Scottish Catholic Observer

“The Church will encourage you to have children, to bring them up well, to love them, to pass on to them your Faith in Christ, that Faith which brought you to the altar,” he said.

“The family is indeed the domestic Church, the Church in miniature, the Church in your home. The first experience of the Church for your children will be within the family, within your home.

“They will see your faithful and tender and enduring love for one another and they will rejoice in that, be secure in that, and say, that must be like the love of God: abundant, tender, loving, and enduring. And they will be able to respond to God and to one another with love because they have seen it in you.”

The archbishop spoke of his ‘real joy’ at being able to celebrate the Mass, alongside Frs John McGinley and Nicholas Monaghan.

He congratulated the new couples, and wished each of them ‘every blessing’ for their future together as husband and wife, mothers and fathers, and as new families.

He also praised the essential role of the family in society, assuring them of the Church’s support in good times and in bad.

“It has been said time and again by people of Faith and people who do not believe that there can only be a healthy society if there are loving and healthy families,” he said. “Children have the best life chances when they grow up in a loving family with a mum and dad who love one another.

“So your love, your union, your family is really important to the Church and to wider society. And the Church will always support your marriage. You can count on that.

“Even if society tends to trivialise marriage as just any disposable sentimental union, easily replaced as time goes by, the Church will never do that. The Church will always support your union and uphold the unbreakable bond of a Sacramental marriage.

“And the Church too, like a loving mother, will support you with compassion and mercy when difficulties come, and will try to bring you along the way of healing and reconciliation.”

He described marriage and family as ‘foundational’ for the Church, and that the future of the Church lies, in large part, within the hands of husbands, wives and families, as they ‘bring forth the believers and the disciples of the future.’

He encouraged couples to remain strong as they raise their children in the Faith, recognising it can at times be challenging.

“Making the disciples of the future is a challenging project in our times,” he said. “You will need to be united in this and single-minded about it because the world will not help you to make your children believers and disciples. And it will not happen by itself. You need to want it.

“But you are not alone in this. I can assure you that you count on God’s help because you have been strengthened by the grace of God in the Sacrament and covenant of marriage.

“You can count on the prayers of Our Lady, St Joseph and the saints in heaven. And you can count on the support of the Church, of your parish, of Catholic schools, and of so many people of goodwill.”

He encouraged the couples to ‘let other people see the joy of your love’ and praised the ‘wonderful vocation’ to which they have been called.

“As today’s Gospel says: this is God’s doing,” he said. “It is wonderful to see. Trust always in Jesus Christ who is the cornerstone.”