Franciscan at Home

If someone is married, in love, or has ever been in love, they can likely tell you when they knew they were in love and, more importantly, when they knew their significant other was in love with them. It’s also likely that one of the individuals fell in love first. Their heart had been moved and they had “arrived” to love. After having arrived, they had to do one of the hardest things: they had to wait. Why wait? Well, because love cannot be rushed, and it certainly cannot be forced. It must profoundly respect the freedom of the other because a love that is forced is no love at all—it is coercion. The human heart is only meant to open from within: to make a free choice to love.

Jesus spoke often about the heart of man. Speaking of the Pharisees he says, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mt 15:8) and again, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a man” (Mt 15:18). While for some it can seem like faith is nothing more than a list of doctrines and creeds, and conversion is nothing more than accepting “new teachings”; from the beginning, faith, conversion, and the work of bringing the Gospel to others, that is evangelization, have always been about the heart.

Evangelization, from the Catholic perspective, is “the carrying forth of the Good News to every sector of the human race so that by its strength it may enter into the hearts of men and renew the human race.”[1] From this definition, we can see that there are necessary aspects to authentic evangelization. First, there must be a proclamation of the Gospel. This speaks to the missionary mandate of the Church to bring the Good News to the whole world, not only in action but also in preaching and proclaiming. Scripture makes clear to us this mandate as we read Jesus’ final command, the last thing he spoke to his disciples before ascending into heaven. We call this final command the Great Commission, and we read one account of it in Matthew’s Gospel:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Mt 28:18–20, emphasis added)

However, this “carrying forth of the Good News” is not an end in and of itself. Disciples of Christ do not proclaim the Gospel for the sake of its proclamation, just to speak the words. It is done to accomplish another end—namely, entering “into the hearts of men and renew[ing] the human race.” But we remember that the human heart must never be coerced, neither into love nor into belief. Instead, it must be approached with all its freedoms intact. This means that if reaching the human heart is the primary goal of authentic Catholic evangelization, then these efforts must always profoundly respect the other and his or her personal freedom. If this evangelistic atmosphere is not present, if proclaiming the Gospel is not being carried out in a way that profoundly respects the freedom of the other, then it is not authentic evangelization.

Lastly, we see that the strength by which this goal is achieved is not our own but belongs to the Gospel itself as we read, “so that by its strength it may enter into the hearts of men” (emphasis mine). When we evangelists remember that the Gospel has an intrinsic power, we experience freedom as well. We truly become “God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor 3:9), as Paul references in his letter to the Corinthians. Of course, we will aim to use every one of our God-given and developed gifts, but we will also make ourselves docile and open to the power of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel working through us. We will immerse ourselves in God’s Word, understanding that his Word contains power beyond any words of men. The freedom of the evangelist to become a vessel of God’s power through the Gospel message is necessary for authentic evangelization.

Over the past seven years that I have been working in youth ministry, the only thing that has remained consistent is that young people are constantly changing. The middle and high school students I worked with in my first year of ministry are radically different from the students I encounter today.

There are a vast number of factors to consider when looking at the constantly shifting youth culture, but it is certainly the case that the dawn of TikTok partnered with a global pandemic has catapulted our young people into a new era—an era defined by uncertainty, division, and an increasing investment in their own experience and the experience of those around them.

Our young people today, more than any previous generation, have a deep interest in the well-being of others. We see this in the social issues that are at the forefront of their minds: health care, equality, mental health awareness, etc.[1] It is clear that, on some level, they recognize the value of the human person and they want to be part of helping people experience a deep sense of belonging. This emotional investment, while in itself commendable and inspiring, when coupled with a narrative that leaves no room for disagreement has given birth to what is referred to as the “cancel culture.”

This so-coined cancel culture has stripped from popular society the ability to discuss and disagree while still standing on a foundation of love. It has manipulated the younger generation’s good and beautiful desire to create spaces of belonging and has taught them that those who have different perspectives can and should be written off entirely.

This, of course, has key implications for the Church and her ministers and what it looks like to invest in our young people in the midst of the cancel culture.

As St. John Paul II concluded his Theology of the Body (TOB) Catechesis in November of 1984, he indicated that the application of TOB could go “far beyond the content of the reflections presented here” (TOB 133:1), while reaffirming the importance of his explicit applications to the teachings on responsible parenthood found in Humanae Vitae. Just three years later, the Magisterium provided its first major example of these wider applications of TOB when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith promulgated Donum Vitae to address medical interventions into the transmission of human life. The teachings of Donum Vitae continued the application of TOB to the theme of responsible parenthood but directed it to the question of how couples can seek to grow their family in a morally sound way when they are experiencing challenges with their natural fertility. 

Echoing the main teachings of Donum Vitae, this installment of the series summarizes how the anthropological and moral principles of TOB support the proper use of medical science in the exercise of responsible parenthood, while highlighting the grave evils of artificial reproduction. 

Procreative Love and Responsibility 

Within the TOB framework, procreation essentially means providing the dignified and just context for God’s creative action, and the essence of responsible parenthood centers on the commitment of man and woman to provide that context out of love for each other and with a sense of obligation before God. Responsible parenthood means being fruitful in a way that does justice to all involved precisely in order to fulfill the privileged role of man and woman in the mystery of creation, thus preserving the truth of procreation as an essential aspect of the love to which human sexuality is ordered. 

Procreation springs from the heart of conjugal love, rather than being something added on to the love of the man and the woman, and represents an utterly unique way for them to express their love and commitment to each other. Through procreation, man and woman give motherhood and fatherhood to each other and thereby give themselves to each other with an unsurpassed depth. For that reason, those who love in this conjugal way deeply want to give motherhood and fatherhood to each other and to see new life spring from their loving communion. Therefore, it is natural and fitting that a man and a woman in conjugal love seek medical help whenever they are experiencing infertility. Likewise, the teachings of the Church recognize with great compassion the pain of infertility precisely because it frustrates the deep currents of conjugal love. 

However, along with the deep desire to give children to each other, married couples stand before God with an obligation to cooperate with him in the transmission of life. Married couples should feel that same sense of obligation to seek proper healthcare if they experience infertility. In other words, a couple that truly loves each other and that wants to fulfill their obligations before God cannot remain indifferent to infertility. 

There are natural limits to human fertility within God’s plan for human sexuality, but medical science generally says that more than twelve months of sexual intercourse in the fertile phase of the woman’s cycle without conception would be a cause for concern. According to the meaning of responsible parenthood, a couple in that situation should seek fertility care out of love for each other and with a sense of obligation before God. 

We should keep in mind that this medical care does not always lead to very complicated or invasive procedures or expensive treatments; sometimes very simple observations and changes can be made to help a couple overcome their infertility. However, no matter how simple or complicated their fertility issues may be, the couple should feel a moral obligation to try to overcome their infertility within the bounds of prudence and within the meaning of the same language of the body that governs all responsible parenthood. 

By seeking fertility care in line with the principles of responsible parenthood, couples say to each other, “Because I care so much about you, I can’t act like I don’t care about our infertility. Sharing parenthood with you means so much to me that I am willing to take the time and effort to seek help and to accept the physical and emotional costs of trying to overcome our infertility. I am not willing, however, to do anything that degrades our bodies, contradicts the meaning of our spousal communion, or violates the dignity of the children we seek to give each other. The treatment we seek must be dignified and loving in order to genuinely express the movements of my heart toward you.” 

Fortunately, TOB offers couples a clear basis for understanding the criteria by which treatments would be dignified and loving and thus within the proper meaning of responsible parenthood. 

“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off” (Mt 13:24–25).<

St. John Paul II dedicated the entire sixth chapter of his theology of the body (TOB) catechesis to reaffirming and deepening the Church’s teaching on responsible parenthood, providing his most direct and extensive application of TOB to the Church’s teachings on sexual morality. Drawing upon the teachings of Gaudium et Spes and Humanae Vitae, St. John Paul II concentrates primarily on the “essential difference” between contraception and periodic continence (in America typically called Natural Family Planning or NFP) as the basis of the ethical difference between them expressed in the teachings of the Church (TOB 122:2).

St. John Paul II clearly wants to correct the common misconception that they are both just types of “birth control” listed on medical pamphlets or that they differ only inasmuch as one uses “artificial” methods to control births. However, he primarily employs the major tenets of TOB to describe how contraception degrades the human body and corrupts the sexual intimacy of those couples who introduce it into their relationships in sharp contrast with the way that NFP fosters respect for the human body and the kind of self-mastery that promotes greater love between man and woman.

The Mass of St. Gregory depicts a miracle in the life of Pope St. Gregory the Great, who died in Rome on March 12 of AD 604. According to tradition, he and others experienced the appearance of Jesus as the pope celebrated a particular Mass. It is considered a eucharistic miracle because of the circumstances surrounding the event.

We learn of this narrative through the stories of the saints collected and published by Jacobus de Voragine, a Dominican priest of the thirteenth century. The original title of his book was Readings from the Saints. But over time, the published work attained the title The Golden Legend. His collection was gathered from wide-ranging sources and traditions and underwent many revisions and additions after his lifetime. The stories are not canonical, so we are not obligated to believe the accuracy of the events depicted. But we find many of the narratives are part of our Catholic devotional love of the saints—they are tales that have been in the minds and hearts of Catholics for centuries. We can read of St. Helen finding the True Cross; the story of St. George and the Dragon; the lives of Mary’s mother and father, Anna and Joachim—it is a very long list. On the matter of belief in apocryphal texts, I prefer to offer Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s usual rejoinder to those who disbelieve in miracles: how do you know . . . were you there?

It is possible to find translations of early versions of The Golden Legend that are substantially the “original” form without the addition of later authors, which may give some confidence to those seeking Jacobus de Voragine’s personal contribution to the collection.

The translation of the original version of the St. Gregory narrative describes the story in this way:

A certain woman used to bring altar breads to Gregory every Sunday morning, and one Sunday when the time came for receiving Communion and he held out the Body of the Lord to her, saying: “May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ benefit you unto life everlasting,” she laughed as if at a joke. He immediately drew back his hand from her mouth and laid the consecrated Host on the altar, and then, before the whole assembly, asked her why she had dared to laugh: “Because you called this bread, which I made with my own hands, the Body of the Lord.” Then Gregory, faced with the woman’s lack of belief, prostrated himself in prayer, and when he rose, he found the particle of bread changed into flesh in the shape of a finger. Seeing this, the woman recovered her faith. Then he prayed again, saw the flesh return to the form of bread, and he gave Communion to the woman.[1]

In modern culture, relativism reigns supreme. Consequently, the transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty no longer seem to transcend beyond the subjective whims of every autonomous individual self. Truth is a matter of one’s opinion. Goodness is relative to each person. Beauty is a matter of personal preference.

Catechists and Catholic educators have been given a great opportunity to lead the young people entrusted to their care to encounter objective truth, consistent moral laws that lead to the flourishing of goodness, and to appreciate authentic beauty. Although the three transcendentals are inseparable, I would like to focus on the role of beauty in teaching, evangelization, and formation.

Bishop Robert Barron frequently exhorts the faithful to “lead with beauty.” Images are powerful means of conveying both the truth and distortions of the truth. Images have been used well to market products and lead people astray into ideology. The Church has employed the use of sacred art to convey the truth in a powerful and formative way. In the introduction to the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explains the rationale for using sacred images within the Compendium:

Images are also a preaching of the Gospel. Artists in every age have offered the principal facts of the mystery of salvation to the contemplation and wonder of believers by presenting them in the splendor of color and in the perfection of beauty. It is an indication of how today more than ever, in a culture of images, a sacred image can express much more than what can be said in words, and be an extremely effective and dynamic way of communicating the Gospel message.[1]

The beauty within art, architecture, music, and film is a visible manifestation of a truth being communicated by the artist. Beauty, when used well, can lead the faithful to encounter the face of Christ the Incarnate Word.

In order to renew catechesis and Catholic schools with beauty, first we must discuss the definition and nature of beauty. Second, we need to examine what role beauty plays in our lectures, presentations, and classrooms. Finally, we must work toward greater manifestations of beauty within the liturgy.

Several years ago, I was working as a parish Coordinator of Youth Ministry, and one of my responsibilities was teaching a high school religious education class. The class was arranged by the parish DRE and met as part of her programming each Wednesday night. There was no set textbook or program. We had a wide range of topics and materials available, and we were able to move as the class needed. The class was comprised of a diverse range of students with varying backgrounds and levels of catechetical formation. Mid-year, a new family moved to the parish. The parents only spoke Spanish, and they had two sons in high school who had very little formal religious education.

The older of the sons was in eleventh grade. He didn’t speak much. I’ll refer to him as “Frank.” You could tell by what few personal stories he shared that Frank’s life was a hard one. He lived in a bad neighborhood. He adored his parents, who were hard-working, but recognized that they were consumed by the preoccupation of the family business and were also not as devout as they expected their children to be. The boys completed that school year and came back the following fall.

“With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well” (1 Thes 2:8).