We Cannot Separate the Realities of Our Lives from the Love of God
The drive over and back from Mount Angel was uneventful and enjoyable. Since it was a retreat week I brought along two CDs from an organization known as One More Soul (See www.OMSoul.com). The CDs contained hour-long witness talks by a woman who, though very active in the Catholic Church, found herself at odds with the Church on the issue of contraception. She tells, very compellingly, of how she had hardened her heart to the message of the Church and how her participation in a parish mission and subsequent reflection on the daily Mass readings led to a genuine conversion in her life. She tells of how, for more than 13 years, she had ignored and positively rejected the teachings of the Church about the sinfulness of artificial contraception and how God’s persistent grace ultimately broke through her hardened heart and helped her acknowledge the goodness of God, the wisdom of the Church and her own recalcitrance.
I do not generally recommend tapes or CDs but I do hear in this woman’s testimony a message which I believe is a significant call to conversion, a counter-cultural call, a challenging call, a call from God to hear and heed His wisdom expressed in and through the Church.
There were a number of other coincidental elements which I encountered this week which reinforced for me the need to promote these talks. First, the speaker relied a great deal upon Scripture and she did make reference to our Lord’s words, “If you love me, then keep my commandments.”
This was reiterated very strongly in this week’s second reading on Sunday, “Those who say, ‘I know him,’ but do not keep his commandments are liars and the truth is not in them. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.” (I John 2:4-5)
I was further struck by the reading from the second century martyr, St. Justin, who writes: “No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of baptism for the remission of his sins, and unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.”
It appears that the tendency to believe that one may reject certain teachings of the Church and that this rejection has no impact upon either our love for God or upon the appropriateness of sharing in the Eucharist is not something new. Jesus dealt with it, St. John dealt with it and St. Justin the martyr dealt with it. This is the same question raised in reference to Catholic politicians and others who reject the clear teachings of the Church about the sinfulness of abortion. Yet, the concept is not limited to these sex-related sins. A man who somehow believes that his excessive drinking, his spouse abuse, his child abuse, his adultery, his theft from his employer, his dishonesty, his missing of Sunday Mass, and the like have no impact on his love for God would be equally mistaken and in serious need of conversion. The apparent difference between these behaviors and abortion or contraception is that these sex-related sins have achieved a high degree of societal acceptability. This societal acceptability has given the impression to Catholics that God really has nothing of value to say about these life issues.
The truth is that it is simply not possible to say on one hand, “I do love the Lord with my whole heart, mind and soul” and at the same time to say, “My decisions about how to deal with the most marvelous God-given gift of fertility has nothing to do with God.” The claim that one loves God with one’s whole self while exempting a very significant element of that self from the sphere of God’s dominion, indeed from the sphere of God’s love, must answer to the First Letter of St. John, Chapter 2, Verse 4.
There is no doubt that the woman telling her story struggled mightily to conserve her perceived right to regulate her fertility according to her own, and the world’s plan while God was clearly telling her that His plan, His path was different. To her credit, this woman not only faced the lie within herself but has taken up the prophetic, teaching mantle and has begun to tell her story of conversion.
The one question which stands in the tape as a condemnation to all teachers and preachers within the Church is simply, “Why haven’t we been told this clearly and consistently?” The answer is as difficult as the question. I suspect that if we took some liberties with the Scripture we could envision Jesus saying: “You cannot love God and contraception at the same time. You will either love one and hate the other or be committed to one and despise the other.” There it is then. If God is really saying, “If you love Me then abide by my commandments including My Church’s teaching about the sinfulness of contraception” then many in the Church are faced with the same conflict which led to conversion for this One More Soul speaker. We cannot separate the concrete realities of our lives from the love of God.
It is not an easy thing to present this very personal and emotional subject in such direct black and white terminology but the truth is that Jesus and His Church either include contraception in the list of prohibited practices or they do not. There may be huge numbers of Catholics who reject this teaching but I do not know of any who deny that it is what the Church clearly and consistently teaches.
This item 6937 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
