The Family: The Domestic Church

The Second Vatican Council reaffirmed the ancient concept of family as the “domestic church.”  

The early Church began in house churches, where families were the heart of the communities and from which ministers were first called to use their personal gifts to serve the needs of the larger community. The family is the most intimate experience of Church, the place where love, forgiveness and trust should first be encountered. This is the family Church, whose members are called to embody Christ in everyday life.

•  The church is first a relational reality, “when two or three are gathered. . .”

•  For Catholics, Marriage is a Sacrament.  That means it is a very real participation in and sign of the Life of the Trinity!

•  “In what might be regarded as the domestic church, the parents are to be the first preachers of the faith for their children by word and example.” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, #11)

•   Those who are called to live Christian marriage and family as a vocation do so by seeking to respond to grace and by sensitizing their eyes, ears and hearts to accept the hidden invitations to love in the “stuff” of everyday Marriage and Family life.

For more information, click here.

For the Knights of Columbus’ Domestic Church website with suggested monthly themes and activities, click here.