.
Update: There is more on the then Pope’s South Carolina visit in 1987 here.
An Interesting Look Back: September 11, 1987
Today this stadium has resounded with passages from Holy Scripture bearing on the reality of the family. We have heard the plea and promise made by the young widow Ruth: “Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die I will die and there be buried” (Ro 1:16-17). To hear these words is to be moved with a deep feeling for the strength of family ties: stronger than the fear of hardships to be faced; stronger than the fear of exile in an unfamiliar land; stronger than the fear of possible rejection. The bond that unites a family is not only a matter of natural kinship or of shared life and experience. It is essentially a holy and religious bond. Marriage and the family are sacred realities.
The sacredness of Christian marriage consists in the fact that in God’s plan the marriage covenant between a man and a woman becomes the image and symbol of the covenant which unites God and his people (cf. Hos 2:21; Jer 3:6-13; Is 54:5-10). It is the sign of Christ’s love for his Church (cf. Eph 5:32). Because God’s love is faithful and irrevocable, so those who have been married in Christ are called to remain faithful to each other forever. Did not Jesus himself say to us: “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (cf. Mt 19:6)?
Contemporary society has a special need of the witness of couples who persevere in their union as an eloquent, even if sometimes suffering, sign in our human condition of the steadfastness of God’s love. Day after day Christian married couples are called to open their hearts ever more to the Holy Spirit, whose power never fails and who enables them to love each other as Christ has loved us. And, as St. Paul writes to the Galatians, “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness and chastity” (Gal 5:22-23). All of this constitutes the rule of life and the program of personal development of Christian couples. And each Christian community has a great responsibility to sustain couples in their love.
—Pope John Paul II in Columbia, South Carolina, during his U.S. Visit; Elizabeth and I were there together in the stands of William Brice Stadium on that day and remember it as a powerful witness to Christian unity. I did not note until this week that it was September 11–KSH.
Update: There is more on the then Pope’s South Carolina visit in 1987 here.