On February 15, 2016, during his visit to Mexico, Pope Francis addressed a stadium full of families in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas.

He emphasized that the family, even a wounded family, is essential to the human experience: “I prefer a wounded family that makes daily efforts to put love into play to a society that is sick from isolationism and is habitually afraid of love.”

The event included various families and couples who shared their stories of an encounter with the Church and the road to healing.

Pope Francis spoke of a couple who was married for fifty years, and he emphasized the mutual gift of love and self, asking “who was more patient?… Both of them.”

Moreover, Pope Francis saw this opportunity as a time to give advice for the happiness and preservation of families, noting the need to make peace: “never let the sun set without making peace, because if [you] are at odds with each other at the end of the day, [you] will wake up to a cold war, a cold war is very dangerous in the family because it undermines, from within, the hard earned wrinkles of conjugal fidelity.”

While love, marriage, and family life can be trying and difficult, Pope Francis reiterated their fundamental importance both to individuals and to society. The effects of isolation and uncertainty subtly develop but can be devastating. The family is a safeguard against “the spiral of uncertainty” and one of the few pillars “in a low-trust society.”

Pope Francis acknowledged both the trials and the joys of marital love: “Love is not easy, it not easy, but the most beautiful thing is when a man and a woman can offer each other true love and offer it for life.”

To read the full address, visit the Vatican’s website.