Created to be in Communion

“Think about how much this world, our society would change if we simply opened up and pulled down the barriers in our marriages, in our families, and simply let ourselves be helped – and let ourselves be loved”

“It is a valuable thing to love the people that are close to us. But it’s when we give ourselves in service to those who are not close to us, even those that we do not particularly like, that we reveal that we understand the heart of Jesus’ message.”

“The tendency towards an increasingly individualistic society in which we live is another form of this fragmentation resulting from the breakdown of community and societal relations”

“Law should be about protecting the vulnerable and not making their situation worse. Laws, rules, and regulations should be about freeing us to be good people and not curtailing us. If laws enable us and encourage to be good people, then they fulfil God’s law.”

“Marriage is meant to soften our hearts”

“Sometimes it seems as if the teaching of church institutions around marriage is less to do with God and far more to do with upholding patriarchal and often deeply political structures of power and authority”

“I find this amazing, that an ancient writer living in a patriarchal world has the insight to realize that patriarchy is sinful, patriarchy is not of God”

“We cannot evaluate justice without taking into account the power over people on the periphery that those in privileged positions have. Misunderstanding justice in that way serves to guarantee that authority resides with those conducting the interpretation.”

“Marriage is built and not already made. The spouses must make effort to create a good marriage through daily commitment to leading a life of sharing, forgiveness and sacrificial love.”

“Children tend to be more transparent, more willing to admit their need for help...We need to be like that...Free to be simple in our relationship with God the Father and trust him, even in the midst of circumstances that shake that trust.”

“In order to enter that endless sabbath we must become like a little child, realising that we do not enter into the kingdom by our own efforts, but with a loving child-like trust in him who sanctifies us”

“Why are we not aiming to help couples find God in their marriage, and the impact that God can have on the family?”

“Jesus does not come to reform but to renew. He’s not commanding a few adjustments in the legal niceties of marriage law. No, he is offering men and women a radical new beginning.”

“We also are called and blessed and we go forth to continue to work for a just community...we have our marriages, our families, our communities, and the universal church to accompany us.”

“It is fashionable to say that we are all sinners. True enough, but this is only part of the truth. We are also repentant sinners, and we seek the grace of deeper conversion during the whole of our lives.”

“The judgment and decision that is made on entering into marriage, or any other path of life for that matter, is not something that is made once and never needs to be revisited. But making and remaking that judgment is what marks people out as Jesus’ disciples.”

“Our belief in creation does not ask us to look back. It asks us to look around, to see in the world around us a family to which we belong, to see ourselves in relationship with everything that God has made.”

“In basic biblical anthropology...the fundamental building block of society is not the individual but the family”

“the Bible focuses on the human being as irreducibly social. 'It's not good for the man to be alone.' So I mean, connectivity, community, reaching out to the other is just key in the Bible.”

“in Catholic thought, beauty, the goodness of sensuality is transfigured, heightened, elevated when it's connected to love”

“marriage is a reality deeply blessed by God and reflective of the way God is”

“in marriage the couple themselves are the sacrament, they themselves are this living sign of Christ's love for his Church”