A Layman's View of Layman's Spirituality
In the area of spirituality, as in so many other areas, we seem to be living in an age of marked contrasts if not subtle contradictions. There are today hidden saints quietly wending their way to God without fuss or fury. Amongst these are the fathers and mothers of large families; bravely facing the ridicule of the seculars and the neo-pagan fellow Catholic, they insist upon living out the Catholic ideal for marriage. There are also those unmarried saints who have been given the "mysterious vocation" mentioned by Pius XII, and who are likewise living out amidst untold difficulties the lonesome life of self-sacrifice for others which often is theirs.
On the other hand, Pius XII reminded us that we are in an age of "anemic Catholicism" in which the great bulk of our fellow Catholics have to a greater or less extent compromised with the secularism in our culture. Again, we are in an age replete with increased church attendance and multiplied devotions. More people are approaching the altar rail than in any previous generation; more are attending novenas, making retreats, attending religious conferences and the like. On the other hand, as the great apostle of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home has well said: "We have many devout Catholics but few saintly Catholics." The same Catholics, in too many instances, who crowd our novena services also patronize birth control clinics; the same Catholics frequently who daily attend Mass, neglect their ordinary duties of married life and hasten their marriage to the brink of doom. Almost half of those obtaining the services of some of our marriage counseling agencies are "good Catholics" and a tenth are "fervent, devout" Catholics!
Clearly in respect to holiness in marriage we today witness a type of Catholic characterized by a split personality which has led some to speak of a "schizophrenic spirituality." This is a phenomenon which constantly confronts those in wide contact with Catholic couples in either adult education work or marriage counseling practice.
Theology of Marriage Neglected
From the lay point of view, one of the reasons for this distorted approach to holiness in marriage seems to be a simple but serious lack of knowledge about the religious aspects of marital life. Studies have been made at the Catholic University of America of almost a thousand Catholic men and women which disclose a truly widespread lack of education for marriage as a state of holiness.
If these findings were generally applicable, we could maintain that the average Catholic husband or wife has about 55 percent and the better educated have about 70 percent of the knowledge they should have about the religious nature and aspects of marriage. Since holiness is love of God and since love is conditioned by knowledge, one apparent reason for the few married saints in our midst and the distorted approach to marital sanctity is the failure of the home, the school and the parish to adequately prepare youth for marriage.
A Blueprint for Marital Spirituality
A second reason which commends itself to the lay point of view is the failure to outline in detail a blueprint for marital spirituality. The principles of the spiritual life are, of course, the same for both the unmarried and the married. However, their application will lead to a markedly different pattern of daily religious living when applied respectively to the unmarried state and to the married state.
Apparently, this has not been sufficiently clear, with the result that the pattern too often taught married people is a poor imitation of that for the religious instead of a strikingly different pattern. The eminently correct advice of St. Benedict to his monks that they "prefer nothing to the work of God" (meaning liturgical devotions — Mass, Divine Office, etc.) can easily beguile a married person into neglecting family duties in favor of an increased participation in the public and official worship of God. One of the pioneer priests of one of the family movements many years ago pointed out the difficulties of applying to marital spirituality the advice for monks given by Thomas a Kempis: "Be not familiar with any woman!" Obviously, this type of approach to sanctity has been the only one available in our literature, with perhaps the sole exception of St. Francis de Sales Introduction to a Devout Life.
While recent years have brought an outpouring of literature dealing with segments of marital spirituality, there is still no total, integral and comprehensive blue-print available for married people on holiness in marriage.
Individualism in Our Midst
A third reason for the schizophrenic spirituality amongst Catholic couples appears, from the lay point of view, to be the attempt to bring holiness to the individual and the individual to holiness by circumventing the family in which this individual lives and has much of his spiritual existence. Many lay people believe too much of our parochial effort has been directed to the individual husband or wife qua individual; not enough to the individual as a husband or as a wife. Perhaps this is a subtle infiltration of rugged individualism into our Catholic midst.
An eminent priest leader many years past observed that when he asked the urban parish priest or parishioner the size of their parish, the inevitable reply was stated in terms of numbers of individual people, while rural clergy and parishioners inevitably spoke in terms of the number of families in the parish. Perhaps we need once again to make every parish "family-centric," if we hope to attain the type of lay spirituality desired.
The growing practices of family communions, family retreats, family conferences, family discussion groups are an evident recognition of this need. Many lay people feel that sermons could enjoy a greater orientation toward marital living, speakers before parish organizations could more frequently bring a message replete with marital and familiar meaning, idle parochial school facilities could be employed in evening adult education for marriage and family living (such as how to give sex education to your children).
The Crisis of Our Culture
A fourth need that the lay viewpoint seems to sense is that of making the attainment of a higher spiritual life in marriage more facile. In his recent book The American Catholic Family John Thomas, S.J., has singled out the enormous obstacles which face the Catholic family in a culture dominantly secular. Unless these difficulties are either removed or lessened, the attainment of holiness in marriage will remain such an heroic venture that few can be expected to attempt it. Seemingly we are here faced with what might be called "the crisis of our culture" as far as Catholics are concerned.
Two methods recommend themselves for facilitating the flight to higher spirituality for married couples. One is the much-vaunted need for Catholics to "adjust" to modern customs and conventions just as long as they remain within the confines of Catholic morality.
This "adjustment school of though" assumes a most unrealistic position, namely, that one can walk along that narrow line which demarcates what is sinful from what is not without ever stepping over it into forbidden territory. It seems to represent a school which equates Catholic living with a sort of minimal morality. Devotees of this group will, for instance, by fine theological distinctions labor at indicating just how far we can go along with the progressive undress of modern neo-paganism without committing a mortal sin. Or they will negate the call of Pius XII to "restore the Sunday" (and the Vesper service) to being again the Lord's Day (instead of our day for recreation) by pointing out that as long as the family attends Mass its Sunday obligations have been fulfilled. This minimal morality approach to the problem may seem to render more facile the Catholic way of life. But it is to be feared, that upon closer examination it will be found to be merely a "marginal" Catholicity which is surviving — not the fullness and richness of a total Catholic culture. One may well fear that even this "marginal" Catholicity will not long survive without the support of a vigorous, virile Catholic way of life which is markedly different, simply because Christianity and secularism have little in common.
Real Catholic Solidarity Needed
The other proposed solution to the need of rendering marital holiness less difficult is the development of an intensive Catholic group life in all of its implications. This demands, first of all, the growth toward a "like-mindedness" within Catholic circles and between Catholic families. It is a personal conviction (and one shared with many Catholic couples) that one of the worst enemies of the Catholic family in our culture is the half-secular Catholic family in every parish, whose number is legion.
Most Catholic couples naturally gravitate in their social-recreational and religious lives toward other Catholic couples. Most parents who send their children to parochial schools do so, amongst other reasons, in the hope that their children will meet with fit Catholic boys and girls as companions. When, however, the conscientious Catholic couple awakens to the fact that the average Catholic family and their children are more secular than Catholic in their daily practices, they realize all too keenly that their worst enemy is within and not without Catholic circles. The Catholic parent, for instance, who believes that the Legion of Decency in movies, in clothing, in literature should be taken seriously soon finds, that in addition to battling the fallen natures of their own children, they need to battle their fellow Catholic parents and children alike.
Were there a parish-wide "like-mindedness" in matters such as these, there would appear a genuinely Catholic sub-culture which would serve as the requisite moral climate within the immoral environment of our larger secular culture. Like an oasis in the desert of paganism, it would afford a place of moral and spiritual support and security. It would slake the thirst for spiritual waters of the Catholic husband who returns to his home and family from his battles with the secular business, professional or social world. It would restore his spiritual energies so that on the morrow he could again sally forth to match lances with the non-Catholic for whom he would prove a better apostle. The energies now being dissipated in struggling with half-Catholics could be employed in the battle for the souls of those outside our fold. This type of "like-mindedness" would, in time, lead to a similarity in practical living. It would set Catholics apart, in so far as the Catholic culture lived to its richest fullness is so vastly different from its secular counterpart. The Catholic parent who would be known not to attend C movies and their children known not to attend A2 movies would be marked by their non-Catholic neighbors — but it would be the mark of a Christian and it would be a cross. The Catholic family who was conscious of the total Christian tradition to hide the animal in man so as to intensify the spiritual world not be long influenced by the minimal morality of progressive undress. They would be marked by their non-Catholic neighbors as different — but it would be a mark of asceticism befitting one carrying the name of Christian.
Dynamic Leaven
Doubtless one of the reasons for our failure to have attainted this required Catholic sub-culture is the stigma which some would attach to it by labeling it a "ghetto mentality." However, emotional slogans cannot forever becloud the harsh realities with which every conscientious Catholic parent is today confronted. Such parents prefer to believe that if this is a clarion call for a Catholic "ghetto" it will be the type of ghetto which will first of all intensify and facilitate the approach of families to holiness; and secondly it will, through this intensified Catholic living in all its rich fullness, prepare and send forth lay apostles into the larger secular environment. The various Catholic family movements have found their truly phenomenal growth, in part, because they have so affected a similarity and like-mindedness; daringly they pushed out the narrow confines of moral living into a fuller liturgical and ascetical life. They have given impetus and facility to growth in sanctity by removing the neo-pagan Catholic family from their pathway and by relaxing in the moral support and security which they have found in their close association with families in these movements.
However, as yet there are relatively few in these family movements. The need persists of increasing the numbers until every family in every parish has been reactivated to a fuller Catholic life. When that golden age arrives, the various family movements will have outlived their usefulness; for then the parish will again be serving the purpose for which it was created — to be parochial (par-oikia) in the true sense, because it is built upon the stable foundation of solid family spirituality.
This item 6385 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
