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The Key to Human Growth
Fr Anthony Doe, a Catholic priest and psychotherapist, continues his series on human development and the Church's teaching, particularly in the area of human sexuality
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Love
& Sacrifice|
In the last issue I began to outline how we, as a Christian community, might take seriously our responsibility to support our young people as they struggle to become adults in a very uncertain and chaotic world. I pinpointed the importance of living the mystery of sexuality, in its life-giving truth, as a powerful witness and support, and the way this allows the friendship of the Lord and the power' of the Spirit right into the centre of human growth. I now wish to unpack this a little further and suggest what more we can do to deepen this process. I want to start by picking up on the Holy Father's call to the whole Church to reflect, during this coming year, on the gift of the Eucharist. Let's begin by remembering that the Real Presence of Jesus and His new commandment 'Love one another as I have loved you,' are inseparable. The love that we are being called to share in is a very specific kind of love. The English language has no equivalent to the Greek word, agape, that Jesus is here referring to. It is love as self-sacrificial gift, filled with tenderness and compassion for the other, a love that places the needs of the other first. This is not all. When placed in the context of Jesus' life this loving self-gift was taken to the point of death in order to give us the gift of eternal life. And it is this love that Jesus is commanding us to offer one another. It is an expression of loving responsibility for others in their deepest need. And it is in accepting to love in this way that we will find true meaning and human fulfilment. "Society tells us to put ourselves first" As a therapist I am constantly working with people who are struggling to find lasting meaning in their lives. Being healed of past wounds, becoming free to make new and exciting choices are all part of therapy. The moment comes sooner or later when the questions arise, how am I to exercise my freedom, what choices can I now make that will continue the healing process? They are moments of truth when, in a sense, the person must begin the next phase of growth and become fully mature in his/her commitments. The problem is that present day culture often makes the choices incredibly difficult to make. It tells us in no uncertain terms that personal meaning in life is only to be found when we put ourselves first, look after our own needs, bank accounts, personal comforts and exercise our personal freedom solely for our own personal benefit. Yes it can include the happiness of others too but only so long as it fits in with our personal agenda. If other people seriously get in the way of our pursuit of happiness then they cannot really have a lasting place in our lives.
"Pressure of conformism" In our efforts to embrace the new commandment of love we will encounter two very powerful forces coming against us. The first is the pressure of conformism. Being different, standing out from the crowd, being counter-cultural, politically incorrect, is a real no-no in our society, and once again this is particularly so for young people. The pressure to conform can be crude and obvious but also subtle and covert, but it is there. To swim against the tide in one's life style or way of thinking requires great fortitude and inner resources. In my work with young adults they are constantly pointing out that to profess one's Christian belief in the work place, wherever it might be, can be intimidating and isolating. To profess one's Catholicism can sometimes be even more devastating. It requires not only strength but also maturity and the support of others to represent the person of Christ in love. Secondly, we now live in a contraceptive world that has established artificial contraception as an accepted norm and way of life. In my opinion this is probably one of the most important areas of human experience that needs revisiting in the life of the Church. In the 1960's before the publication of Humanae Vitae and its immediate aftermath many good people in the Church believed that the advent of artificial contraception would be a great help in stabilising family life and reducing the anxiety that attends most sexual relationships. This coincided with a deep desire to move away from what was perceived to be an overly negative attitude of the teaching Church to the whole issue of sexuality and genital experience in particular. It meant that many were deaf to the message of Pope Paul VI. This to some extent was understandable. There was no long-term experience of contraception to draw on that could inform many people's emotional reaction. This is now no longer the case. We have now had nearly forty years of the contraceptive experience and what has emerged is not a stable life-giving sexual landscape but for many a wasteland of sexual instability and the growth of a culture which has become sexualised to point of brutality. What has become clear is that artificial contraception has side effects that in the end can seriously frustrate people's spiritual and moral development and can leave them isolated and unfulfilled in their search for personal happiness in love. Why is this so? "The contraceptive mentality" In my experience as a therapist, as a priest, and as a friend to many couples I have noticed some recurring patterns that can begin to answer the question. Let us take a good committed married couple who love their children and feel that the only way they can be loving and responsible parents is to limit the size of their family and so be free to devote themselves their children's' care. They decide to use artificial contraception as a part, as they see it, of this responsible attitude. So often what they are unaware of is that by consciously severing the link between the physical experience of genital sex from its life-giving dimension they are giving sex, with all its pleasurable aspects, first place and a particular form of unseen power in their relationship. This is not immediately apparent, it only becomes so, very slowly, through the passage of time. When it begins to establish its primary place in a family it operates very much like a virus in a computer. It slowly infects the programming of the family, in their ways of thinking, their attitudes, their values, and it is often only in the second generation that it fully reveals itself. How often have I had to listen to parents whose teenage children have begun to have sexual relationships, have abandoned their faith commitments and now see sexual freedom, - in effect controlled promiscuity - as the norm. It is too easy just to dismiss it as the result of peer pressure and the youth culture, which undoubtedly play their parts. After all how is a culture formed except by a myriad of small, individual decisions? Could it not be, hard as it might be to accept, that this contraceptive pattern of behaviour could have actually been set in motion, in all innocence, by the parents themselves, albeit, who felt they were parenting in the most responsible way in the light of the culture. "What is the way forward?" In the Church I believe we need to revisit this whole area and begin by praying very gently for the spirit of repentance and conversion. The Lord has made it abundantly clear that he does not condemn us for our mistakes but wants us to learn from them. I believe He wants to help us to construct new attitudes and ways of relating that promote our spiritual and moral well being. There is no doubt that many people in the Church have succumbed to the dominance of a sexualised culture, particularly in its contraceptive form. The question is, what is the way forward? Through the Spirit's renewal of our commitment to the Lord's love, revealed in the Eucharist, I believe we will be able to rediscover our vocation to be apostles of life by helping others to make life-giving connections in the way they live and create relationships. It is not the time for harsh words or laying down the law, which just elicits anger and resentment, rather a time for encouraging and inspiring a new vision through example and personal commitment. It is then that others will truly know that Jesus came to give life because we, his disciples, are life-givers by the way we live and are prepared to commit ourselves to the salvation of others through the Lord's 'real presence' within us. |
We
are constantly bombarded with this message. In the media and advertising
it is, as we say today, 'in your face.' It is blatant and unambiguous.
And the same goes for television, cinema, popular literature and most
forms of entertainment. Needless to say it has enormous effect on the
way people think and feel about themselves. Most of my patients are
fortunate enough to have a Christian background and know deep down that
just satisfying their own whims and needs will lead to a dead end and
often a compulsive way of life. And it was not for this that they came
into therapy. I have discovered, however, that the alternative is often
not expressed strongly or clearly enough by the Christian community
in a way that makes a real impact. This is where we need to bring alive
the Lord's commandment to love in the way that He loves. We need to
make more explicit in our communities and families that true happiness
and meaning in life are found when we seriously take responsibility
for others, particularly in their need to know the Lord and His power.
The message is that maturity comes when we are able to leave behind
the desperate pursuit for selfish fulfilment that has swamped our society,
and begin to put our lives at the service of other people's growth.
We have thankfully become aware, in recent years, of the Church's responsibility
to promote justice and respond to the needs of the poor. Poverty and
deprivation take different forms. One of the deadliest forms of poverty
that has now emerged in our world is the widespread deprivation of spiritual
values, especially among the young. It is in facing this poverty, in
the cry of the poor, that we will rediscover our own vocation to live
the very special kind of love, we call agape, finding a way of incarnating
it for others. When we can do this we will be able to help them to discover
that their own meaning and fulfilment will come as they take loving
responsibility for others in the name of Christ.