Marriage mirrors God’s love for His Church

PUCHONG: “The sacrament of matrimony is where the family is the image of God, where marriage and family receive the grace of the Holy Spirit from Christ to bear witness for God,” said Fr Clarence Devadass.

The Director of Catholic Research Centre was speaking to about 150 people who had come to listen to his lecture on Amoris Laetitia at the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Aug 21. The lecture was attended by parishioners and those from other parishes.

Fr Clarence is also, among others, the Executive Secretary of the Office of the Theological Concerns in the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference and the Editor-in-Chief of the Catholic Asian News.

“Families have a role to play in the larger society,” he said, adding that the Catholic Church needs to hold back on judging others and, instead, reach out and touch them with Jesus’ love. He said the Church needed to bring back into the fold those who had left the Church, those who had divorced, those who had married non-believers, those who were told they could no longer receive communion because of their divorce.

He added that the acceptance of Amoris Laetitia did not mean the Church was reversing its position on matters relating to same-sex marriage, divorce and such. Instead, Catholic families are now called to embrace others and lead them to the right path with love and not try to use condemnation and judgment to force conformity.

“It is a paradigm shift in the approach,” he said, adding that it is the approach that has changed and not the Church’s position. “As it was in the beginning, and is now … .”

Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love) is Pope Francis’ first document on family, relseased on March 19, 2016.

Article reproduced from Herald Malaysia online