Franciscan at Home

Marlon De La Torre gives pointers from the Church for parents, for catechesis in the family.

Have you ever agreed to take care of something valuable for someone only to realize afterwards that taking care of it is requires significantly more than was expected? Imagine what St. Peter thought when Jesus asked him to cast his nets into the sea, and then told him he would be given a new responsibility – fishing for men (Lk 5:1-11). He received a double responsibility: to care for Christ’s mission and message, and to care for the ‘fish’ he was to catch.

When we teach, we echo the teachings of Jesus Christ. As a teacher in Christ’s Church I agree to hand on only what Christ has entrusted to his Bride, the Church. I agree to ‘guard what has been entrusted to you’ (1 Tim 6:20). I also agree to echo these teachings so that each person can catch the echo. Every audience Christ encountered received a differently crafted instruction. It was the same message – but presented for this particular person. He told the story of God’s love for his children. It is the same story, for each unique person.

Since its beginnings in Australia in the mid 1990s more than 1000 couples have attended a Celebrate Love seminar in Australia, New Zealand or England. Sydney coauthors Byron and Francine Pirola are the founders and principal developers of the seminar. ‘The content and exercises’, says Byron, ‘are designed for couples in stable, loving marriages.’ ‘We all hit periods of disillusionment in our marriage,’ adds Francine. ‘At these times, some couples just knuckle down and wait it out, and eventually, things usually do improve. Others unfortunately start to come unstuck.’

Celebrate Love is a remarkably effective way to help couples start afresh. The seminar offers couples the opportunity to get to core issues that are dividing them, deal with them and then start afresh. Feedback from these couples typically tells the same story: they had no sense of anything lacking in their marriage; they just didn’t realize how much more it could be. When people saw colour television for the first time they wondered how they could ever have been satisfied with black and white. Couples say that Celebrate Love is like seeing their marriage and their future together in full, living colour.

One of the key insights in the seminar is an appreciation of male and female differences. Recent studies in brain science have shown that even from before birth, there are structural differences in the brains of men and women. As adults, these differences are initially one of the things that attract men and women to each other. However, for many couples, they become a source of frustration and hurt because they are not well understood. The seminar teaches couples about ‘Smart Loving’. ‘Most people give love the way they like to receive it’ explains Francine. ‘We assume that if we feel loved when some one sits down and listens to us, for example, then that is what the other likes too. In fact, a lot of people don’t feel loved this way.’

A continuación de la serie de artículos que tratan de la Catequesis sobre la Sexualidad por Sor Jane Dominic Laurel, O.P., The Sower se dedicará a señalar varias iniciativas en diferentes partes del mundo que atienden ésta área de la transmisión de la Buena Nueva acerca del matrimonio, la familia y la sexualidad. En este número, hemos pedido al Dr. Gerard O’Shea que nos hable acerca de un programa y material que él ha ayudado a desarrollar para los padres de familia.

Como yo les he amado [As I Have Loved You en su versión original en inglés] empezó como proyecto en el John Paul II Institute of Marriage and Family [Instituto Juan Pablo II para el Matrimonio y la Familia] en Melbourne, Australia. La Arquidiócesis de Melbourne había producido un conjunto de directrices que tratan sobre la educación en la sexualidad. Estas directrices se basan en el Documento del Pontificio Consejo para la Familia, Sexualidad humana: verdad y significado. Considerados juntos, ninguno de los documentos proporciona un apoyo práctico para la implementación de lo que sabiamente se propone en ellos. Dejan claro que la Iglesia entiende genuinamente lo que se necesita en el área de la sexualidad. La Teología del Cuerpo de Juan Pablo II ofrece una comprensión profunda del lugar de la sexualidad en la vida humana. Sin embargo, ésta permanecería como letra muerta si no se explicara a la gente ordinaria y se pusiera en práctica en sus vidas. Esta necesidad de una explicación práctica constituyó la misión para desarrollar el programa.

Following the series on Catechesis on Sexuality by Sr Jane Dominic Laurel, O.P., The Sower will be drawing attention to various initiatives around the world in this area of the handing on of the good news of marriage, family and sexuality. In this issue we have asked Dr Gerard O’Shea to tell us about a programme and resource for parents which he has assisted in developing.

As I Have Loved You began as a project at the John Paul II Institute of Marriage and Family in Melbourne, Australia. The Archdiocese of Melbourne had produced a set of ‘Directives’ concerning sexuality education. These directives were based on the document of the Pontifical Council for the Family The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality. Taken together, neither document provided practical assistance for implementing what was wisely proposed. It was clear that the Church genuinely understood what was needed in the area of sexuality. Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body offered a profound understanding of the place sexuality in human life. Nevertheless, this would remain a dead letter if it was not explained to ordinary people and put into practice in their lives. This need for a simple, practical explanation constituted the development brief for the programme.

In this year, when we are focusing on the Father, Mary Killeen invites us to consider the significance of ‘fatherhood’ and ‘motherhood’ in our catechesis.

In our catechesis we seek to offer an education in the faith that will initiate others into the fullness of Christian life. In light of such a wondrous endeavor, it is proper that we reflect more deeply on the significance of ‘fatherhood’ and ‘motherhood’ in our catechesis. These realities offer a living framework for the whole of our catechetical work.

Jesus called God his ‘Father’, and has enabled his disciples to do the same. The whole Church can now pray to ‘our Father’ (Matt.7:9). This also puts many catechists or teachers, however, on the spot: how do we provide Catholic teaching on human fatherhood and on God the Father without appearing judgmental of the various individual instances of inadequate fatherhood which many children experience?

Recognizing the essential role parents play in the lives of their children and seeing the challenges parents face today, I wish to address parents in this column.

It is good to recall words taken from the Declaration on Christian Education from the Documents of the Second Vatican Council, in which the Council reminds us that ‘the primary and principal educators’ are the parents in the family who set the example of what it means to be a Catholic for their children.

‘…[P]arents ...are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators…. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs. It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor.’

On the day of their children’s baptism, parents promise to ‘accept the responsibility of training’ their children ‘in the practice of the faith.’ This responsibility is to be their ‘constant care.’ Parents are to ‘see that the divine life which God gives them (their children) is kept safe from the poison of sin, to grow always stronger in their hearts.’ Let us reflect on these words to understand what they mean for parents today.

In the fourth part of this series, we conclude our discussion of the Stages through which we grow in our way of loving. In Part 3, we discussed the importance of recognizing, confronting, and healing dysfunctions in our ways of loving - for example, habits of manipulation, control, demeaning others, loving conditionally, indirect communication, and co-dependency. We rely upon the power of forgiveness, grace, and our own efforts to understand and change those dysfunctions. With this realistic outlook on our life, we become better prepared for life-long commitment. We can see ourselves as well as our potential spouse more clearly. We also become prepared to accept the challenges that love in marriage demands: not only as including the thrilling love and romance of eros but also the courageous and steadfast self-sacrifice of agape.

Never as much as during the past several decades has Christian thought so greatly deepened the theological, spiritual and anthropological dimension of human love. If the Church has dedicated much of her reflection on the natural dimension of human love, it is by reason of a profound deficiency that characterizes the two past generations, namely, that they often find themselves within the impossibility of giving a natural clear response to the fundamental questions of human existence, such as the question of love. Within this sphere, the Church today is doing that which no other institution has the capacity to do.

By way of fundamental issues, we hear today the many questions at the heart of each man and woman, along with the profound aspirations that remain within them. John Paul II spoke much regarding the fundamental experiences of man, and also at times, what he described as: man’s elementary experiences, which he explained, was the most profound longing at the heart of man: the desire to love, and the desire to be loved.

We are in the presence of a cultural context very much marked by a dispersion of values that drives us unmistakably toward individualism. It befits us to be sufficiently realistic in order to analyze with lucidity that which specifies such a cultural conditioning of social life and, in particular, of affective and familial life. This will comprise the first part of this article. We will then look at the impact of these ideas on marriage and the family today.

Finally, in the midst of alternatives concerning the breakdown of conjugal and familial units (which has its origin on the misconception of love), I will present an exposition of the vision of John Paul II and Benedict XVI on love, to enable us to appreciate love in its true glory.

In the third part of this series, we continue our discussion of the Stages through which we grow in our way of loving. After looking at Stage I—where we learn how to love and be loved by our parents—we can see how our parents have truly been a blessing to us and also how they have failed us. In order to overcome these failures in love, the child must find its love in God, the perfect Father and parent, the one who loves us unconditionally, completely, and selflessly. Unless all wounds are healed, a pure development in love cannot take place. As we proceed through the next two stages, the reasons for this healing will become more evident.

In Stage II, a friendship with a person of the same sex, boys learn the masculine soul’s way of loving and girls learn the feminine soul’s way of loving. It is important to note that the differences between male and female are both physical and spiritual. Masculinity or femininity is written within the very depths of the person’s soul. The friendships we build and sustain with a person of the same sex affirms and strengthens our masculine or feminine identity as well as our masculine or feminine way of loving. The following are the other significant developments that occur during Stage II.