Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 271 - Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 271 - Part II. What does it mean to say that the family is a “Church in miniature”?

(Youcat answer - repeated) What the Church is on a large scale, the family is on a small scale: an image of God’s love in human fellowship. Indeed, every marriage is perfected in openness to others, to the children that God sends, in mutual acceptance, in hospitality and being for others.

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 1657) It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way "by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity" (LG 10). Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and "a school for human enrichment" (GS 52 § 1). Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life.     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Nothing in the early Church fascinated people more about the “New Way” of the Christians than their “domestic churches”. Often someone “believed in the Lord, together with all his household; and many… believed and were baptized” (Acts 18:8). In an unbelieving world, islands of living faith were formed, places of prayer, mutual sharing, and cordial hospitality. Rome, Corinth, Antioch, the great cities of antiquity, were soon permeated with domestic churches that were like points of light. Even today families in which Christ is at home are the leaven that renews our society.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 1666) The Christian home is the place where children receive the first proclamation of the faith. For this reason the family home is rightly called "the domestic church," a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian charity.

(The next question is: What are sacramentals?)