Franciscan at Home

Marriage: God's plan of love to live, not an injustice to remedy

For Christians, marriage is a sacrament: a sacrament which enriches spouses and their families and contributes to the greater good of the whole community. In recent years the very idea of marriage has become a subject of contention and controversy in our society. Voices have been raised to say that marriage does not belong to any religious group. We would, of course, be the first to agree: for marriage belongs to humanity.

It may sound strange but we want to sleep in a barn on Christmas Eve. After Christmas Eve Mass, we would put the children in the car, drive to a friend's farm and sleep in their hayloft, above the cows and sheep. We would leave the presents, decorations, and fancy clothes at home, and experience for ourselves what the birth place of Jesus was like.

Unfortunately, and I can't imagine why, the children aren't as impressed with this idea as we are. For the last three years, they've been yelling "No, No, No" whenever we try to discuss it. Well, yes, we'd miss the Christmas Eve feast at the grandparents, and yes, there's be no tree with presents in the morning. We could live without that for one year, couldn't we.

"No, NO, NO!"

Alan Schreck concludes his summary of the vital teaching document of Blessed John Paul II on family life and family catechesis.

As we approach the thirteenth anniversary of Familiaris Consortio (Nov. 22, 1981), Blessed John Paul II’s concerns and direction for the family appear even more relevant and urgent today. As he taught in 2001 (NMI, 47), ‘At a time in history like the present, special attention must also be given to the pastoral care of the family, particularly when this fundamental institution is experiencing a radical and widespread crisis.’ In FC, John Paul presented four major tasks for the family in the modern world:

1. forming a community of persons;
2. serving life;
3. participating in the development of society;
4. sharing in the life and mission of the Church (no. 17).

In the last Sower, we discussed the first task, so now we must ask: ‘How does the family serve life?’ This is ‘the fundamental task of the family’ (no. 28). Echoing Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, FC teaches ‘that love between husband and wife must be fully human, exclusive, and open to new life’ (no. 29).

Seven years ago a young guest surprised me by suddenly asking, “Mrs Flynn, what is Natural Family Planning?” Our guest was a young woman called Asel Ibraeva, whose family had befriended one of our daughters when she was travelling in Central Asia a few years earlier. Asel was living in Karakol, a town in the east of Kyrgyzstan, near the splendid lake Issyk-Kul. In the summer of 2003, after six months studying English in London, and before returning home, she spent a fortnight with us in Oxfordshire.

I gave Asel a short summary of how NFP works, but realised that this brief explanation could not do justice to the subject, so I telephoned Colleen Norman, who is a very experienced Natural Family Planning teacher, and asked her if she would be willing to run a training course in Kyrgyzstan. To my surprise and delight, not only did she accept, but she immediately sent us a copy of the Russian translation of her own NFP manual, which had just been published. She followed this up by meeting us at Heathrow Airport a few days later, when Asel was about to return home. By the time Asel went through the departure gate, it had been agreed that she would try and interest as many people as possible in NFP, and see if she could gather enough support to make a course the following year feasible.

When she arrived home in Karakol, armed with the NFP manual in Russian, she boldly approached a doctor who was responsible for the training of local GPs. This doctor proved to be very responsive to learning about a method of family planning that does not involve the contraceptive pill, which is not only expensive but also increases the risk of anaemia among women whose poor diet already puts them at risk. She willingly agreed to help Asel organise a course. Asel advertised in the local press and on television, and soon there were over twenty enquirers, nearly all doctors and nurses; premises were then booked at a local lakeside resort. An important factor in their ready acceptance of this course is a Kyrgyz Government policy, established in 1997, that the health care of the new nation should be based on the promotion of healthy family life. A project to teach and encourage the use of NFP would quite clearly meet this aim.

This project is one which emphasises and promotes fundamental human values which are too often rejected in western society. In this way it plays an important part in spreading the good news of the Kingdom.

Following William Newton's article, in the last issue of The Sower, explaining Blessed John Paul II's encyclical, Familiaris Consortio, he now discusses the pope's understanding of the value of the person, presenting the central ideas in his theology of the body.

We begin with a simple and profound question: what is the purpose and meaning of human life? The answer that John Paul II gives to this question is remarkably simple. The goal of human life is to make a gift of oneself for the sake of communion. Gift and communion: these are the hermeneutical keys through which Blessed John Paul II viewed the world. In effect, he says, that at the end of your life, it will be judged to have been a success or a failure not on the basis of fame, wealth, or pleasure; but on the basis of whether you took the opportunity to make a gift of yourself to others and whether or not you achieved profound communion with others and with God.

If you are not acquainted with the thought of John Paul II, the phrase ‘gift of self’ might strike you as unusual; and even if you are, it can remain a bit nebulous. So let us look at this this.

In many ways, ‘gift of self’ is synonymous with ‘love’. Of course, the word ‘love’ is used analogously for a whole range of realities that come under the umbrella of ‘desiring the good for someone’. Here is not the place to draw all the distinctions, but in Love and Responsibility, Karol Wojtyla does just that and concludes that ‘a total gift of self’ or ‘betrothed love’ is the highest possible form of love.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Pope John Paul’s teaching document on the family. Alan Schreck explains why it remains of crucial importance today.

In the first years of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II directed his attention to what he perceived to be a critical challenge to the well-being and integrity of human society: the relationship between man and woman and the fruit of their human and sacramental union-marriage. John Paul’s Wednesday audiences on what has come to be called his ‘theology of the body’ were a necessary backdrop and foundation for his teaching on marriage and the family. The importance of this teaching already had been recognized by the bishops at the Second Vatican Council, who in writing the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World (which the Bp. Karol Wojtyla helped to author), identified marriage and family as the first ‘urgent problem area’ to be addressed in Part II of the constitution.

The Council Fathers recognized that marriage and family is the foundation of human society. If that foundation fails, society collapses. The response to Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on the transmission of human life, Humanae Vitae (1968), was a clear indication that the Church’s long-standing teachings in this area were being subject to scrutiny and criticism, even within the Church. Pope John Paul II sought to present a thorough reasoned response to these issues, first, by developing his ‘theology of the body’, and then by calling a synod to discuss the family. One fruit of this synod is John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation on The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World (Familiaris Consortio – FG), issued November 22, 1981—almost thirty years ago at this writing.

Jason Gale draws some important lessons for catechesis from the Church’s understanding of Creation.

God’s work of Creation is both once and for all and at the same time continuing. When we speak of Creation, we sometimes speak of it as a past act from which everything else flows. But the truth is that God continues to create. His act of creation continues both in the creation of new things and persons and also in the continuing existence of those persons and things already in existence.

Pope John Paul II stated, “Having created the cosmos, God continues to create it, by maintaining it in existence. Conservation is a continuous creation.”[i] We can draw many implications from this truth, and we can draw two conclusions which are particularly important for our work as catechists.

There is surely no more important time in the history of the Church when catechesis on the family needs to be carried out. In this article, Dr William Newton takes us back to the classic catechesis of John Paul II on the family.

Unfortunately, not a little of what Aldous Huxley predicted in his 1931 novel, Brave New World, has come to pass, especially in regard to the break down of sexual morality and family life. In Huxley’s brave new world, circa 2540 A.D., there is universal promiscuity as a result of social conditioning from an early age, according to the adage: “everyone belongs to everyone.” In order to prevent pregnancy – a phenomenon long since defunct and considered a subject of conversation too crude for polite society – women are encouraged to carry contraception on them at all times. This is done by promoting as fashionable the wearing of contraceptive belts, adorned with pouches containing the requisite devices. Marriage is a thing of the past; as is normal procreation. All human beings are conceived and raised in “Hatchery and Conditioning Centres.”

A Catholic living in 2012 can easily sympathize with the main character of the book – John the Savage. He is the only character in the story that is shocked and bewildered by the moral degradation. Circumstances have been such that John was raised outside the new world order and only introduced at as a young adult. For him, this brave new world is a world gone mad. For us, something like a share in John’s bewilderment comes from the fact that in 2012 (let alone 2540) we experience a similar moral vacuum. In my own country, the United Kingdom (quite typical of Europe), nearly 85% of couples who eventually marry (and an increasing number never do) cohabit before their wedding, 44% of children are born outside marriage, and 66% of the population think there is no difference between marriage and cohabitation.

Of course, it would be an exaggeration to say that things in modern day Britain or Europe are quite as bad as in Huxley’s Britain of 2540. Certainly, we have IVF and we have State imposed amoral sex education, but this is not quite as bad or extensive as Huxely’s vision of the ubiquitous Hatchery and Conditioning Centres.

One might ask why things are not as bad. I am confident that fallen human nature is certainly capable of going all the way with Huxley’s vision. So, is it just a matter of time? After all we have another five hundred years to go before we arrive at 2540.

Vemos las maneras en las que tanto los documentos del magisterio universal como los documentos de enseñanza de los obispos locales pueden sustentan nuestra catequesis.

Durante su largo pontificado, el Papa Juan Pablo II reafirmaba consistentemente la perenne enseñanza cristiana sobre la vocación al matrimonio. En Familiaris consorcio, proclamó que la ‘familia es la célula primera y vital de la sociedad’ i y el Catecismo, que él promulgó, declara que ‘[l]a vocación al matrimonio se inscribe en la naturaleza misma del hombre y de la mujer’ (CIC 1603).

Mientras que la vocación al matrimonio es claramente definida dentro de la enseñanza católica, existe un esfuerzo omnipresente para intentar redefinir esta vocación al matrimonio como la unión entre dos personas, sin distinción de sexo. Este debate sobre el matrimonio ‘entre personas del mismo sexo’ está vivo y pataleando y no demuestra ningún signo de disminuir.

El debate empezó a ganar terreno durante el siglo XXI, y en 2001, los Países Bajos se convirtieron en el primer país que legalizara el matrimonio entre personas del mismo género – con todos los derechos y privilegios del matrimonio tradicional. Desde entonces, por lo menos seis otros países han seguido el ejemplo y vienen más en camino.

Este artículo destaca algunos de los principios fundamentales que ayudarán a explicar por qué el matrimonio no puede ser entre dos personas del mismo género. Aunque la fe cristiana sea enraizada en la Divina Revelación, gran parte de este artículo se enfocará en el entendimiento del matrimonio dentro del orden moral natural. ‘La gracia supone la naturaleza’ ii; por lo tanto, comprender los orígenes naturales del matrimonio ayudará a los cristianos a defender el matrimonio tradicional tanto delante de los cristianos como los no cristianos. Debemos de tomar en serio la exhortación de San Pedro a estar ‘siempre dispuestos a dar respuesta a todo el que os pida razón de vuestra esperanza’ (1 Pe 3, 15). Es importante que entremos en este debate cultural con claridad y con caridad.

We see the ways in which both documents of the universal magisterium and the teaching documents from local bishops can underpin our catechesis.

During his lengthy pontificate, Pope John Paul II consistently reaffirmed the perennial Christian teaching on the vocation of marriage. In Familiaris Constortio he proclaimed that ‘the family is the first and vital cell of society’[i] and the Catechism, which he promulgated, states that the ‘vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman’ (CCC 1603).

While the vocation of marriage is clearly defined within Catholic teaching, there exists a pervasive effort to redefine the vocation of marriage as any union between two people, regardless of gender. This debate on so-called ‘same-sex’ marriage is alive and well and shows no signs of diminishing.

The debate began gaining ground during the 20th century and in 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage—with all the rights and privileges of traditional marriage. Since then, at least six other countries have followed suit and more are on the way.

The following article will highlight some fundamental principles to help explain why marriage cannot be between two people of the same gender. While the Christian faith is rooted in Divine Revelation, much of this article will focus on understanding marriage within the natural moral order. Grace builds on nature;[ii] therefore, understanding the natural origins of marriage will help Christians defend traditional marriage to both Christians and non-Christians alike. We must take seriously St. Peter’s exhortation to, ‘always be prepared to make a defense…for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence’ (Pet 3:15). It is important that we engage this cultural debate with clarity and charity.