Fathers and sons during a session of LoveEd with Pastor Bob Jones and Youth Minister Pat Haviland, Saint Thomas the Apostle Parish, Crystal Lake, Illinois
LoveEd: An Education in Love For Very Busy Families
John Paul II’s Counter to the Attack on the Family
By Jack Rigert
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).
To give this life is the real object of Jesus’ mission: he is the one who “comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world”[1] (Jn 6:33). Yet we have an enemy which Jesus also speaks of in this same verse. Verse 10:10 in its entirety is this, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God. The loftiness of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phrase. Life in time, in fact, is the fundamental condition, the initial stage and an integral part on the entire unified process of human existence. It is a process which, unexpectedly and undeservedly, is enlightened by the promise and renewed by the gift of divine life, which will reach its full realization in eternity (cf. 1 Jn 3:1-2).[2]
Yet, new threats are emerging, to steal and kill and destroy human life, on an alarmingly vast scale. “Murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, mutilation of the human body, especially on the young, Redefine marriage as meaningless, the torments of an age of moral relativism which attempts to coerce the will itself; where people are treated as mere instruments of gain; love has been reduced to a feeling, all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and are a supreme dishonor to the Creator.[3]
Unfortunately, this disturbing state of affairs, far from decreasing, is expanding: with the new prospects opened up by scientific and technological progress there arise new forms of attacks on the dignity of the human being.[4] Who does not know someone addicted to Pornography, the “contraceptive mentality” that has reduced the beauty of love and reciprocal self-giving and openness to new life in the marital sexual union, so finally reduced to a hedonistic pursuit of self-satisfaction. And if contraption fails to hold back the natural act of life-giving union, abortion or the taking of the life of the most innocent.
Against this Culture of Death Pope John Paul II wrote, “I wish to meditate upon once more and proclaim the Gospel of life, the splendor of truth which enlightens consciences, the clear light which corrects the darkened gaze, and the unfailing source of faithfulness and steadfastness in facing the ever new challenges which we meet along our path…to every particular family in every part of the world, I look with renewed confidence to every household and I pray that at every level a general commitment to support the family will reappear and be strengthened, so that today too-even amid so many difficulties and serious threats-the family will always remain, in accordance with God’s plan, the “sanctuary” of life.[5]
Hence, the family is the first school of those social virtues which every society needs.[6] Education in love as self-giving is also an indispensable premise for parents called to give their children a clear and delicate sex education. Faced with a culture that largely reduces human sexuality to the level of something common place, since it interprets and lives it in a reductive and impoverished way by linking it solely with the body and with selfish pleasure, the educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training in the area of sex that is truly and fully personal: for sexuality is an enrichment of the whole person-body, emotions and soul-and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love.”[7]
Sex education, which is the basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home of in educational centers chosen and controlled by them. In this regard, the Church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity, which the school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education, by entering into the same spirit that animates the parents.[8]
For this reason the Church is firmly opposed to an often-widespread form of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principles. That would merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure and a stimulus leading to the loss of serenity-while still in the years of innocence-by opening the way to vice.[9]
So great and splendid is the educational ministry of Christian parents that Saint Thomas has no hesitation in comparing it with the ministry of priests: “Some only propagate and guard spiritual life by a spiritual ministry: this is the role of the sacrament of Orders; others do this for both corporeal and spiritual life, and this is brought about by the sacrament of marriage, by which a man and a woman join in order to beget offspring and bring them up to worship God.”[10]
- Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II, No. 37. ↑
- Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II, No. 2. ↑
- Cf. Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II, No. 3. ↑
- Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II, No. 4. ↑
- Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II, No. 6. ↑
- Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II, No. 36. ↑
- Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II, No. 37. ↑
- Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II, No. 37. ↑
- FC No. 37. ↑
- FC No. 38. ↑