Over the years, and specifying the evolutive lines of Catholic doctrine on the family, the meaning of the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (= FC) becomes increasingly important. It is well known, it was published by John Paul II as a result of the Synod of Bishops in 1980 and has as its theme the tasks of the Christian family in today's world.

The Council was terminated just by 16 years, the echo of Humanae vitae (1968) was still alive, since October 1978 sat on the throne of Peter the Blessed John Paul II, who had placed between the principle of his mission fidelity to the Council and the vindication of the prophetic nature of Humanae Vitae: he was the Pope chosen by God to lead the Church towards the third millennium of Christian history.

In this temporal context we can understand the double characteristic of the Exhortation: the first, it collect the Council’s inheritance and Paul VI's teaching on marriage, offering a theological framework of the communal identity of the Christian family ; the other, from it the Exhortation articulates the Mission of the Christian family determining in detail its tasks before the challenges of the third millennium (cf. FC 17).

If at other times and other magisterial documents the family was considered especially in the light of natural law, as a social and natural formation established by the consent of the spouses with regard to their benefit as well as the generation / education of children (see traces of that vision in nos. 2201-2203 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church), in CF the view is primarily theological: the family is seen in the light of the mystery of communion with God, whose image humanity is created.
The man and woman are a mystery of communion, called to live in communion: the sexuality itself comes from the call communal that structures intimately his being. They are so called because invited to find fulfillment as a communion, to become living communion of love, to create life through the full communion of their lives. A communion that is called marriage and it generates the family’s communion.

Marriage and Family are two words that basically mean the same reality: the first emphasizes the heart of this reality, the loving communion of the spouses in the total donation of their lives, while the second emphasizes the social texture and the fruit of that communion. The key number 17, the FC said that the family, intrinsic development of conjugal communion, "because, according to the divine plan, is constituted as an" intimate community of life and love" (GS 48), [...] has the mission to become more and more what it is: a community of life and love, in an effort that, as will everything created and redeemed, will find its fulfillment in the kingdom of God."
The words I highlighted in italics show clearly that for the FC, the family is defined in its essence and in its tasks by the communion of life and love. This is true of every family, in an eminent and full way, however, that for the Christian family, which receives the specific "mission to guard, reveal and communicate love, a living reflection of and real participation of God ‘love for the humanity and of the love of Christ the Lord for the Church his bride"(FC 17).

The Christian family is in fact rooted in the sacrament of marriage, in the wedding "grace" of the sacrament that makes of communion marriage "a real symbol of the new and eternal covenant, sanctioned in the blood of Christ. The Spirit, that the Lord pours out, gives a new heart and makes man and woman capable of loving one another as Christ loved us. Conjugal love reaches that fullness to which it is interiorly ordained: conjugal charity, which is the proper and specific way in which the spouses participate in and are called to live the very charity of Christ who gave Himself on the cross"(FC 13).

For its sacramental root, Christian familiar communion becomes true epiphany of the Church. In fact, it is "a revelation and specific implementation of ecclesial communion" (FC 21). The Christian family shows and implements the Church, is a concrete form of the Church is the historical vision of the mystery of communion that the Church herself. Rightly, referring to famous passages from the Council (LG 11, AA 11) the Exhortation reminds that the Christian family "for this can and should be called ‘domestic church’"(n. 21).

The Christian family, then, is a mystery of communion and his first task here is to become what it is, making more and more communion in daily life and in the concrete relations between its members. It may truly live, grow and be in full only if the communion of love among all its members is developing. As the CF noted: "The love between man and woman in the marriage and, in derivative and extended form , the love between family members - including parents and children, brothers and sisters, relatives and familiar - is inspired and driven by an inner and unceasing dynamism leading the family to an ever deeper and more intense communion, the base and soul of the marital and family community " (n. 18).

The Apostolic Exhortation devotes several pages to outline the ways in which the Christian family can become what it is inherently, by virtue of its sacramental and theological origin . Those routes that pass all through the personal commitment of family members, without exception. If it is true, that communion is, first of all sacramental gift of the Spirit, it is also true that no gift of grace does magic : it works in the alliance between power from the top and commitment down, between the free offer and accountability of who is opened to the grace.

Each family member is therefore called upon to do his part so that the family will become a living image of divine communion and together, extraordinary human experience of communion between people.
The FC paragraph 21 does not forget what it Gaudium et Spes says on n. 52 where is spoken about the family as "a school of humanity more comprehensive and richer" and emphasizes how it is achieved "by the care and love for the children, the sick and elderly, is mutual service every day; with the sharing of goods, of joys and sorrows. " Enumeration of characteristics that have a moral significance, but even before that, in hindsight, a theological meaning: they describe the very love of God made man, delineate the mode of existence of the Lord himself, a reflection of the existence of the Trinity.

Of course, the FC is well aware that the daily and practical construction of the daily communion is not easy, it takes a "great spirit of sacrifice" (No. 21). In fact the communion is attacked and mortally wounded by several realities: egoism, the disagreements, tensions and conflicts. Everyone must make own some precious attitudes : ready and generous openness, understanding, tolerance, forgiveness and reconciliation. Also, be aware that I can always draw strength from above, that the sacramental life (Eucharist and Reconciliation) constantly is strengthening and renewing.

Great attention is given then by the FC in what it calls the "educational exchange between parents and children, in which each gives and receives" (No. 21). The children - she says - are helping to build the family as a communion of persons through love, respect and obedience towards their parents; parents, for their part, are called in particular to exercise the 'indispensable authority " as a true and proper "ministry," that is "a service ordered to the human and Christian good of the children", especially it is "aimed at helping them to acquire a responsible freedom." And they can do, if they keep living in them "the conscience of the" gift "they continually receive by their children" (FC 21).

These words could make someone believe that the Exhortation to think in hierarchical terms in relationships between parents and children, in fact, think in terms of charity, on rule of love, which required "be servants" of each other. Rules of family’s love is in fact "to welcome, respect and promote each of its members during high dignity as persons, that is a living image of God." Love can not take care not to promote "the dignity and vocation of individuals" (FC 22).
In light of that same rule CF exposes the rights and duties of the various members of the family (woman, man, the child, the elderly). To them especially the Exhortation dedicates six numbers from 22 to 27.

As we see, in shaping the identity and mission of the Christian family the FC comes from theological peaks and passes to the plains of everyday life, without fractures and inconsistencies. It starts from the communion of life and love that is God himself in his Trinitarian intimacy and simply comes to communion of life and love which is the Christian family in its varied intimacy. All this occurs without any betrayal of the human fulfillment of family life, even looked forward to an image so intensely human that can not but take heart. It could not be otherwise, for another, because God made man and woman in image and likeness of God and only their heart can find peace in Him.