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Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 5.4 (2002) 75-95



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Called to Holiness:
Spirituality for Families in Light of Ecclesia in America

John S. Grabowski

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AMONG ITS REMARKS concerning families, the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America includes a call for "a broad catechetical effort regarding the Christian ideal of conjugal communion and family life, including a spirituality of motherhood and fatherhood." 1 In many respects, this call for family-based spirituality is an extension and concretization of the Second Vatican Council's teaching on the universal call to holiness to which Ecclesia in America specifically alludes. 2 What is spirituality? The document describes it as "'life in Christ' and 'in the Spirit', which is accepted in faith, expressed in love and inspired by hope . . .[which] becomes the daily life of the Christian community." 3 It further notes that "secularity" is the distinguishing mark of an authentic lay spirituality, indicating that it is the task of the laity to bring the gospel to family, social, and political life. 4

Yet these hopeful summons and helpful indicators seem to run headlong into the enormous problem of the dearth of distinctive models of spirituality for families within the tradition. 5 Following the emergence of various forms of monasticism and the religious [End Page 75] [Begin Page 77] life, lay Christians—particularly the married—were often relegated to a kind of second-class citizenship within the Church. In some cases this took the form of a view that summoned them to avoid breaking the commandments, but offered little hope of achieving genuine holiness. 6 In other cases it took the form of attempting to take various forms of monastic spirituality and "water them down" so as to make them practicable for the married. For many Church leaders and theologians the stumbling block to married holiness was sex. It appeared self-evident that the demands of a relationship centered on "the flesh," even if faithful and procreative, were seen as incompatible with genuine excellence in the spiritual life. 7 For those with families, buffeted by innumerable and seemingly unending obligations to one's spouse, children, trade or profession, extended family, society, and country, traditional understandings of the spiritual life often seemed hopelessly impracticable. Thus, even in the face of contrary witnesses in the tradition and Lumen Gentium's robust affirmation echoed by Ecclesia in America that "everyone belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness," 8 a genuine spirituality for families can seem a largely unattainable ideal.

Yet there is reason to think otherwise. This paper will argue that a close reading of Ecclesia in America in the context of recent Church teaching can highlight numerous resources for a developing spirituality for families that is both distinctive and eminently practicable. These resources largely take the form of biblical and theological symbols and themes that can shed light on a life that is lived simultaneously "in the Spirit" and "in the world."

This paper will begin with a treatment of the biblical understanding of covenant as a foundation for an understanding of not only marriage, but of family in its various forms. It will then consider family under the rubric of communion. This will be followed by an examination of some implications of the understanding of family as a domestic church that participates in the threefold office of Christ as Priest, Prophet, and King. Finally, it will treat family as a sanctuary [End Page 77] of love and life. Limitations of space prevent this treatment from being anything more than fragmentary, but perhaps the partial treatment here will at least indicate directions that could be pursued further in reflecting upon Ecclesia in America theologically and implementing it pastorally.

Family and Covenant

The recovery of the biblical designation of covenant for the marriage relationship by the Second Vatican Council has been widely and correctly heralded by scholars as a development of signal import. 9 The term has also been used extensively in subsequent Church teaching...

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