The Family at the Heart of a Culture of Life
Stratford Caldecott
The bonds between the Church, the Holy Family, and the "domestic
church" founded on the sacrament of marriage are intimate and
profound.
In a host of formal and informal pronouncements and teachings,
Pope John Paul II has consistently underlined the central
importance of the family as the basic cell of human society, and
sacramental marriage as the sole foundation on which a culture of
life can be built.[1] What I propose to undertake here is not a
systematic review or analysis of papal teachings on the family,
but a theological reflection on certain key points that are
important to me as a husband and a father. The title of this paper
is deliberately somewhat ambiguous, for "the family" that is
indeed at the heart of a culture of life is not merely the family
in general, but one particular human family, namely, the Holy
Family of Nazareth. It is with this family that I wish to begin.
The Second Vatican Council chose to present Mary in the context of
a document about the Church (<Lumen Gentium>). However, mariology
still has a tendency to become somewhat separate from
ecclesiology. Perhaps a solution might be to develop further the
<theology of the Holy Family> in such a way as to integrate both
mariology and ecclesiology.
I. The Holy Family
The essence of marriage lies in the covenant "by which a man and a
woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole
life" (Canon 1055). It lies, therefore, in the act of consent or
vow by which one person is given to another in an "indivisible
union of souls."[2] Normally, in our fallen world, the marriage
act open to the transmission of life is the means by which the
communion of two in one flesh is sealed and consummated. In the
case of Joseph and Mary, that particular means was rendered
unnecessary by the virginal conception of Jesus. Many have read
the response of Mary to the angel of the Annunciation (Lk 1:34) as
indicating an intention of perpetual continence, no doubt already
agreed with her future husband: "How is this to be, since I know
not man?" But perhaps Mary understands the angel as speaking of a
conception that will take place as soon as he has finished
speaking, rather than at some future date, so that her present
rather than intended virginity is what leads her to pose the
question.[3] In any case, the Catholic and Orthodox tradition is
clear that the marriage was never to be consummated in the usual
sense. Despite this, the pope affirms with St. Augustine that
"none of the requisites of a marriage was lacking,"[4] among which
he lists offspring, fidelity and sacramental union.
Gabriel tells Mary, "You shall conceive.... " This is the language
of fact, or of prophecy, rather than of question or invitation.
However, the Church has understood that Mary was not forced to
agree but gave her consent freely when she replied, "Be it done to
me according to your word." Clearly, there was no need for God to
frame a question if he knew (and Mary knew that he knew) that she
had long since given her free assent to anything he might ask of
her-an unlimited assent confirmed now by the <fiat> on which our
own salvation hangs. There is something here we can learn about
human freedom. Usually today we think of freedom as the ability to
choose between alternative courses of action, or the ability to
maximize the range of such alternatives ("consumerist" freedom).
But freedom in its truest sense is the ability to <take
responsibility> for a decision or course of action.[5] This is the
kind of freedom that exists in God- who is clearly not "free" to
sin, or even to act in a less than perfect way. God's actions,
however, are <entirely his own>: they reflect and express the
entirety of what he is. We are made in that image. Slavery to sin
is due to division within the self; it is inability to "make up
one's own mind," and thus to be able to act without regret or
fear. After the Fall, after that original integrity has left us,
God offers us the grace to recover our freedom by giving us the
power to make a real decision. This seems to be the experience of
growth in freedom; that at some point a moment comes when we
realize we are, as we have never been before, <free to choose>.
But this freedom is not between a range of options or paths; it is
between forward and back. Or rather, there is only one real
decision to take, and we may either take it or refuse <The choice
is between life or death>. The glimpse of freedom we attain at
such moments is a glimpse of the freedom of the Virgin Mary in the
moment of the Annunciation. She was not hampered either by
original or by personal sin from being able to say "yes."
The same angel later appears to Joseph in a dream, to inform him
that this mystery concerns him also; his role being to name Jesus,
to become his true father in the Jewish Law, to live with and
protect Mary and the divine Child. Joseph was not the biological
father of Jesus. To deny this is tantamount to denying the
hypostatic union. God the Son reveals himself as <Son of God>: the
man Jesus and the Second Person of the divine Trinity have one and
the same paternal principle. In what else does the divinity of
Jesus consist, apart from his being the Son of the heavenly
Father? Joseph is, however, to be the legal father, through whom
Jesus is to inherit a title to the throne of his ancestor David.
How fitting that the very membership of Jesus Christ in the People
of the Law, and his entitlement to all the promises of the
Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants, should come through a purely
<legal> relationship to the "just man" who seems to be an
incarnation of the Law itself.
Joseph's assent is as instantaneous as Mary's. In the spirit of
perfect obedience he steps forward into his role as head of the
Holy Family, with authority over both the Son and the Mother of
God. Here too there are many lessons for us, both as individuals
and as families. The first is this: that true authority flows from
humility, power from weakness, dominion from obedience. It is not
out of ambition that Joseph assumes his role, but from the
humility in which he is well acquainted with his own nothingness.
God entrusts himself to the power of Joseph entrusts, as the pope
says,[6] the "private" or "hidden" life of Jesus (and thus we may
add the interior life of all Christians)[7] to the guardianship of
this just man-because he knows that Joseph wishes to be, as all
free men are, the willing slave of truth. A heart that is anchored
in the truth cannot be lost in the storm. The strength of a reed
that remains green in the truth will never break, though it bend
to the ground.
The "adoptive" fatherhood of Joseph also reveals the inner meaning
of real paternity.[8] This model for all human fathers, this
living icon of the divine Father, is not even the biological
father of his own child. In other words, a man becomes more what a
father should be <the more he allows God to act through him in
marriage>. There is talk today of a "men's movement," and of the
rediscovery of male spirituality. If we take Joseph as our guide,
we will say that true masculinity is ordered to (primarily
spiritual) fatherhood, and its rediscovery takes place in
"response" to (primarily spiritual) femininity. Mary comes first.
It is <her> humility, <her> feminine receptivity to God and to the
life that God inspires, which Joseph must imitate and follow. In
this way he is called to nourish, protect and serve with his own
life the One who is entrusted to him. Joseph and Mary are
therefore one flesh, one mind and one attitude before God: they
cannot be separated. He receives grace from her; she receives it
from Christ.
In icons of the Crucifixion, Mary and John are frequently shown
standing one on each side of the cross, "linked" by the
outstretched arms of the Crucified.[9] This is the moment when the
Holy Family is broken open like bread and given to the whole
world. Joseph has gone: we have to assume he died before Jesus
began his public ministry. Now at the culmination of that
ministry, on the cross, the Son is "abandoned" by his heavenly
Father too, so that he may achieve his great work of salvation in
the loneliness of death: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?"[10] This is the "third annunciation," when Mary conceives
John and all the saints who will follow after him by the power of
the Word on the cross: "Woman, behold your son ... Behold your
mother" an 19:26-8). John, though full grown, enters a second time
into a mother's womb to be born (cf. Jn 3:4). In this act of
giving John to Mary as son, and Mary to John as Mother, Jesus cuts
all the remaining ties that bind him to earth and knows that his
work is "consummated" an 19.28) He has poured himself out, emptied
himself, in obedience to the will of the Father and his own divine
will. John has become a member of the Holy Family, a true heir of
the Father: this is the beginning of the Church.
Finally, the Child. The Holy Family is centered on Jesus and
exists for his sake. The Child is their God, their source of life
and of happiness. In <Unless You Become Like This Child>, Hans Urs
von Balthasar writes as follows: "If we open up St. John's
prologue, we notice that it nowhere speaks about the cross, but
rather about the Word, God's Son, being in God from all eternity,
about his being the creating Light and Life of the world, about
his assuming human flesh and giving those who receive him the
power of being born from God, that is, the power of becoming
children of God together with him."[11] The whole tragedy of the
cross, Balthasar writes, makes sense and "possesses its eternal
foundation in God's triune mystery of childhood." To be a Child of
the Father "holds primacy over the whole drama of salvation," for
the redemptive deed itself can be accomplished only "by virtue of
the childlike stance of the God-Man and within the childlike faith
of his bride, the Church."
All ecclesiology, all theology of the Church, is therefore rooted
in the living historical reality of the Holy Family. The departure
of Jesus through death is necessary to create the mystical womb in
Mary where the saints may come to birth, filling the place he
occupied; if he had remained on earth, that "space" and the Church
herself would not have existed. The physical womb of Mary which
bore the Christ Child and the mystical womb that bears the saints
are one but not identical, united but distinct, in a relationship
comparable to that between the physical body of our Lord and his
mystical body. This mystical body of Christ is the Church,[12]
viewed as an extension of the individual body he assumed at the
Incarnation, its members united with each other and with him by
the Holy Spirit who gives life to the whole. The Church is a
society ensouled and enfleshed by the Holy Spirit so as to become
one theological "person." Much more than a mere institution, the
Church is a Bride arrayed in glory and possessed of the highest
freedom to love.
The bonds between the Church, the Holy Family, and the "domestic
church" founded on the sacrament of marriage are intimate and
profound. Just as the Holy Spirit weaves together the wondrous
body of Christ in the womb of Mary during the first Advent, so he
forms the Church in the womb of the cross-the womb whose first
child is Mary herself, the Immaculate Conception "preredeemed" by
the sacrifice of her Son. But God does not hold back in his act of
giving. Even his fruitfulness, his divine "Motherhood," is poured
out to the limits of possibility upon one of his creatures, and
Mary is raised up to be the bearer of eternal life through the
agonizing labor of Calvary. Like Eve, born from the side of the
primordial Adam, the Virgin Mary becomes "Mother of all that live"
(Gen 3:20). As the Mother of life, Mother of grace incarnate,
"full of grace," she is the first recipient of every favor which
God can bestow on a human creature. Her mission is the mission of
the Church in the world and also of every Christian family: to
give Christ to the universe.
II. Marriage, family and the culture of life
We move now to a consideration of human families in general-
understood as ultimately ordered to a fulfillment that is revealed
in the Holy Family, centered on Christ. The theology of marriage
has received considerable attention in the years following the
Second Vatican Council. Those who have criticized official
teaching have generally accepted it as describing an <ideal>, but
one that is seldom if ever attained in practice. It may be worth
making the point here that a <sacrament> is not a mere ideal to be
striven towards, but-if it means anything at all-a reality to be
recognized. Discussing the question of divorce and remarriage,
Charles Williams puts it like this: "Divorce is an attempt to
nullify a sacrament actually in operation; as if a man should
attempt to begin the supernatural life by being rebaptized. It is
not that it ought not to happen; for Christians it cannot happen,
whatever formula is pronounced or ceremony enacted. When the work
is once begun, for better or worse it cannot be stopped."[13] The
sacrament of marriage involves the creation of a new ontological
reality that persists even through the most acrimonious
separation, until it is dissolved into the reality of union with
Christ through death. As Williams emphasizes, it is "because
marriage is a means of the work of redemption that two lovers in
whom it has begun are required by the Church to submit themselves
to that work to the end"[14] even if physically separated.
John Paul II writes in <Evangelium Vitae>: the "role of the family
in building a culture of life is <decisive and irreplaceable>" (n.
92). This he explains at greater length in several other major
documents of his pontificate, including <Centesimus Annus> (=<CA>,
1991), the <Letter to Families> (=<LF>, 1994), and the earlier
apostolic exhortation, <Familiaris Consortio> (=<FC>, 1981).[15]
We may summarize his position here in five main points.
(1) Firstly, of course, the family is-or should be "the sanctuary
of life: the place in which life the gift of God- can be properly
welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is
exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes
authentic human growth" (CA, n. 39). The family is the place where
human life may be most easily understood as <gift>. At the
simplest level, we are all aware that we do not make or choose our
brothers and sisters, our parents and children. "The supreme
adventure is being born," wrote G.K. Chesterton in a justly famous
passage from <Heretics>. "Our father and mother . . . lie in wait
for us and leap out on us, like brigands from a bush. Our uncle is
a surprise. Our aunt is, in the beautiful common expression, a
bolt from the blue. When we step into the family, by the act of
being born, we . . . step into a world which is incalculable, into
a world that we have not made. In other words, when we step into
the family we step into a fairy-tale."[16]
If life and love are not understood as gift, what takes over is
the mentality of control-the desire to manipulate others for our
own ends. To respect life as <given> is to respect its mystery,
and the mystery of otherness and freedom present in every human
person. The difference between these two positions is profound,
indeed it could not be more so, since each determines in a
different way the attitude we take to our own existence in the
world and the relationships that give a meaning to our lives.[17]
This is why the pope has spoken so emphatically and repeatedly on
the subject of contraception, underlining and deepening the
teaching of Paul VI's famous encyclical, <Humanae Vitae> (1968).
In sexual intercourse, which expresses and seals the marriage
bond, a fundamental attitude to life and to the other person is
inevitably embodied. Whenever we take steps to render infertile an
act that might otherwise be fertile, we are effectively (if not
consciously) attempting to close off that spiritual dimension in
which new life may be created. Unlike simple self-restraint during
periods of fertility ("natural family planning"), the employment
of barrier or chemical contraceptives changes the nature of the
sexual act into a form of mutual use.[18]
(2) The second way in which the role of the family is "decisive"
is in the field of <education>, where children are "begotten" in a
spiritual as well as physical sense and where the parents together
may learn greater humanity from their children, as they share in
God's "<paternal and at the same time maternal way of teaching>"
(<LF>, n. 16). The fourth commandment of the Decalogue calls to us
as children to honor our parents. There is a reciprocal duty of
parents to honor their children, the pope says, for the
"'<principle of giving honor,>' the recognition and respect due to
man precisely because he is a man, is the basic condition for
every authentic educational process" (<LF>, n. 16). Through
education, culture-whether it be a culture of life or a culture of
death-is passed on, transmitted and developed. The family gives
birth to culture. In the <Letter to Families>, the pope connects
this point to the one preceding it by defining as "essential" the
husband's recognition of his wife's motherhood as a "gift." "Much
will depend on his willingness to take his own part in this first
stage of the gift of humanity, and to become willingly involved as
a husband and father in the motherhood of his wife." Here again we
see the pope "reading" the human family in the light of the Holy
Family, and seeing in the example of St. Joseph the much-needed
corrective to the spiritual "divorce" that has taken place in
modernity between (complementary) male and female roles within the
family.
(3) Third, by being born into a family we are born into a society,
and thus into a set of personal relationships that provide a
context for us to discover our unique personal identity. Growing
up in the society of the family, we lay the foundations for social
activity in general. The family is, according to the Second
Vatican Council, "the first and vital cell of society," and
according to the <Letter>, "the primordial and, in a certain
sense, 'sovereign' society."[19] Its sacramental form as a
covenant of self-giving love can and should influence the entire
political and economic sphere in which it is embedded. The pope
talks, for example, of a global politics of solidarity and the
need for an "economy of communion."[20] These things begin with
the way a family lives out its communion of life and property, its
mutual subjection and service. Thus: "<Through the family passes
the primary current of the civilization of love>, which finds
therein its 'social foundations"' (<LF>, n. 15). But this current
may be impeded, and the waters of life prevented from flowing into
society, if a nation structures its economic and political life
around a different set of principles (e.g., in terms of
competition rather than cooperation).
"<A family policy must be the basis and driving force of all
social policies.>"[21] The culture of life requires families to
live out the implications of the sacrament that joins them to
Christ, but it also requires government and public institutions to
support that way of life. That might be done, for example, through
differential taxation to assist larger families, salaries and
working hours that make it possible for one partner to remain with
the children, transport policies encouraging stability instead of
mobility, legislation on weekend trading that preserves a day for
rest and prayer, restrictions on advertising that would help to
curb rising levels of moral pollution, education policies that
would place a high priority on resources and teachers without
undermining the role of parents, and so on.[22]
(4) Fourth, a family is a place where the force of <eros> can be
tamed and transformed with the help of grace, and directed to the
service of life rather than death. It is, after all, where we
learn to be brothers and sisters, children and parents, instead of
merely potential mates. It is where a married couple can learn to
subordinate their sexual desires to their respect for each other,
and relearn from their children the virginal innocence of soul
that is the defining quality of the "children of God," without
which no one will either see God (Mt 4:8) or enter the Kingdom (Mt
18:3).
There is nothing naively romantic about all this: it is an
empirical fact that such a process of transformation does take
place in the most seemingly ordinary of households-albeit often
through the experience of great suffering. It is equally a fact of
common observance that the process can be distorted, and the
results when sacramental grace is driven out of a marriage by
unrepented sin are quite horrific.[23]
(5) Finally, then, a Christian family exists to give birth to
Christ-to give birth to saints. It is saints alone who can truly
transform society and create a "civilization of love." This
indispensable role of the family in giving birth to a culture of
life depends on <prayer>. It is in prayer that each of us
discovers "his own unique subjectivity," and the "depth of what it
means to be a person" (LF, n. 4, also n. 10). The same applies to
families, which is where most of us learn to pray: the family
itself discovers its own depths in the mystery of God through
turning together towards the source of life.
To read sections 13, 14, and 15 of the <Letter to Families> is to
be well aware of how the pope understands the place of the family
in the present crisis of civilization. The "culture of death"-that
is, the culture that leads to death-is based on activism and self-
will. The possibility of a culture of life is based on the primacy
of contemplation, of receptivity and gratitude, true femininity,
and "fairest love." The two types of culture are associated with
two very different kinds of creativity; one that seeks to remake
the world and in so doing empties it of transcendent meaning, and
another that seeks to shape and cultivate the world that has been
given to us to love. Each of these generates a different kind of
art, a different kind of science. Each promises freedom, but only
one delivers. For we can take possession of our own will only in
handing it over to the one who gives us existence, to the Father
of all. And we lose our freedom every time we hand it over to the
idol we make of ourselves when we assume we understand the mystery
of our own destiny. In God's plan, "the vocation of the human
person extends beyond the boundaries of time. It encounters the
will of the Father revealed in the Incarnate Word: <God's will is
to lavish upon man a sharing in his own divine life>. As Christ
says, 'I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly' (Jn
10:10)" (LF, n. 9).
ENDNOTES
1 See Peter J. Elliott, <What God Has Joined . . .: The
Sacramentality of Marriage> (New York: Alba House, 1989); Richard
Hogan and John LeVoir, <Covenant of Love> (New York: Doubleday,
1985). See also <Catechism of the Catholic Church>, nn. 1061-1666.
Cf. Dietrich von Hildebrand, <Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful
Love> (Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 1984).
2 St. Augustine and St. Thomas, cited in <Redemptoris Custos>
(1989), n. 7.
3 See, e.g., Andre Feuillet, <Jesus and His Mother> (Still River:
St. Bede's, 1984); Ignace de la Potterie, <Mary in the Mystery of
the Covenant> (New York: Alba House, 1992); Thomas Philippe,
<Mystical Rose> (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1995); John
Saward, <Redeemer in the Womb> (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
1993).
4 <Redemptoris Custos>, n. 7.
5 See Carlo Caffara, <Living in Christ: Fundamental Principles of
Catholic Moral Teaching> (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987).
See also the very important discussion of human freedom in Servais
Pinckaers, <The Sources of Christian Ethics> (Washington and
Edinburgh: The Catholic University of America Press and T&T Clark,
1995).
6 <Redemptoris Custos>, n. 8.
7 See Andrew Doze, <Discovering Saint Joseph> (New York: Alba
House, 1991).
8 For a profound examination of this theme-though without any
explicit mention of St. Joseph--see Gabriel Marcel, "The Creative
Vow as the Essence of Fatherhood," in <Homo Viator: Introduction
to a Metaphysic of Hope> (London: Gollancz, 1951).
9 Would it be too fanciful to detect a symbolic echo of this in
another common way of representing the Crucifixion-with the spear
and the sponge in the same relative positions on either side of
the cross?
10 Mark 15:34. See Adrienne von Speyr's little commentary on the
last words <The Cross: Word arid Sacrament> (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 1983).
11 San Francisco: Ignatius Press (1991), 57-65.
12 See, e.g., E. Mersch, S.J., <The Theology of the Mystical Body>
(St. Louis: B. Herder, 1951); M.J. Scheeben, <The Mysteries of
Christianity> (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1946); and <Mystici Corporis>
by Pope Pius XII. For a contemporary sacramental ecclesiology, see
Geoffrey Preston, O.P., <The Faces of the Church>, ed. A. Nichols
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996).
13 See <Outlines of Romantic Theology> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1990), 47.
14 The Orthodox Church evidently has a different understanding,
and a different pastoral approach. In the long run this may prove
a significant challenge to ecumenical reconciliation. See Paul
Evdokimov, <The Sacrament of Love> (Crestwood: St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1985).
15 In what follows, I will be paying more attention to the most
recent documents, but the earlier should not be neglected. For a
profound insight into the development of the pope's ideas from his
early, philosophical or poetic writing through the vast body of
encyclicals and other teachings, see Kenneth L. Schmitz, <At the
Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol
Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II> (Washington: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1993).
16 Cited in <Brave New Family>, ed. Alvaro de Silva (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 23. <Heretics> is reprinted in
<The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton>, vol. I (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 1986).
17 See Kenneth L. Schmitz, <The Gift: Creation> (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 1982).
18 See, e.g., Paul M. Quay, <The Christian Meaning of Human
Sexuality> (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985); Janet E. Smith,
<Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later> (Washington: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1991); Pontifical Council for the
Family, <Marriage and Family: Experiencing the Church's Teaching
in Married Life> (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989); Cormac
Burke, <Covenanted Happiness> (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1990).
19 Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, <Apostolicam
Actuositatem>, n. 11; and <Letter to Families,> end of n. 17.
20 See <Centesimus Annus> and <Evangelium Vitae> (n. 91). The
practical meaning of an "economy of communion" in the modern world
is being explored by members of the Focolare movement in
communities in Brazil, among others.
21 This strong statement is taken from <Evangelium Vitae> (n. 90),
and the emphasis, as elsewhere in the quotations used in this
article, is that of the author.
22 The reciprocal question of the regulation of marriage by the
state, in the form of legislation permitting or regulating divorce
and so on, is extremely complex. The impossibility of divorce in
the teaching of Christ stems from the fact that marriage between
the baptized is a sacrament. The sacrament is created by the
wholehearted speaking of the "vow" whereby each gives his life to
the other, accepting the totality of the other in return-that is,
until death and including children. Anything less than such a vow
cannot create the sacrament, and anything less than a sacrament
cannot be indissoluble. The Catholic Church tends to assume a
sacramental union unless proven otherwise, and to support
legislation that does the same. This makes sense only if we
understand the entire creation as <from its origin> embedded in
the order of grace and disposed to fulfillment in the sacramental
form of Christ's marriage to the Church.
23 These words are being written at the end of a week in which
Rosemary West was sentenced to life imprisonment for a series of
domestic crimes against innocent life that have blasted and
sickened the imagination of Britain. "The worst is a corruption of
the best," and if the culture of life begins at home, so does the
culture of death. The reality of evil was never more in evidence,
and only a blazing sanctity is able to consume the deepening
shadows. <Christus vincit. Christus regnat. Christus imperat.>
This article was taken from the Spring 1996 issue of "Communio:
International Catholic Review". To subscribe write Communio, P.O.
Box 4557, Washington, D.C. 20017-0557. Published quarterly,
subscription cost is $23.00 per year.
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