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JULY 17, 2008
Humanae Vitae’s 40th anniversary
Wisdom from two holy men named Paul
Frank J. Sheed wrote, “We can gain two things from meeting the saints: relief from monotony, and contact with vitality.” Something about the saints attracts the eye, not the eye that looks for the superficial, but the eye that looks for integrity and life, the eye that seeks what is good, true, and beautiful.
Saints are the opposite of monotony. They take the road less traveled, a road marked by the adventure of obedience to God. This certainly is the case of St. Paul. It can also be the case for us during this Jubilee Year of St. Paul, recently begun on June 28.
The saints did not follow their own feelings, nor the fads and fashions of their day. Instead, they had the humility and courage to leave behind their own plans and accept the plans of God, that is, accept a mission from God.
The word “mission” gets used quite often these days. It is quite in fashion, we could say. From sports stars to corporate executives, from elected officials to employees at Wal-Mart, people say they are “on a mission.” Often, however, what they are “on” is the opposite of a true mission. The word “mission” is derived from the Latin verb “missum” — to be sent. A mission comes from someone else. You don’t create it for yourself. What matters for someone with an authentic mission are not his own plans but the plans of the one who sent him. This is what Jesus means when He says, (Jn 15:16), “It was not you who chose Me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.” St. Paul, following his dramatic conversion away from his own self-appointed mission to destroy Christianity, rejoiced at the mission Christ gave him.
This conversion, which literally knocked St. Paul off of his high horse, was a gift, and we are eternally grateful that Saul of Tarsus humbly accepted it! (I Cor 9:16ff) “If I preach the Gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!” The world of pagan Rome and Greece, which had grown deeply monotonous and bored with its religious practice and various philosophies, was ripe for a new vitality and hope. St. Paul brought the Word without compromise, and set the world ablaze for Christ.
Pope Paul VI
To complete and to implement Vatican II, there was another Paul, given a special mission by God: Pope Paul VI, who served the Church as the Successor of St. Peter from 1963 until 1978. It is difficult to imagine a more turbulent time in the Church’s history than those 15 years. The great ecumenical council was in full swing when he began. Technological advances in travel and communications were changing the mode of worldwide interaction. Atheistic Communism had taken root in many areas of the globe, and a parallel anti-faith mentality was emerging in the liberal West. Yet Paul VI, like his patron saint, accepted the mission given him with fortitude and humility.
No event more clearly demonstrated this humble courage than the publication of his encyclical, Humanae Vitae. Despite tremendous pressure from both inside and outside the Church, on July 25, 1968, Paul VI clearly reaffirmed the Church’s constant teaching on the evil of contraception and the need for the marital act of intercourse to be always, in every instance, open to life. This was not new teaching. On the surface, it might have seemed anything but controversial.
Humanae Vitae’s difficult road
Yet Humanae Vitae became a center of immediate controversy. It entered the world of ideas amid a virtual “perfect storm” of circumstances which attacked its conclusions. Prior to its issuance, new and powerful mass media stirred up faulty expectations in both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In addition, the so-called “sexual revolution” was just beginning its deceptive rise, fueled by the technological development of the birth-control pill. Young people in the West were being enticed to embrace sexual license as a way of life. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, large numbers of Catholic theologians, particularly in the United States, dissented loudly and publicly from Humanae Vitae’s teaching, causing scandal and confusion for the faithful and also for non-Catholics of good will. Even priests began to counsel in confession that using contraception was a matter of individual conscience, ignoring both tradition and the clear teaching of the Magisterium.
Unlike St. Paul’s encounter with weary paganism, Paul VI announced the Gospel to a modern world which was inebriated with its own confused ideas. This world, in large measure, rejected the truth about married love, precisely when it was most needed. During the years following Humanae Vitae, Paul VI’s fatherly anguish was immense as he saw not only widespread rejection of the Church’s teaching but also the destructive consequences.
40 years later
Forty years after Humanae Vitae’s explosive appearance, the euphoria of the late ’60s is long gone. As Walter Lipton said of the sexual revolution, “They promised us a paradise but led us into a wasteland.” Far from producing happiness and freedom, a new monotony has emerged, with radical boredom with life and pessimism about the possibility of love.
What also has emerged, as a result of the false division between the life-giving and love-giving meanings of the conjugal act, are attacks on marriage itself, as seen in recent attempts in California and elsewhere to give equal legal status to homosexual unions. When the truth of Humanae Vitae is rejected, when God’s plan for man and woman is denied, dire consequences inevitably follow. But they never have the last word.
With God’s grace, a new culture of life is about to arise. A new appreciation of marriage is coming about. It springs forth from an honest acknowledgement of false assumptions and tragic consequences in the recent past. It builds on a new openness to the Theology of the Body and to the wisdom of Paul VI.
The mission of the Christian family
A rarely quoted segment of Humanae Vitae points to its good news, to the blessing which attends the married couple who embraces chastity in their marriage (#21): “This discipline which is proper to the purity of married couples, far from harming conjugal love, rather confers on it a higher human value. It demands continual effort yet, thanks to its beneficent influence, husband and wife fully develop their personalities, being enriched with spiritual values. Such discipline bestows upon family life fruits of serenity and peace, and facilitates the solution of other problems; it favors attention for one’s partner, helps both parties to drive out selfishness, the enemy of true love; and deepens their sense of responsibility.”
This is in great part what the call to holiness means for married couples. When the vocation and mission of marriage is lived as God intended, a spiritual generosity of motherhood and fatherhood blossoms in vitality and joy. Is this not an unmistakable sign of contradiction to the monotonous fads of our day?
Dear brothers and sisters whom God has called to married life, do not doubt that simply living your vocation generously and responsibly is itself a form of evangelization, a witness to the truth that our world desperately needs! Difficulties are certainly there, for the cross is part of every Christian life. But the sacrifices pale in comparison with the graces of the mission you are given by God and formed in by the wisdom of the Church.
During this Year of St. Paul, I invite you to join me in confidently living and speaking this good news of Humanae Vitae in your marriage and family, your parish and place of work. As an aid in this mission, our Humanae Vitae Conference — “Restless Hearts: The Art of Living and Loving in the Modern World” — scheduled for Nov. 7-8, will be an opportunity for all of us to deepen our understanding of Humanae Vitae and its prescription for vitality and joy.
“Family, become what you are!” John Paul II famously wrote in his encyclical on the family, Familiaris Consortio. That is, become a living cell of Christian love and witness in the world. Humanae Vitae is a gift to us in this direction, an irreplaceable prophetic word which enlightens the path to the marital vocation well-lived. With a strain of the heart, the Psalmist writes (Psalm 42): “My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life; when can I enter and see the face of God?” The first place we see a hint of the face of God is in the generous look of our mother and father. Let us spare no energy in strengthening the family in its mission.
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Save the date
The public is encouraged to register for “Restless Hearts: The Art of Living and Loving in the Modern World,” a conference exploring Humanae Vitae, Nov. 7-8, Notre Dame Preparatory, Scottsdale. Information, call (602) 225-0636.
Copyright 2008 The Catholic Sun.
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