Pope Benedict says marriage, love, family must discover true origin in God

(May 13, 2011) The family is the place where the fruitfulness of love is realized, and also the place where the theology of the body and the theology of love are entwined. Pope Benedict XVI made the remark on Friday when he addressed participants in a meeting organized by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, on the occasion of the 30^th anniversary of its founding by Blessed John Paul II. It is in the experience of love we receive from parents in the family that we learn about the goodness of the body and of its original goodness, Pope Benedict said. It is here that one lives the gift of self-giving in one flesh in conjugal love that brings together the spouses. Here, he said, we experience the fecundity of love and life entwined with that of other generations. And then it is in the family that man discovers his relationships, not as a self-sufficient individual who realizes himself on his own, but as a child, spouse, parent, whose identity is based in being called to love, to receive from others and giving oneself to others. The Pope said, this journey since creation finds its fulfilment in the coming of Christ, the Incarnation. God assumed human flesh and revealed Himself in it. Here the upward movement of the body is integrated into a more original movement – that of the humble movement of God who lowered Himself to assume human body in order to raise it to Himself. In his encounter with the participants in the meeting promoted by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, Pope Benedict also recalled the 30^th anniversary of the shooting of Blessed John Paul II on May 13, 1981, in St. Peter’s Square. Following a long recovery, the late Pope forgave his attacker and attributed his new life to the Mother of God, whose maternal hand, he said, diverted the bullet away from his heart.