When challenged
by the Pharisees to name the greatest of God’s laws, Jesus replies: “You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
mind. This is the greatest and the first
commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on
these two commandments.” (Matt
22:38-40). Jesus’ answer was
straightforward and simple. It is not
that these two commands are difficult to understand, but following them is
easier said than done. What gets in the
way of course is our ego, the tendency to put ourselves first in all things,
and allowing our feelings to govern
our words and actions. When we let this
happen, we become victims of our own vices, whether they be pride, selfishness,
lust, sloth, or envy. The consequences
inevitably affect our relationships and our ability to be good spouses, parents,
or friends. I know this from personal
experience. When I am governed by my
feelings, all sorts of excuses and rationalizations take over my thinking and I
will attempt to justify my words and actions on the basis of how I feel about
whatever it is that is affecting me.
When I let this happen, I lose sight of the Truth of the situation which
is usually me being spiritually and emotionally immature.
In modern
society, the victim most affected by failure to observe God’s prime directive
is the family. I will not recount the
many attacks on marriage and family in this blog, but instead try to interpret
what I’ve been reading about the extraordinary Synod of Bishops that started a
couple weeks ago in Rome. What little
has been reported about this in the secular press is misleading at best, and for
the most part blatantly wrong. The
last time the Bishops met in a Synod to discuss the importance of families was
1980 when St. John Paul II called them together. The result of that Synod was an excellent
document released by the pope entitled, “The
Christian Family in the Modern World,” which addressed the growing problems
of contraception, abortion, sterilization, and divorce. The document called for and resulted in enhancements
to marriage preparation and the advancement of Natural Family Planning
(NFP)research and training. I suspect the Marriage Encounter (ME) movement
was one of the byproducts of that effort as well. Rose and I were active in the ME community
and we know it has helped millions of couples improve communication and
spiritual formation, while at the same time exposing priests to the very real
struggles faced by married couples, making them better pastors and
counselors. Where these efforts have
been implemented, many couples and families have benefited. Unfortunately, they were not fully or
universally rolled out.
Of course, a
great deal has changed since 1980, and Pope Francis has asked the bishops to
update that work and respond to the very real challenges being faced by
families today. Among the goals for this
synod, which will be on-going for the next year, will be to “open up a wider
vision of the vocation to love that corresponds to the deepest desire of the
human heart.” Revamping marriage
preparation to better understand the sacredness of marriage is also on the
agenda, as is addressing how to better minister to divorced and remarried
Catholics as well as homosexual Catholics.
These latter two items are what has attracted media attention and
stirred controversy. What the secular
world does not understand is that this is NOT an effort to change Church
doctrine in any way, but rather to explore better ways of ministering to the
needs of divorced and gay members of the Church. The focus is on how to alter pastoral
practice with respect to married couples, divorced Catholics, and homosexuals,
not to change what every bishop knows and understands to be the Truth about how
we were created, how families are formed, and how God intended children to be
raised.
The Catholic
Church is often characterized as enemy of progress, equality, and
tolerance. This criticism comes from a
world focused on pleasure and profit, and a culture with disturbing notions
about personal freedom as well as mistaken notions about the nature of our
humanity. Critics of the Church would
have us change doctrine to conform with the image of secular humanism, while
denying what we know to be the Truth: that marriage is a divine gift from God
whereby only a man and woman can conceive a child, and those children are meant
be raised by both of their biological parents. This is a profound undertaking, one that
requires commitment, sacrifice, and deep and abiding love. God entrusted man and women with the
responsibility to co-create children and raise them to know, love and serve
God, which is ultimately the secret to human happiness and fulfillment. The Church will never agree with worldly
pundits that anyone who feels love for another person is
entitled to marry in order to satisfy their feelings. To agree to such a thing means condoning
no-fault marriage, gay marriage, and who knows what next (threesomes? Incestuous
relationships?). All of which ignores
the responsibility of parenting and the rights of children to be raised in a loving,
stable environment by both of their biological
parents. This is the True meaning
and sacredness of marriage, defines what
it means to be a family, based on how
God created us for the continuation of humanity. Marriage is not just satisfying emotional
feelings!
One last
note: The news of late has been consumed
with the ebola scare and recent violence against children. Perhaps the greatest threat to humanity is
the virus-like condition one theologian at the synod called Ego-latry
(worship of the ego). What kind of
civilization we are building when we allow the true meaning of marriage and
children’s rights to be set aside in preference to self-indulgence? Half the children in our country are born to
single parents and live in poverty. Seventy-five
percent of adults in jail were raised without a father in the household (90%
for blacks). Single parenting is a
recipe for poverty, and children raised without the benefit of a secure and
loving family environment are less likely to marry and raise children of their
own. The purpose of the Synod is to point
out to the world that marriage is not a man-made institution, but rather a
divine gift with profound meaning and intrinsic natural beauty. Marriage is a sacred undertaking and a
vocation in which we participate with God in life-giving love and procreation
that fulfills the deepest desire of the human heart. The fullness of our sexuality is expressed in
the unity of man and woman when they conceive a child and participate in the
infinite reality of co-creating a new soul.
It is not humanly possible to love as perfectly as God, but as Bishop
Sheen once said, “It takes three people to get married: a man, a woman, and
God.” When we follow God’s greatest
command to love Him “with our heart, all our soul, and all our mind,” we invite
Him to transform us so that we are more capable of loving our spouse and
children with the life-giving, sacrificial love that imitates God who is
infinitely loving, forgiving, and merciful.
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