Family Jubilee: Without God in the center, marriage falls apart

The surroundings of the Basilica of San Pedro have become this weekend a laugh of families, most of them with children, who has flooded everything with their joy.

Juan de Dios and Gema’s marriage has traveled to Rome from Jerez (Spain) with their four children (Juan, Gema, Manuela and Carlo) to participate together with thousands of other families in the jubilee dedicated to them this weekend. This Sunday they have participated in the Mass held by Pope Leo XIV in the Plaza de San Pedro, final colophon to this great party of conjugal love.

While their four children flutter playing around them, Juan de Dios ensures that “marriage is three: the husband, the wife and God.” “First God, then your wife, and then the children. If the marriage is healthy, the children are fine. Healthy marriages, healthy children,” he insists while looking at his wife Gema de Projo.

Then, she returns, complicit, the smile and points out with love that her husband is “her GPS to God.”

The eldest of his children, who is called as the father, makes it clear that he was very excited to come to Rome “because he has a lot of culture” and points out that “he wanted to come to the jubilee to win plenary indulgence.”

The four children are illuminated by their parents’ faith. “We try, within our weaknesses, be an example for them, so that they are also germ of the future of the Christian family,” says Gema.

Both she and her husband know well that the day to day of a marriage is made of resignations, forgiveness and, above all, delivers the other without taking the account: “Our model is the sacred family. We seek to imitate the values ​​of the Virgin Mary – his sweetness and patience and San José, which is the custodian of the family and its silent protector.”

They have always been believers, but four years ago they experienced a crisis that staggered all their foundations. “We did not have God at the center of marriage. It was close, yes, but not in the center,” says Juan de Dios.

It was then that they decided to support their marriage in the conjugal love project, a spiritual itinerary that started in Malaga in 2002, based on the catechesis of San Juan Pablo II on the theology of the body.

In a retreat from this movement everything changed to them: “Since we started the itinerary, our conjugal life took a radical turn.”

“The greatest gift in heaven has been my wife”

And he adds: “This itinerary has made me discover that the greatest gift in heaven has been my wife. God sent me to save me, and my mission is to return it to heaven.”

From that moment on, they began to live their vocation as a marriage in everyday life: “The fundamental pillar of society is the family, and marriage as God thought about it. The Virgin of Fatima already said it in 1917 that the great battle of the devil was going to be against marriage and family,” says Juan de Dios who regrets that today the family is not a good to protect.

The marriage of Sergio López and Belén de Villanueva has also formed a large family with which they have traveled to Rome. In addition to parents of six children, they are the sub -delegates of the Family and Life Delegation of the Diocese of Getafe (Madrid). From this great community of faith they have prepared with special care the pilgrimage to Rome.

The Jubilee, a gift to renew faith

“From the different groups of marriages and groups of families that come from the diocese, we have entrusted this trip to the Virgin in May and also to Pope Francis, which we all have great devotion and esteem,” says Sergio.

In fact, like many other pilgrims of this Jubilee Year of Esperanza, one of the main stops has been the tomb of Pope Francis in the Basilica of Santa Maria La Mayor.

With a strong ecclesial awareness, and with the memory of the very present Argentine Pope, the López de Villanueva family is this jubilee as a “gift to renew faith, family unity and service to other families in their diocese.”

This family has also worried about the formation of their children so that they can live the jubilee.

“Children have explained the difference between ordinary and extraordinary jubilees, as well as how important this event for the Church and for families is,” he says. And he adds: “We are living it as a moment of communion.”

In addition, the party atmosphere that they are living in the Italian capital has marked them deeply: “What is most like it is the party that is lived through the streets of Rome that has been filled with pilgrims that come from everyone. We have met Latin America groups that also came to this jubilee of families,” he says.

In addition to the mass that Leo XIV celebrated this Sunday, another of the most intense moments they have lived has been the pilgrimage for the four major basilicas of Rome, crossing its holy doors.

“It has been a moment of grace to experience the passage through the four holy doors in Rome: that of San Pedro, San Juan de Letán, Santa María la Mayor and San Pablo Extramuros. Crossing them and living that moment is being a wonderful experience,” he concludes.