Sharing the Treasure of Catholic Social and Moral Teaching
Greetings, dear Friends, in Christ Jesus Our Lord!
I want to thank each of you for your participation in this important gathering. From our expert speakers and panelists to those of you in parish ministry, each of you has brought much to this conversation. I trust you will bring new insights back home with you as you serve the Lord Jesus in your vital ministries — perhaps in new, creative ways not imagined before.
In this convocation, our objectives have been to explore the connections between Respect Life, Social Justice and Family Life ministries; to delve into Catholic moral and social teaching from Vatican II, Deus Caritas Est, and Humanae Vitae, whose 40th anniversary we celebrated this past week; and to embrace with a spirit of generosity and solidarity Catholic teaching and action. We have sought to demonstrate the complementarity of science and faith and to identify avenues of collaboration in our ministries and advocacy. We have begun an ongoing conversation on how diocesan and parish Respect Life, Social Justice and Family Life leaders and the scientific and medical communities can cooperate and contribute to the New Evangelization.
It has been a weekend for uncovering and pondering the great treasure of Catholic teaching. How might we now go out and share that great treasure with others who are so much in need of it?
In today's Gospel parable, a man finds a great treasure buried in a field, sells all he has out of joy, and purchases the field to obtain that same buried treasure. But why did he go, and out of joy sell all he had? Because this was no ordinary transaction. That treasure was abundantly more valuable than everything he sold, and so he could readily, even joyfully, part with everything else to obtain it. Selling "everything he had" did not leave him in deprivation once he took possession of that immeasurably valuable plot of land.
As we promote the dignity of the human person — including the defense of human life, marriage and the family, and social justice — we too are challenged to invest in the Kingdom of heaven out of joy. This is no ordinary transaction, either! Once we have experienced the abundant and unconditional love of God, which bestows on each person his or her inviolable dignity, all other matters find their proper context. If we have the "understanding heart" for which Solomon prayed, we will readily part with anything that would separate us from God's plan for our lives. We will joyfully divest ourselves of other attachments to invest in the Kingdom of God.
The net result is not deprivation or indigence but abundance — starting now in this mortal lifetime, and completed in the next. It is that perspective of eternal abundance that makes all the difference in our service to others. It compels us to love and serve our neighbors here and now, advocating on their behalf — not out of mere duty or an exaggerated sense of responsibility for the world — but because we ourselves have received a great and undeserved gift, and because there is plenty to share with others. We can serve our neighbors in joy because, through Christ, we hope to be "neighbors" with them for all eternity. This is what the New Evangelization is all about.
Dying to Self: Foolishness to the World
In order to lay hold of the valuable treasure spoken of in the Gospel, one's hands must be open and free. This action requires total self-emptying and radical generosity. It involves dying to ourselves so that we may serve and defend the lives of the weakest and most defenseless. We must die to our own way of doing things and freely choose to obey God's laws. His commands, reflected in the wise teachings of the Church, are to be loved and embraced with delight as the Psalmist says.
But this is nearly incomprehensible and even offensive to the world. The one who does not recognize the value of the hidden treasure might say of the man who buys the whole field: "What a fool. He is throwing away his whole life. What a waste!"
According to this view, it makes no sense to share our abundance, or to take any joy in sacrifice. Generosity is seen as irrational. Trust in some unseen "providence" is considered rash. An earnest gift of self is looked upon as foolish.
This attitude leads us to watch out for ourselves, to marshal our resources, to avoid the risk of generosity and total commitment to others. But it also introduces division and alienation into our lives.
When we fear the total commitment that real love requires, we reduce sexuality to a form of recreation — and thus succeed in reducing human persons, especially women, to objects of use. We build division into the very heart of marital intimacy by trying to "protect" ourselves from its ability to bring forth new life. We set apart the members of our families who would make the greatest demands on our comfort and security — the unborn, the elderly and infirm, those with serious disabilities — and classify them as those who may be neglected or even destroyed, sometimes in the name of "mercy." We destroy new human life to harness its power for ourselves, to cure devastating diseases — and create a utilitarian ethic that undermines the human dignity of everyone, including the very patients we wanted to help. Because we fear the stranger and resent the uninvited immigrant, we wall ourselves up so as not to lose what is ours — and succeed in creating a kind of prison for ourselves. By resorting to violent force we respond to those in other countries who fear and resent.
Eternal Abundance and "the Understanding Heart"
But for those who have known the unconditional love of God — and have gained an understanding heart — the action of the person who bought the field is anything but foolishness. Indeed, it is the only fitting response to abundance. It is an action that brings not anxiety, but joy, about the future.
It leads not to self-destruction, but to new life. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, we "find" ourselves by making a "sincere gift" of ourselves. The wise person takes these words to heart, loves the decree of the Lord, and allows his or her life to be shaped by them.
The New Evangelization flows naturally from investing our whole selves for eternity's sake. We have found the great treasure in the field and so can share it with others. We can stand together with courage, serving as models of reconciliation, generosity, and unity for our families and neighbors alike.
The Sign of Fruitful Married Love
As discussed throughout this convocation, conjugal love is not just a private matter. Love like the Blessed Trinity, is creative. It bears "fruit that will remain" — that is, fruit that lasts eternally.
Parents are the quintessential sign that love is not just a private matter. Sometimes the intimate love between a husband and wife is so real, so potent, so personal that nine months later they have to name a human person! That family is never the same. The children show that love changes the world — for good.
When parents are open to receiving children as a gift, their generosity can seem foolish from the perspective of burdening the world and creating in it deprivation. Parents are even accused of being selfish since they produce more mouths to feed, causing a supposed imbalance in our ecosystem.
But the reality is that they are participating in God's own act of creation, in His providential abundance. With each child, the world has been blessed with a new person with an eternal destiny. That new son or daughter has a God-given dignity that no one can enhance or diminish. This dignity is based on the fact that the human person is created by God, redeemed by Christ, and destined for eternal life in communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Through healthy families, God is at work building up citizens to renew the face of the earth, and ultimately to be citizens of a new Heaven and a new Earth — one in which his justice shall always reign, where "there will be no crying, or pain or death anymore." There is a deep interconnection between the rejection of the Church's teaching on sexuality and on human life and a lack of solidarity with those unrelated to us. Both are grounded in selfishness or a lack of generosity. Why should we care about those to whom we are not related when there is disharmony — or even alienation — at home? When our own children and sick or elderly relatives are seen as burdens rather than gifts, for example, why would we have compassion for needy strangers? And when movies, advertisements, and downright pornography exploit women as mere objects to be used, how will society come to know the great dignity of the human body and the whole human person?
Countless individuals and whole communities are suffering due to society's lack of understanding of the human person. It is time to share the treasure we have found and give witness to the hope it brings.
Building Unity to Serve the New Evangelization
We have entered into a year dedicated to Saint Paul and his mission to the gentiles. Today, the world is still urgently in need of God's love, hope, peace and joy. The New Evangelization, as Pope John Paul II called it, has taken root and is now starting to "flower" in a "new springtime" for the Church. As we look ahead, how can we share with the world the great treasure we have found?
The New Evangelization will require all the faithful to work in harmony with each other. It will require the challenging work of reconciliation — as well as prayer and effort to build unity among ourselves. How can we share with others what we ourselves do not possess?
Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us many diverse gifts in order to empower us to accomplish the Father's will in the world. He gave us different interests and opportunities to serve the many complementary tasks involved in renewing the culture. When we are all working from the same fundamental principles, we all benefit. Our efforts on behalf of marriage, the family and human life — and our service to those oppressed by poverty, homelessness, war and exploitation — are not in competition with each other. No one person, group, or movement in the Church can bring about on their own a new civilization of love, justice and life. Our efforts are strengthened when we work and pray together and support each other in a generous spirit.
Pope Benedict XVI addressed the crucial need for unity at World Youth Day in Sydney just last week. He said:
"Unity is of the essence of the Church; (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 813); it is a gift we must recognize and cherish. …[L]et us pray for the resolve to nurture unity: contribute to it! resist any temptation to walk away! For it is precisely the comprehensiveness, the vast vision, of our faith — solid yet open, consistent yet dynamic, true yet constantly growing in insight — that we can offer our world" (Address at the World Youth Day Vigil).
Humanae Vitae: A Renewed Invitation to Understand the Fullness of Love, Life and Human Dignity
The unity the Pope calls us to is not a flat, two-dimensional uniformity. Far from it! It is precisely because of our rich diversity that unity is both a gift and a challenge. Now is the time to invest in that gift. We must prayerfully move forward in the conviction that God will bless our growing openness toward collaboration with each other.
Today, dear friends, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the Lord of life, the Defender of humanity, let us rededicate ourselves to that treasure hidden in the field which we have reflected on during these past days. Let us continue praying, as Solomon did, for an "understanding heart" so that, in turn, we may be effective instruments in helping others embrace the perennial teaching of the Church on love and life and human dignity. At this juncture in the history of humanity, forty years after the encyclical Humane Vitae of Pope Paul VI, let us boldly reaffirm the Church's resilient yes to the nature of married love, which expresses the total and complete gift of self between a man and a woman who accept the permanent, faithful and fruitful bond of marriage, which itself is the great path to holiness for the vast majority of God's people. On this important anniversary let us all, in the unity of the Church, affirm anew that the conjugal act is all about the gift of self, made in love and open to life. As the meeting point of love and life this act is indeed holy, and the two aspects of love and life cannot be deliberately separated without harming the total gift of self, upon which marriage is built.
In all our reflections on God's plan for Christian married love and for human life and dignity, we respond with God's inspired word contained in our Responsorial Psalm: "Wonderful are your decrees; therefore I observe them. The revelation of your words sheds light, giving understanding to the simple. Lord, I love your commands." Amen.
This item 8375 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
