The ancient idea of "domestic Church" has enjoyed a revival in Catholicism since its appearance in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium and John Paul II’s  Familiaris Consortio. Christians are to consider their families and households as a “base of operations” for their faith and witness.

Where did the idea of domestic church or “church of the home” originate?

Most authors trace scriptural roots to the Pauline epistles (Rom 16,3- 5.23; 1 Cor 16,15-20; Phil 4,21-22; Col 4,15; 2 Tim 4,19; Philem 1-2), and by extension to the Jewish tradition of family-based religious education and worship.

In his Homily 20 on Ephesians, John Chrysostom states, “If we regulate our households [properly]…we will also be fit to oversee the Church, for indeed the household is a little Church. Therefore, it is possible for us to surpass all others in virtue by becoming good husbands and wives.”

In a homily on the book of Acts, Chrysostom writes, “Let the house be a Church, consisting of men and women…‘For where the two,’ He said, ‘are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.’”

The Christian family belongs to the Church, finds in the Church the source, the content, and the transcendent goal of its existence as a family. Among Catholics; parents do their best to share their faith with their children and to ensure that their children receive the necessary sacraments.

In Paul VI’s Evangelii nuntiandi (1971), he notes four points that:

1. “There should be found in every Christian family the various aspects of the entire Church” – suggesting a comprehensive mission extending beyond raising up faith and vocations among one’s own children.
2. In a family conscious of its mission as domestic church “all members evangelize and are evangelized” – suggesting that the activity of a domestic church is not simply derivative of a couple’s marital relationship.
3. A domestic church should be “an evangelizer of other families and of the neighborhood of which it forms a part”; like the Church Universal, it should not seclude itself from “the world” or be exclusively preoccupied with its own salvation.
4. Domestic churches are not necessarily built upon the marriage of two Catholics: in a “mixed marriage” of two baptized Christians, this mission remains the same because it is the “consequence of a common baptism”. Such families have “the difficult task of becoming builders of unity”, – put differently, they are at the “cutting edge” of the ecumenical movement.

1. Bourg, F. C.. Christian Families as Domestic Churches: Insights from Theologies of

Sacramentality, Virtue, and the Consistent Ethic of Life. Ph.D. diss., Boston College, 1998

Christian distinctiveness is manifest in families through their taking up of the love manifested in Jesus. This love is agape, willing and active love, self-giving love, courageous love, forgiving love, persevering and steadfast love. By showing this love towards one another, the new covenant inaugurated by Jesus finds its realization in the Christian family.

Christian families can manifest the importance of family within American society. Christian spouses, to be truly Christian spouses, must enliven and nurture, not only their own marital communion, not only their own family, but also the human society in which they live and which they will leave to their children and their children's children. In this way, their love will be fruitful in the fullest sense: fruitful in their children and fruitful in society. When families live this communion of love, they become the Church in miniature.

- Michael Lawler, ©Copyright 2007 INTAMS