Pilgrimage May 2015 – Father Marcelo Aravena’s message

Father Marcelo Aravena

THE MISSION OF LOVE

We have a mission, a mission of love.

God works through us. We are in the world for a purpose – to receive God’s love and to show God’s love to others. God seeks to heal a broken universe. He asks us to be his witnesses and helpers in that work.

Family life is essential part of this mission to live and love as Jesus taught.

We believe that in the Sacrament of Marriage, God has given us gift the of experiencing his covenant. In the marriage covenant, husband and wife together in light of the covenant already established by God and Israel, Christ and the Church. We believe that marriage is the seedbed of a family, the nucleus of the domestic Church, which is itself an essential member of the wider universal Church.

We acknowledge that we are fallen and that all manner of suffering, temptations, and sins can burden us and prevent us from becoming who we were created to be. But we trust that no matter what trials we face or wounds we inflict upon ourselves and others, God is faithful. His passion, crucifixion, and resurrection are the decisive evidence that he will not depart from his covenant. The Lord has shown that he is stronger than all our sins and that he conquers sin.

In our life together, through the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our midst, we believe that God will bring to fruition the work which he has begun in us. Anticipating that day when Jesus comes again and fully establishes his Kingdom on earth, we believe it is our mission to testify to love God and neighbor as he has taught us.

We believe that love is our mission, and that this mission is the only way we can be fully alive and be who we were created to be. We believe that this love should be taught, shared, and communicated in and through that family, the domestic church.

We believe that the family shares in the mission of the whole Church.