Pope Francis has made several themes the centerpieces of his service as the successor of St. Peter.

We have heard him speak often and strongly about greater love and care for the poor. He has written his second encyclical letter on the environment and on integral ecology.

But perhaps his most insistent message has been about the family and the crisis that it is facing in the modern world.

If we have been following the news, we are aware that during October of each of the last two years, the pope convened synods of bishops in Rome. At those meetings bishops from all over the world gathered to pray, discuss and advise the Holy Father about how to strengthen the family.

Unfortunately, much of the strength and beauty of those discussions was overshadowed as the secular media and some participants in the synod sought to focus attention on other questions such as homosexual unions and the reception of holy Communion by those divorced and civilly remarried.

Still, the Holy Father has time and again drawn our attention and our faith to the gift of the family. He rightly senses that the profound value of the family is in danger of being lost, especially in the developed and western countries like the United States.

He also senses that a strong family is the greatest response to many of the ills and sorrows that afflict so many.

Consider for example the high rate of divorce in our country. At times, divorce is portrayed as a better option, a relief from the pain spouses experience when things have gone badly, a pain that is very real.

But often overlooked or unremarked is the devastation that divorces wreak on the children involved.

Those children all too often grow up with that perpetual wound of a broken home and with the doubt that the world can be trusted to keep commitments.

That doubt, joined to the social and media climate of our country, which seems to promote casual and uncommitted sexual relations, has led to a crisis characterized by many of our young people avoiding marriage and children, and therefore family, altogether.

The children, however, are not the only victims. Studies constantly show the terrible burden born by women when marriages and families are broken. Women often suffer the most emotionally from the breakup, take on the responsibility of raising the children alone, and face greater economic stresses and even poverty.

Of course men too bear their own suffering from divorce and family breakups.

It is an essential element of our Christian and Catholic faith that God intended us, as male and female, to complete each other spiritually, physically and emotionally by a commitment in marriage.

Faithful and exclusive, the husband and wife are the source of the next generation. Through them, past and future generations on both sides of the family are linked and joined not just in genealogy but also in faith, in memories and in mutual sacrifice and support.

How different and appealing is that vision from the growing stress on individualism of our day, cut off from a wide family and generational context.

The family commitment taken on by the spouses in marriage also stabilizes our society and the individual relationships that make it up. Without that commitment, made and kept, the relationships of men and women become unstable and become a constant competition and search for someone better, funnier, more well off, or someone who pleases us at this moment. Isn’t this what we see in so many of the celebrity relationships and revolving marriages often so prominent in the media?

By contrast, the maturity of faith leading to discipline and a lifetime commitment allow spouses to give their full energy to each other and to build a life that carries out the human project entrusted to us by God.

In this Advent season, we are reminded of family by Mary and Joseph and their awaiting the arrival of the child Jesus. Mary and Joseph show us the beauty of commitment. They show us the need to commit to each other through marriage in a context of faith and trust in God’s help.

The story of Mary and Joseph is, of course, one of challenges and even heartaches at times. Joseph finds that his betrothed is expecting. Together they make the difficult journey to Bethlehem, and as a family they flee to Egypt before the advancing killers from Herod.

By faith, they support each other. In them, God inserts His Son into the world consistent with His plan of marriage and family.

In our own very challenging time, Advent reminds us of what Pope Francis is urging — that we rededicate ourselves to the prayer and self-giving that makes for stable and happy marriages and families.