The family, which the second Vatican Council has defined as the domestic sanctuary of the Church, and as "the primary vital cell of society" constitutes a privileged object of the Church's pastoral attention. "At a moment of history in which the family is the object of numerous forces that seek to destroy it or in some way to deform it, and aware that the well-being of society and her own good are intimately tied to the good of the family, the Church perceives in a more urgent and compelling way her mission of proclaiming to all people the plan of God for marriage and the family." Over recent years, the Church, through the words of the Holy Father and a vast spiritual mobilization of pastor and lay people, has greatly increased her concern to help the entire community of the faithful to consider with gratitude and fulness of faith, the gifts given by God to men and women united in the sacrament of Marriage, so that they may be able to realize an authentic path of holiness and offer a truly evangelical witness in the concrete situations of life in which they find themselves.