Anticipating the Joy of Easter

In less than a couple of weeks we will enter into the season of Lent.  Pope Benedict XVI, in his Message for Lent 2012 writes, "The Lenten season offers us once again an opportunity to reflect upon the very heart of Christian life: charity. This is a favourable time to renew our journey of faith, both as individuals and as a community, with the help of the word of God and the sacraments. This journey is one marked by prayer and sharing, silence and fasting, in anticipation of the joy of Easter."

 

I am personally looking forward to this particular Lenten season for a couple of reasons.  First, I am in need of a renewal of my mind, heart and soul.  In my recent prayer I have been reminded of my fraility - of the reality that I am nothing without God.  This poignant reminder has fueled a desire in me to go deeper in my relationship with Christ this Lent and to abandon myself, as thoroughly as possible, to His amazing grace.  In order to do this I need more of Him, which can only be obtained through embracing the opportunity Pope Benedict reminds us of above.

 

The second reason for my anticipation is due to the blessed journey I have had this year catechizing six adults in my parish who are preparing to enter into the Catholic Church this Easter. I have been humbled by their desire to learn and by their authentic longing to receive the Sacraments, especially to receive the Eucharist.  Of course the Lenten season is such an important part of their journey and I thank God for offering me the opportunity to have a front row seat as He works so powerfully in their lives.

 

And there is the catch.  In order for me to truly serve my brothers and sisters in guiding them to grow in their knowledge of Christ - to abandon themselves to Him - I, too, must surrender to Him more completely this Lent.  I need to strip myself of all that might prevent me from being an instrument of God's love so that I may serve them as they deserve.  It needs to be much less about me and more about the One who is the Light of the World and source of the great joy that we will celebrate this Easter.

 

May all of us rededicate ourselves to such an abandonment this Lent.  May we remember to pray for each other for the fortitude to enter into the season with great conviction.  May we offer ourselves as "a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" that we might serve our brothers and sisters with great charity. 

 

Let this be our prayer for one another as we prepare to enter into this beautiful season.  And join me in remembering in a special way all those who are drawing ever so closer to entering into our beautiful Catholic Church - something that should truly fill us with great joy!

By Michael Lavigne

Rejoice in the Lord Always!

I have had many blessings of serving Christ and His Church for nine years as a priest in the Diocese of Portland.  Clearly in my mind are the wonderful, grace-filled opportunities meeting and helping engaged couples who look forward to celebrating the Sacrament of Marriage.  My experience has been with men and women who share similar faith journeys, but in most instances, rather different life experiences as well.  I have journeyed with more than 70 couples having the honor of getting to know them better in the months preceding, and in some cases, celebrating the joyful occasion of their wedding with their family and friends.

For the wedding celebration, the Church affords engaged couples the opportunity to select Scripture passages for their wedding that speak to them, their family and friends about their own journey, about their experiences, their hopes and dreams, about their future goals as a family.  I usually veer them away from 1 Corinthians 12:1-13.  Though a lovely and beautiful passage about selfless, unconditional love, I would advise to them to carefully consider passages that they wish not only to share with their family and friends, but also ones which provide inspiration and support on their present and future journey as a couple and as they look forward to raising a family.  If they do select 1 Corinthians, that is great, but I would definitely encourage them to look closely at another…

One such passage - clearly one of my favorites - is this:  Philippians 4:4-9.  St. Paul presents these words for all those who have a sincere desire to live their faith and strive to grow closer to the Lord with each and every passing day.

Rejoice in the Lord always!  I shall say it again, rejoice!  Your kindness should be known to all.  The Lord is near.  Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God that surpasses understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.  Then the God of peace will be with you.

What great advice and wisdom we find in St. Paul!  Imagine a world where more people would take these words to heart and strive to live them every day.  This is not merely an ideal, but a model offered with which we can choose to live our lives!  For married couples, these words offer hope, encouragement and life as they strive to deepen their love and commitment to God, to one another, to their family and friends. 

Rejoice in the Lord always!  Be kind!  Pray! Trust in God!  Seek the peace that comes from knowing God and be open to discover the rich blessings that come from seeking and trusting in Him!  Live the virtuous life!  Live a long and happy life with one another and with Him!  When we open our hearts and minds to the goodness of God, we are given opportunities to look beyond ourselves and see His grace.  The divine life which God offers us penetrates the core of our very being, thus enabling us to love unconditionally and find true joy and happiness by living, loving and growing into closer union with Him!

By Fr. Kevin Martin

Fr. Kevin Martin is the Parochial Vicar, St. Michael's Parish, Augusta.

 

The Telos of Marriage

There’s an old children’s taunt that some may recall which speaks to a natural progression of love, marriage and baby carriage.  While not designed to be a deep discourse on marriage, it certainly brings us back to an age when conjugal love and procreation where assumed to take place within the context of marriage, even in the mind of a ten-year old.   How times have changed.  We now live in a country where the out-of-wedlock birthrate exceeds 40%.  In the black community, that number jumps up to two-thirds.   92% of Maine families on welfare (TANF) are single parent families, most headed up by women.  Of those, only 12% receive child support payments from the absentee parents, mostly fathers.   With a divorce rate that hovers somewhere in the mid-fortieth percentile and an increasing number of couples choosing to cohabitate as a prelude to a marriage which may never occur, it is obvious that we live in a society that has lost sight of the value of marriage. 

Which leads us to the question of what is the telos, or purpose, of marriage?  In order to answer this question, we must first re-acquaint ourselves with the true meaning of love and the connection between marriage and the baby carriage.  

First comes love. 

It is all too common to look at love as an emotion, a feeling that comes and goes.  As Aquinas reminds us, love is not a feeling but an act of the will.  The mother who wakes up at 2:00 am to nurse a sick child is performing an act of love.  The father who disciplines his son in order that the boy might know right from wrong is performing an act of love.  The young man who clears snow from the front porch of an elderly neighbor is performing an act of love.  To love is to will the good of another, quite often at the expense of our own wants and needs.  True, self-sacrificing, die- to-self love does not simply fade away when our emotional state changes. 

Then comes marriage. 

But before we can fully understand marriage, we must actually jump ahead to the baby carriage.  Here’s a blinding flash of the obvious that we seem to have forgotten:  pregnancy does not result from a contraception failure.  It results from a conjugal act between a man and a woman.  To be more direct, sex makes babies.  Contraception may reduce the possibility of conception, but it cannot eliminate it.  A sad statistic coming straight out of the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute is that 40% of women seeking abortion were using some form of birth control when they got pregnant.  There is no magic pill. 

If sex makes babies and if artificial contraception cannot, in the aggregate, stop this process, then what are we to make of a society that glorifies sex-without-consequences as a normative experience, so much so that the virgin wedding is but a relic of the past?  The statistics stated earlier bear witness to the social ills that we bring upon ourselves and our children when we treat our human sexuality as just another bodily function, akin to blowing one’s nose or going to the restroom. 

Sex has a twofold purpose.  It is both unitive and procreative.  We can no more separate the two than we can remove the backside of a sheet of paper from the front.  Sure, we can try, but the end result will always be the destruction of the thing itself.  Love precedes marriage because it is love, properly understood, that allows us to make the commitment necessary to live a life of total self-giving.  Marriage precedes the conjugal act because it guarantees that the product of this conjugal love, not a thing but a person, has the opportunity to know and be known both the two people who brought him or her into this world.  While it is true that not every couple can have a child, it is equally true that every child is born of both a mother and father.  By properly focusing on the needs and rights of children, we can gain a renewed appreciation for the ends and purposes of marriage.    

So, what is the purpose of marriage?  Marriage unites a man and a woman with each other and any children born from their union.  Its purpose is twofold: unitive and procreative.  Say it over and over again, and pass this little bit of lost wisdom on to your children.  The future well-being of our society really does depend on it.    

By Brian Souchet

 Brian currently serves as the director of the Office for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

Why do Husbands "Only" Have to Love Their Wives?

Recently a blogger wrote “It is just so unfair – a woman is called to respect and submit to her husband as to the Lord and all the husband has to do is love her!” Well, admittedly, at first glance through our contemporary cultural lenses, it would make sense that most women would tend to agree with this frustrated blogger.  That word ‘submit’, for women, just has a way of eliciting the same type of visceral reaction as say, long fingernails scratching a chalkboard. Here is just another reason to thank God for Blessed John Paul II who really opened my eyes to the real intention of these words of St. Paul.

First and foremost the distinction must be made that these words in no way give license to a husband to dominate his wife. That is not love. Nor does it mean that the man and woman are not equal to one another in their creation as human beings. That would not be biblical or true. The creation account in which Eve is formed out of Adam’s rib, or side, points toward woman’s equality with man – she did not come from his heel! Within this equality, however is a delightful (most of the time) complementarity which makes men and women clearly different from each other physically but also psychologically and emotionally. When the two come together as one in sacramental marriage there is an order proper to the man and the woman which, if lived out in the fullness of the grace of redemption, can order our marriages toward God and one another in precisely the way God intended. This is an amazing truth!

What is meant by a “proper order”? Consider where you work or how we are governed. Someone needs to assume the responsibility for the headship of any successful enterprise. This is what St. Paul means when he points to husbands and says essentially: YOU have the responsibility to LOVE your bride as Christ does –Remember how Christ loved us? He gave us the ultimate gift of himself on the cross. Now that doesn’t mean that husbands should seek death. It does mean that they are called to die to self, to allow their selfishness, greed and lusts to be crucified in order to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. To ‘submit’ to this love is to receive and reciprocate love as a wife is able and to allow her husband to love, provide for and protect her to the extent that he is able. This is a recipe for authentic joy and peace within the home. It is also a lot of work.

 All a man has to do is love his wife? If we truly understood and lived those words in the light of Christian revelation our witness would shine forth like nothing else in this world. Blessed John Paul II said in his teaching on the Transfiguration within the Luminous Mysteries of the rosary that Christ invites us to look to him and be transfigured through him in order to “Become who you truly are meant to be!”  Through sacramental marriage a man and a woman receive the graces to potentially fulfill their highest calling as human beings. This task is essential at this moment in time. Let’s get to work! 

By Laura McCown

Laura McCown has been married to Scott for 18 years. She has three children and when she is not driving them to their various activities she works as a campus minister at Colby College. Laura enjoys studying  and discussing Blessed John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and encouraging Catholics to learn the truths of the Faith in order to prepare for the intensifying conflict within our culture which Pope Benedict XVI calls “the dictatorship of relativism”.

Love and Children

In the 1984 Code of Canon Law, canon 1055 §1 defines the ends of marriage as “the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring.” This was a shift from 1917 Code, which considered the good of the spouses to be subordinate to the primary purpose of marriage as the procreation and education of children; called by those of us who endured Latin classes the bonum prolis. The equality of these ends was a result of the reflection on marriage found in Vatican II and enumerated in documents such as Gaudium et Spes. Instead of focusing solely on the bonum prolis, the concept of marriage as a covenant of conjugal love was included to a greater degree than before. This shift was an undoubtedly positive result of a more complete understanding of marriage and the human person. However, the modern trend has been to distort the understanding of these two ends, and to lessen or in some cases completely remove the bonum prolis from our understanding of marriage.

Since the elevation of conjugal love was new, it received a great deal of attention. Indeed, many couples today enter marriage believing that conjugal love is the sole substantive good of marriage, and believe that children are merely an accidental good. This understanding has been bolstered by a modern culture which views children as nice but unnecessary, and a matter of personal choice. In effect, the understanding of children has become something separate from marriage. This separation of the bonum prolis from marriage has been distended by the prevalent contraceptive mentality. Couples who employ contraception no longer make the essential and natural connection between love, sex, and children. Instead of participating in acts that are both unitive and open to the potential of new life, sex becomes something that has nothing to do with children.

In my work as a canonist, I often see cases where couples enter marriage with little or no thought about children. Instead they focus completely on love. Sometimes they assume that somewhere along the line they may have a child or two, but no more thought is given. The woman blithely uses contraceptives, and the couple never quite gets around to discussing children. This is another problem with contraceptives; since the possibility of children has been eradicated, the couple has no need to discuss children in relation to their sexuality. Instead of something natural and intimate, sex becomes something sterile and individualistic.

The Church teaches that marriage involves both spouses giving a total gift of self. This gift is not limited to the spouses only. As John Paul II writes in Familiaris consortio:

                         Conjugal love, while leading the spouses to the reciprocal “knowledge” which makes them “one 
                         flesh,” does not end with the couple, because it makes them capable of the greatest possible gift,
                         the gift by which they become cooperators with God for giving life to a new human person. Thus
                         the couple, while giving themselves to one another, give not just themselves but also the reality of 
                         children.

Of course, there are times when a couple is unable to have children, and this does not affect the validity or good of that marriage. The attainment of the ends of marriage is not what makes a marriage valid or “successful.” Instead it is the intention to cooperate with God and the purposes of marriage that is important.

When the shift was made to include the good of the spouse as equal to the bonum prolis, it was with the understanding that these two ends are inseparable. Marriage is a natural institution, and as such, conjugal love does not exist without the bonum prolis. True marital love necessarily involves the love of children. When the idea of children is removed from the understanding of marriage, what is left is a not a marriage at all. It is a mere relationship between two people, and not a relationship between two people, God, and the reality of children. Christ elevated marriage to a sacrament for precisely this reason, and it is the duty of spouses, with the aid of the Church, to live their marriage with the intention of fulfilling the true purpose of marriage.

By Shannon Fossett

Shannon is a Canonist for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine.

Winter is a Blessing

I don’t know what the original thinking was when Easter was “scheduled” in the spring, but I think it was a stroke of divine inspiration. It’s probably no mistake either that Advent and Lent (both seasons of preparation) occur in the winter season. At least to my thinking.  “What is her point?” you ask.

All week I’ve been reflecting on the changes that winter brings.  Patios and picnic tables covered in snow. Cumbersome coats, boots, gloves, hats are pulled out of mothballs as are winter tires, snow shovels and sanding salt.  Trees and bushes stand like so many stick figures waiting in the wings for their dress rehearsal.

Isn’t it the same with us?  We are forced to slow down because of the season and occasionally we come to a standstill because of the weather.

If it weren’t for the winter season, I would continue to be busy doing this, that and the other.  Busy running errands, spending time with friends, going shopping and whatever else I get caught up in when the temperature is fine and I can go about unencumbered by the weather.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, for me, winter is an extended examination of conscience.  In the winter I become more reflective, more introspective.  I find areas in my life where I should be doing better, behaviors and attitudes that need changing.  I don’t always succeed in making those changes but at least now I recognize what I need to work on.  So in my life winter is indeed . . . a blessing.


By Judy Michaud