Holy
Family 30 xii 2018 Holy Rosary
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t has always been difficult for the homilist to preach on
the feast of the Holy Family. In the old days, the priest would deliver a
string of platitudes about loving mothers, provident fathers and so on. There’s
a joke people used to tell about such sermons. After Mass Mrs. Smith said to
Mrs. Jones, “I wish I knew as little about marriage as he does.” It’s still
difficult to preach on the feast, but for a totally different reason; for how
in heaven’s name do you define a family today? There are single-parent families
or families with two male, or two female parents. Polygamy—one man with several
or even multiple wives—is practised in Canada, and not only by the Mormons in
Bountiful B.C. A woman told me that one of her co-workers announced that she
was going to be married “in the Moslem way.” When asked what that meant, she
replied that she would be the second wife of her husband, not legally, of
course, but in accord with the Koran that allows a man to have up to four
wives. And then there’s polyandry, a word that you may not know. It refers to
one woman with several husbands, in what I might call “the Canadian way,” that
is, with only one being legal. The Globe
and Mail had a laudatory article on one such “family” a couple of weeks
ago, with a photograph of the woman, her two partners and their smiling offspring. Besides these, there are other
arrangements that I would not dare to describe or even mention for the pulpit. Concomitant
with these developments is the growing discomfort with the terms “husband” and
“wife”—now simply “partners,”—with “mother” and “father”—now “parents”—and with
“son” and “daughter”—now “offspring” or “sibling.”
What
in the world is the poor preacher to say on the feast of the Holy Family? . . .
now that we have been educated to be so tolerant that we can no longer tolerate
anyone who would question the legitimacy of these new arrangements. It’s not
only a difficulty for the preacher, for you like me are members of a Church
that views Tradition as valid a vehicle of revelation as Scripture itself.
Simply call to mind the language of the creed that we shall shortly recite: we
believe in God the Father and God the Son. Are we now to abandon those hallowed
titles and in baptizing, instead of using the time-honoured phrase “in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” say something like this: “I
baptize you in the name of the Source, the Effect and the Union”? Furthermore,
in the Bible Jesus is described as the bridegroom of his bride, the Church.
Mary, too, we address with the title “Mother of God” and also as our mother.
And so on. I fear that if I were merely to enunciate our traditional teaching
about marriage some of you would walk out and the rest would bombard me with
their hymnals. And it is shocking to
modern Canadian ears as you find it in, e.g., the Catechism. Its starting point is what Saint Augustine identified as
“the three goods of marriage.”[1]
The first is “fidelity,” which points to the mutual love and support of one
spouse for the other. Then, “children,” referring to the obligation to provide,
and provide for, the next generation. And finally, he speaks of the
“sacrament,” i.e., the permanence of Christian marriage in that it is a
sacramental sign of Christ’s love for the Church. As he will not abandon his
bride, the Church, nor she him, so husband and wife are permanently joined
until death separates them.
The
most offensive statement in this traditional description of marriage is: “the
primary purpose of marriage is the procreation of children.” A word of caution
may be in order before your indignation becomes violent. The word “primary”
here is used in the sense that we find it in, e.g., primary school—i.e., the
foundation upon which higher learning will be built. Thus, learning one’s ABCs
is not superior to reading Shakespeare, but is an essential first step. For, if
you cannot read, the great works of literature will remain for you literally a
closed book. So too with procreation. It is the biological fact upon which can
be raised the edifice of mutual support, a loving relationship and a mature
spirituality.
The
implications of Saint Augustine’s approach to marriage are wide-ranging, in
that the noble titles of husband and wife, mother and father, are paradigmatic
for all of society, including those of us who are unmarried. For each one of
us, what ever his condition, is called upon to imitate the generous and self-sacrificing
service that marriage requires from the spouses in their relationship to one
another and to their children. In general, then, we can say that all the
machinery of the modern state—industry, government, education, entertainment—is
in place to serve the family, i.e., to encourage, to facilitate the union of
man and woman in the establishment of a home. Teachers, e.g., act to supplement
the education of the young that begins and continues in the home. Commerce, too,
exists primarily to provide household goods that it would be too difficult or
too time consuming for a family to make on its own. Similarly, government
should act to safeguard the public good in passing laws and providing
assistance to preserve the well-being of all its members, especially in such
things as affordable housing and family assistance. In short, family life, at
best, reminds us that the essential purpose of the paraphernalia of society is
service rather than profit or self-aggrandizement. You can see, I am sure, that
this traditional doctrine constitutes a radical critique of Canada today. But
what is one to do? I may not be able directly to alter what is going on in city
hall or Queen’s Park or Ottawa; I may not be able to monitor the media; I may
not be able to influence the stock market; but I can reflect on my own
situation and act so as to conform my behaviour to what is required of a
faithful follower of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.a
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