Maria Steen
The View
I attended the funeral of a dear family friend last week. The lady in question was a cherished mother, sister and friend. But above all, she was a beloved wife. Over more than half a century, she and her husband were truly united in marriage. They were and remain an inspirational example of all that Christian marriage can be. Although impressive in every way as individuals in their own right, together, in marriage, they were transformed. Their marriage became greater than the sum of its parts.
Anyone who knew them recognised in their marriage something beautiful, something truly good. Christian marriage – lifelong, faithful and fruitful – is something that is good, and is a good in itself. And although it is no longer politically correct to say so, it is also better than many alternatives.
How sad, in a world where there is so much loneliness, abuse, selfishness and sadness, that the idea of two people publicly committing themselves to each other, giving themselves to each other totally and unconditionally, building a life together, serving each other and others, is seen as something oppressive, patriarchal, bad.
No longer can a Catholic bishop hold up the ideal of Christian marriage without a government minister or senator ridiculing and mocking him. Simon Harris and Catherine Noone had nothing better to do on the Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend than to take to Twitter to criticise Bishop Kevin Doran for talking about Catholic marriage to a room full of Catholics. It seems they have forgotten all about their calls for the separation of Church and State.
Honour
Our Government, like many others, is intent on eradicating the significance of the differences between the sexes, on denying children the right to know and to be raised by their biological parents, and on obliterating the position of honour in which marriage has historically been held by every western civilization.
We hear people shouting for the rights of all other forms of family (and politicians listen intently), but no one speaks up for the married couple who have given their lives to each other totally and selflessly, and are doing their best to bring up their children as good Christians and good citizens, struggling with the difficulties that life throws at everyone from time to time.
The one form of family that is under attack in the western world at the moment is the traditional family based on marriage.
In the eyes of governments around the world, there is nothing special or distinctive about this form of union.
It is against this background that the World Meeting of Families (WMOF) will be held in Ireland next week.
What will the Church have to say to the world about the family?
This is what I hope for: that while the whole world is watching, the Catholic Church will shine a light on the beauty of marriage, of married love and all that flows from it. While world leaders and politicians and broadcasters and celebrities laugh at what is beautiful and good and true, let the Church, from the Pope down, hold up the ideal of Christian marriage. Let the Church honour married couples like Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of a saint and saints in their own right.
Even today, marriage still forms the bedrock of most extended families in this country and throughout Europe. While people may not be married themselves, or may be in some other form of relationship, to whom is it that the extended family gravitates at Christmas or some other family event? Back to the marital home – to parents or grandparents whose marriage is the rock upon which the rest of the family is built.
The Christian view of the family puts marriage at its centre. This does not mean that everyone is called to marriage, but what it does mean is that marriage is an essential and fundamental part of the familial structure.
What is family after all? It is an intergenerational community of people, bound together by the ties of marriage and of blood, and in exceptional circumstances of adoption. Those ties – and the duties that arise from them – are what make the idea of family so important.
Nowadays, we often hear people describing their friends as “family”. Whether they are serious about this or not, it is an error and a distortion of what family truly is.
One of the greatest strengths of the family is that we have very little choice about it.
While we can choose our spouses, we cannot choose our parents, our children, our sisters or brothers, our wider family. We find ourselves thrown into close quarters with a group of people whom we might never have chosen to live with had that choice been available to us. This is a good thing.
The family is a microcosm of the world outside and the first place we learn to deal with conflict, differing needs and expectations, and putting the needs of others before our own because of the familial bonds of love and duty. It is where we learn how to live harmoniously with others.
Were we able to choose our families – and there is an ever-increasing movement to make this so – we could avoid disagreements, pain, suffering and other difficulties. We could choose to live only with people we like and who like us, people without problems, people who are not dependent on us. But in doing so, we would never really learn what it is that love, as the central theme of the family, means.
Love, for the Catholic, is no mere feeling, it is a decision – and within a family – a duty. There is no effort in loving someone when you feel like it; anyone can do that. It is precisely in circumstances where you do not feel loving that the promise to love is most important. While we cannot choose our families or the circumstances into which we are born, we can choose to love.
Circumstances
As Christians, we know that God’s plan for mankind is that children be welcomed into the world by their own mother and father, who are committed to each other and to their children in marriage. There is a sense among some Catholics that to proclaim this truth is somehow to dismiss or judge people who are living in circumstances or relationships that differ from this, but this is faulty thinking. We can applaud the heroic efforts made by many single parents while acknowledging that for a child not to know and be cared for by his father or mother is less than ideal.
The lesson taught by the life of my recently deceased friend is that the ideal is not just some fairytale. It is real. It is possible. It is achievable. I have seen it done. And it is worth the struggle. Denying this truth serves only to deprive those who may not have experienced first-hand the fulfillment of Catholic marriage of an ideal to which they can and should aspire. The World Meeting of Families should remind us – without apologies – that marriage is good and beautiful and unique.