Pastoral Directives on Humanae Vitae & 25th Anniversary of the Pope Paul VI Institute

Transcription

1 By: Fr. Jarosław Sz. Szymczak, PhD, Faculty for Studies on the Family, UKSW Poland (Excerpts from the lecture presented at the International Conference on Pastoral Directives of Human Vitae at the Labor Day Weekend Celebration of Love & Life held by the Pope Paul VI Institute, September 2, 2010, Omaha, Nebraska.) that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself 2 (GS 24). ver since my ordination I have worked at the Institute, E now Faculty, of Studies on the Family. My position at the university has revolved around working with young people who have chosen to especially concentrate their attention on God s plan for marriage and the family. Members of the Institute of the Holy Family seek to support families through ongoing formation, spiritual direction and retreats.... Through all my years as a priest I have learnt to put great trust in the grace of the sacrament of marriage, and I have often seen how God has especially chosen families as the setting where He wants to be with us. Hence all Hell is let loose on the family. We can be certain, however, that Satan will not prevail over the Church, including the domestic church. I would like to share some of this experience of working with families, which I have been continuously learning from the dear Pope Paul VI, in a few reflections on the third section of the encyclical Humanae Vitae...an encyclical about human dignity, especially the dignity of women, [extolling] the beauty of marital love and human nature and marriage as taught by the Church. 1) spouses recognize and value the true goods of life and the family (HV 21)...Love [is] more than a feeling; [it is] a program for the whole of one s life even eternity and certain conditions must be met for it to be possible. It is important to be mature and this love must be expressed in a mature form (i.e., in the form of a decision, which will be binding to the end of life, be it mine or the other person s). Hence the conditions are that one must be mature and make marriage one s life-project....marriage, in its essence, is a gift of self. in truth and charity. This likeness reveals In this context, the words of the Second Vatican Council Constitution, Gaudium et Spes appear especially significant: Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, that all may be one... as we are one (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God s sons The question comes up, however, as to whether it is possible to give oneself fully to another....there must be some way to render a gift of self through which I also realize myself more fully. This unique way is that of love, understood to be God s gift in us. At the beginning of our lives, God endows us with three beautiful gifts through Holy Baptism: the divine virtues of love, faith and hope. Gaudium et Spes reminds us that our love (which is eros human affection) is healed, perfected and raised up by God through His love (caritas willing love) 3. This is possible only in the order of love, and it is absolutely necessary if we are to fully realize ourselves as persons....when a person becomes a gift of self, he or she enriches himself or herself and develops internally because the laws of development that govern people are different than those that govern the world of things, which we can own, transfer among one another, and of themselves are oblivious to who happens to own them. In contrast to this domain of things, when it comes to persons, the one who gives himself as a gift to another actually matures and he enriches himself. Karol Wojtyła describes this in terms of the law of ecstasy exit from oneself to be more fully in another. So what are the conditions for a gift of self to be authentically in line with who we are as persons? Firstly, one such condition is objectivity. A gift requires a free and conscious act of giving, not just a sense of devotedness. Besides this, the gift must be total. A human person is a body and soul, so to give just one of these elements is a form of simulation of gift and not genuine gift. The gift also needs to be exclusive and, hence, only for the one chosen as spouse. A further requirement is that the gift be life-long. It is for all my life, not just part of my life. The gift must also be unconditional. [One gives] their self and that is it. [It is not] on condition that. Finally, the gift must be mutual. This means that, whenever there is this gift of one person to another, there must also be receptivity to the gift of the other and reciprocation. 2) they acquire the habit of complete mastery of themselves and their desires (HV 21)...One of the prerequisites for gift is possession; [the other] is

2 Continued Excerpt that we can only give that which we both possess and control. Possession alone does not signify control. There has to be both possession and control. Hence, if one gives oneself, it is positive proof that one possesses oneself and one is in control of oneself. 5 Self-possession and control signify that feelings and sensuality are subdued to intellect and will which, in turn, need to be trained in perceiving truth and striving towards true good. Absence of this, difficulties in seeing truth, and weakness of will are the result of original sin. Ever since original sin, concupiscence drives us to turn natural emotional and sensual yearning for the other person into use of the other person. It is this concupiscence that also leads to signs proper to married life losing their meaning. A sign...must [have an] agreement between the intention and the action and the sign expresses what it means in itself. 6...[S]igns and actions that are proper to married life, such as embraces, kisses, and intimacy, need a certain temperance and self control if they are to be really in keeping with their intrinsic meaning and the ethical order. (HV21) In fact, when Pope John Paul II undertook his own detailed analysis of this encyclical on the beauty of married love and the miracle of encounter with God in the inseparable dual significance of the marital act, he chose to base it principally on an analysis of paragraph 21 and took it to be the key to understanding Paul VI s Humanae Vitae. The virtue of chastity, which is a form of the virtue of temperance, is a key prerequisite for the beauty of human love to remain intact. It is a virtue, a strength, that allows us to keep incursions of sentimentality, sensuality, and lust at bay. Reason and will play important parts in this.... Chastity allows us to see the whole truth about a person. [People often] look upon each other in terms of usefulness... rather than their value as persons....chastity allows us to look at others in purity, clarity, transparency, especially at another of the opposite sex. It is chastity which alone can be a foundation for a gift which must at once be objective, total, mutual, exclusive, life-long, and unconditional. Pope Benedict XVI reminded us of this recently: The truth expressed in Humanae Vitae does not change; on the contrary, precisely in the light of the new scientific discoveries, its teaching becomes more timely and elicits reflection on the intrinsic value it possesses. The key word to enter coherently into its content remains love. As I wrote in my first encyclical Deus Caritas Est: Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united... Yet it is neither the spirit alone nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a unified creature composed of body and soul, who loves (n. 5). If this unity is removed, the value of the person is lost and there is a serious risk of considering the body a commodity that can be bought or sold (cf. ibid). In a culture subjected to the prevalence of having over being, human life risks losing its value. If the practice of sexuality becomes a drug that seeks to enslave one s partner to one s own desires and interests, without respecting the cycle of the beloved, then what must be defended is no longer solely the true concept of love but in the first place the dignity of the person. As believers, we could never let the domination of technology invalidate the quality of love and the sacredness of life. Hence, Pope Paul VI made the great plea to create an atmosphere favorable to the growth of chastity so that true liberty may prevail over license and the norms of the moral law may be fully safeguarded. (HV, 22) 3) requires continuous effort (HV 21) Paul VI...devoted two whole paragraphs, to explain how to build true love, When these matters are placed in the proper light, we can clearly see the characteristic marks and requirements of marital love. It is of the greatest importance to have an exact understanding of these (HV, 9). [He] speaks both of the marks and the requirements of love to determine whether love is really present in and among persons rather than being just an illusion of reality.... That is why we not only need marks but also requirements to show that love is founded on truth and not on illusions. Hence, Paul VI first speaks of the marks, or characteristics, and then of the requirements of married love in the same paragraph. Love is first of all human spouses strive together to attain human perfection. Next, this love is total spouses enrich their beloved with the gift of themselves....then, marital love is both faithful and exclusive to the end of life.... Such quality the quality of deep, genuine love-- without permanence would be nonsense....and finally, this love is fruitful marriage and marital love are

3 Continued Excerpt ordained by their very nature to the procreating and educating of children. In paragraph 8, Paul VI writes: Therefore, through mutual self-giving, which is unique and exclusive to them, spouses seek a communion of persons. Through this communion, the spouses perfect each other so that they might share with God the task of procreating and educating new living beings....life often requires that the gift of one of the spouses be seemingly bigger than that of the other....married couples will always know, however, how to distinguish when they generously share everything with each other and when any undue reservations and concern for their selfish convenience creep in. It is worth emphasizing Pope Paul VI s insistence that the efforts of married spouses [to keep God s law] in fact serve to elevate human dignity and confer benefits on human society as a whole beginning with the small society of the family and expanding outward to broader society.... 4) fosters the fruits of tranquility and peace (HV 21) The gift of self in everyday life needs constant effort and temperance. Paul VI noted this (virtue) fosters the fruits of tranquility and peace in the home and helps in the solving of difficulties of other kinds. It aids spouses in becoming more tender with each other and more attentive to each other. It assists them in dispelling that inordinate self-love that is opposed to true charity. It strengthens in them an awareness of their reposibilities (munerum exsequendorum). And finally it provides parents with a sure and efficious authority for educating their children (HV 21). 5) with the abundant grace of God, upon which the good moral choices of people depend and from which they get their strength (HV 20) These abundant fruits cannot be won solely through human endeavor since our Redeemer knows our weaknesses, has compassion on the crowd, receives sinners (HV, 19). That is why we need the abundant grace of God, upon which the good moral choices of people depend and from which they get their strength (HV 20) That is the right response to weakness: Where sin abides, there grace abounds all the more. Paul VI wanted to bring freedom to the enslaved contemporary man. He emphasized Romans 8 that although man has succumbed to original sin and temptations of the flesh, Christ is the one who quenches all our thirst and helps us overcome our tendencies to sin. In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God s will Romans 8: ) encouraging them to keep and respect the laws of God concerning marriage and to teach the law which is proper to human life restored to its original truth and guided by the Spirit of God (HV 21)... Humanae Vitae is a great invitation addressed to every man to safeguard the dignity of every woman in his heart and in his actions. It is a call to every doctor as well. The doctor is often the first person even before the priest [to] be encountered by a woman...[whose hubsand] has begun to use her as an object for self-gratification and [who] is tempted to seek safety in contraception... The doctor s response can be crucial and may either mark the beginning of a turning point for his patient or become a seal of complicity for a pattern of self-depreciation, consent for exploitation, and intentional health-destruction....the physician s duty of care is to defend the good and dignity of a person who may be almost unable to defend herself. It is the vocation of a doctor to be mindful of... the full good of each patient. Inducing sterility, maiming the capacity to bear life, destroying fertility [are] diametrically opposed to harnessing health, guarding the dignity of one s patients, and maintaining a fully human and responsible and just doctor-patient relationship.... Professor G.E. M Anscombe, a mother of seven children who held the Chair of Ethics at Cambridge University in England, once wrote about the importance of clear teaching on Humanae Vitae, and the unfortunate scarcity of such teaching: As things were, those lay people who were faithful in their lives were, humanly, in a sense alone. I am grateful I wasn t put to the test of these times. They had to lean upon God, not upon the encouragement of their pastors. A deathly silence from the clergy, I mean from those who did not actually dissent, was pretty discouraging. And spirituality dried up. All this

4 Continued Excerpt was perhaps out of fear of driving people out of the Church. Well, it has often meant that the process was accomplished in two stages. First, you decide to reject the teaching about contraception. Then you become more and more watery in the dogmatic content of your faith. Then, very often, it fades out altogether. Or it settles down to a total worldliness. [We are now celebrating the 25th anniversary of an Institute which has been inspired at its founding by faithfulness to the teaching of Humanae Vitae.] It is wonderful, therefore, that Professor. Hilgers has decided to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Institute by first recalling what all of us can and should do to build up a civilization of life and love....as priests, we also need to examine our consciences as to whether we have served our laity adequately in this area. This can also be an occasion to ask for forgiveness and renew our commitment to teach Humanae Vitae. A commitment we should take up with all our hearts.... I would like to end with these words from Gaudium et Spes: Human activity, to be sure, takes its significance from its relationship to man. Just as it proceeds from man, so it is ordered toward man. For when a man works he not only alters things and society, he develops himself as well. He learns much, he cultivates his resources, he goes outside of himself and beyond himself. Rightly understood this kind of growth is of greater value than any external riches which can be garnered. A man is more precious for what he is than for what he has (GS 35).

5 By: Fr. Jarosław Sz. Szymczak, PhD, Faculty for Studies on the Family, UKSW Poland (Full text from the lecture presented at the International Conference on Pastoral Directives of Human Vitae at the Labor Day Weekend Celebration of Love & Life held by the Pope Paul VI Institute, September 2, 2010, Omaha, Nebraska.) am extremely glad that I can be with you today in I thanksgiving for this great, moving anniversary. I think God has so willed it that all my service as a priest has been linked to serving families. Ever since my ordination I have worked at the Institute, now Faculty, of Studies on the Family. My work at the university has revolved around working with young people who have chosen to especially concentrate their attention on God s plan for marriage and the family. At the same time, as members of the Institute of the Holy Family, we seek to support families through ongoing formation, spiritual direction and retreats. All my life as a priest has been life with families and for families. I am close to those who are on a journey from good to better, as well as those who are encountering trouble or who may be in crisis. Through all my years as a priest I have learnt to put great trust in the Grace of the Sacrament of Marriage, and I have often seen how God has especially chosen families as the setting where he wants to be with us. Hence all Hell is let loose on the family. We can be certain, however, that Satan will not prevail over the Church. Including the domestic church. I would like to share some of this experience of working with families, which I have been continuously learning from the dear Pope Paul VI, in a few reflections on the Third Section of the encyclical Humanae Vitae. One of the first commentators 1 on the Encyclical said that to write an encyclical on contraception can be likened to firing a canon at a sparrow. Given that Paul VI decided to write his Encyclical, therefore, either contraception is no ordinary sparrow it may well be more like a vulture - or this is not, fundamentally, an encyclical about contraception. It is unfortunate that most commentators have refused to acknowledge its beauty and range. It is in fact an encyclical about human dignity, especially the dignity of women, and extols the beauty of marital love and human nature and marriage as taught by the Church. 1) spouses recognize and value the true goods of life and the family (HV 21) A certain anecdote comes to mind: A Daddy and his little son are talking. The son has just returned from his holiday with his grandparents. He enjoyed it very much. He tells his father all about his activities, especially with his grandma. In the end, he concludes. Daddy, I love grandma very, very much. When I grow up I want to marry her. His father is confused as to what to say, My son, you can not marry my mother. He finally replies, happy to have found a good answer. The son looks at him and says: Daddy, that is not fair play. You married MY mother! The little boy in the story, however, did have a certain theological intuition. He knew love was more than a feeling, but a program for the whole of one s life even eternity and certain conditions must be met for it to be possible. It is important to be mature and this love must be expressed in a mature form i.e. in the form of a decision which will be binding to the end of life be it mine or the other person s. Hence the conditions are that one must be mature and make marriage one s life-project. To be mature. When I will grow up. What does it mean to be mature? Are we only speaking of attaining an age at which marriage is permissible? Or is it more about a process of growing up in order to be in the position to give myself to another as a gift and receive the other as a gift? Marriage, in its essence, is a gift of self. In this context, the words of the Second Vatican Council Constitution, Gaudium et Spes appear especially significant: Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, that all may be one... as we are one (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. (GS 24) 2 1. cyt. za: L. Brunelli, Narodziny encykliki Humanae vitae, W drodze, nr 12, XII 1988, str Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium Et Spes promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI on December 7, 1965, no. 24.

6 The question comes up, however, as to whether it is at all possible to give oneself fully to another. What will then happen to me? Will I disappear? Surely I can t just give myself over to another? As a child of God, created in the image and likeness of God, I belong only to Him, as a creature to its Creator, as a pot does to the potter who formed it? Will I not then become a slave? Surely our civilization is beyond that stage by now? Or is it? It seems that we have not made much progress in this regard when we hear of human trafficking, organ trafficking, soliciting prostitutes just for personal gratification, or clinics which would have us commission IVF services to thereby obtain children to order How, therefore, are we to understand the words: man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself (GS 24). There must be some way to render a gift of self through which I also realize myself more fully. This unique way is that of love understood to be God s gift in us. At the beginning of our lives, God endows us with three beautiful gifts through Holy Baptism: the divine virtues of love, faith and hope. Gaudium et Spes reminds us that our love, which is eros human affection is healed, perfected and raised up by God through His love caritas willing love. 3 This is possible only in the order of love. Not only is it possible, but it is absolutely necessary if we are to fully realize ourselves as persons. It is precisely through this gift of self that a man develops as a man, and a woman develops as a woman. When a person becomes a gift of self, he or she enriches himself or herself and develops internally because the laws of development which govern people are different to those which govern the world of things which we can own, transfer among one another and which are of themselves oblivious to who happens to own them. In contrast to this domain of things, however, when it comes to persons, the one who gives himself as a gift to another actually matures, he enriches himself. Karol Wojtyła describes this in terms of the law of ecstasy exit from oneself to be more fully in another. 4 So what are the conditions for a gift of self to be authentically in line with who we are as persons? Firstly, one such condition is objectivity. A gift requires a free and conscious act of giving, not just a sense of devotedness. Besides this, the gift must be total. A human person is a body and soul, so to give just one of these elements is a form of simulation of gift, not genuine gift. The gift also needs to be exclusive and hence only for the one chosen as spouse. [This reminds me of a young man who wanted to buy Valentine cards. His favorite one had the caption For my only one. He asked for 10 of them!]a further requirement is that the gift be life-long. It is for all my life, not just part of my life. The gift must also be unconditional I give myself and that s it. I don t give myself on condition that and if you fail to meet these conditions then sorry, I m going And finally, the gift must be mutual. This means that whenever there is this gift of one person to another, there is also receptivity to the gift of the other and reciprocation. 2) they acquire the habit of complete mastery of themselves and their desires (HV 21) I will now give another example to illustrate my next point. Let me come up to one of you and remark at how pretty your watch is. I like it very much. Would you mind giving it to me as a present? I think there is a possibility that I would be given the watch. If, however, I asked this gentleman here for the microphone I m now holding, then he would probably say that he would give it to me if he could, but it doesn t belong to him so he can not. Alternately, if I asked some member of the audience to give me their wedding ring as a gift, then I m sure he or she would refuse me point blankc. There would be no dispute as to whether the wedding ring was theirs, but it would not be theirs to give to me, as they would have no right to dispose of it as long as their spouse still lived. This example is of three situation: two involve possession, but we can only give in one of these when we not only possess but also control. One of the prerequisites for gift is possession, but another very important element of giving oneself is that we can only give that which we both possess and control. Possession alone does not signify control. There has to be both possession and control. Hence if one gives oneself it is positive proof that one possesses oneself and one is in control of oneself Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium Et Spes promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI on December 7, cf. Wojtyła K., Miłość i odpowiedzialność, Lublin 2001, str. 112, transl: Love and Responsibility, Ignatius Press, p K. Wojtyła, Love and Responsibility, Ignatius Press, p. 98

7 Self-possession and control signify that feelings and sensuality are subdued to intellect and will which in turn need to be trained in perceiving truth and striving towards true good. Absence of this, difficulties in seeing truth and weakness of will are the result of original sin. Ever since original sin, concupiscence drives us to turn natural emotional and sensual yearning for the other person into use of the other. It is this concupiscence which also leads to signs proper to married life losing their meaning. If a sign is to be intelligible, there must be agreement between the intention and the action and the sign expresses what it means in itself. 6 If, for instance, I now decide to greet someone from the audience, I would walk up to them to shake their hand as a gesture of respect and welcome. However, I could also use the same sign to some completely different end for instance, to cause pain by squeezing their hand too hard, even if on the outside my gesture would appear to be exactly the same. My action would then be disingenuous, a distortion, a lie. In the same way, signs and actions which are proper to married life, such as embraces, kisses, and intimacy, need a certain temperance and self control if they are to be really in keeping with their intrinsic meaning and the ethical order. 7 (HV21) This is why Pope John Paul II, when he undertook his own detailed analysis of this encyclical on the beauty of married love and the miracle of encounter with God in the inseparable dual significance of the marital act, chose to base it principally on an analysis of paragraph 21, and took it to be the key to understanding Paul VI s Humanae Vitae. The virtue of chastity, which is a form of the virtue of temperance, is a key prerequisite for this beauty of human love to remain intact. It is a virtue, a strength, which allows us to keep incursions of sentimentality, sensuality and lust at bay. Reason and will play important parts in this. When we withstand these incursions which threaten to overturn our values and selfdetermination with our wills, we exercise continence. When we use our reasons to do so, this is called objectivization. Objectivization has the advantage over continence in that it does not imply a sense of loss which comes with renunciation. However, just as continence and renunciation are insufficient of themselves, like an army without a commander, so too objectivity, right reason, requires the virtue of continence if it is not to be like a commander with no armed forces. Chastity is very important in our world today. It is a virtue which allows us to see the whole truth about a person. It seems a particular feature of today that we look upon each other in terms of usefulness. We look upon others from the perspective of the values they carry within them, rather than their value as persons. The virtue of chastity allows us to integrate the values which are in a person with his or her value as a person. It demands we keep up with our value as persons. Every time we look at another person, we don t fail to see them precisely in their dignity as persons. Chastity allows us to look at others in purity, clarity, transparency, especially at another of the opposite sex. It is chastity which alone can be a foundation for a gift which must at once be objective, total, mutual, exclusive, life-long and unconditional. Pope Benedict XVI reminded us of this recently: The truth expressed in Humanae Vitae does not change; on the contrary, precisely in the light of the new scientific discoveries, its teaching becomes more timely and elicits reflection on the intrinsic value it possesses. The key word to enter coherently into its content remains love. 8 As I wrote in my first encyclical Deus Caritas Est: Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united... Yet it is neither the spirit alone nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a unified creature composed of body and soul, who loves (n. 5). If this unity is removed, the value of the person is lost and there is a serious risk of considering the body a commodity that can be bought or sold (cf. ibid). In a culture subjected to the prevalence of having over being, human life risks losing its value. If the practice of sexuality becomes a drug that seeks to enslave one s partner to one s own desires and interests, without respecting the cycle of the beloved, then what must be defended is no longer solely the true concept of love but in the first place the dignity of the person. As believers, we could never let the domination of technology invalidate the quality of love and the sacredness of life. 8. Address Of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Participants ot the International Congress organized by the Pontifical Lateran University on 6. Cf. Wojtyła K., Nauka encykliki Humanae vitae o miłości, in: Wydział Duszpasterstwa Rodzin, Rodzina Katolicka, Kraków 1988, no 77-79, p Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae of the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI to his Venerable Brothers the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries in Peace And Communion with the Apostolic See, to the Clergy and Faithful of the whole Catholic World, and to all Men of Good Will, On the Regulation of Birth, 1968, no. 21 (translation by Janet Smith in: Why Humanae Vitae was right: A reader. Ignatius Press 1993) the 40th Anniversary of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 10 May 2008.

8 Hence the great plea by Paul VI to create an atmosphere favorable to the growth of chastity so that true liberty may prevail over license and the norms of the moral law may be fully safeguarded. (HV, 22) 3) requires continous effort (HV 21) Paul VI knew of all the confusion which abounded around the identification of love. He knew that people were capable of excusing virtually any evil by reference to love or love s absence. Because the Pope knew this, he devoted two whole paragraphs, to explain how to build true love. When these matters are placed in the proper light, we can clearly see the characteristic marks and requirements of marital love. It is of the greatest importance to have an exact understanding of these (HV, 9). Hence Paul VI speaks both of the marks and the requirements of love to allow us to distinguish whether love is really present in and among persons, rather than being just an illusion of reality. This reminds me of one thirty year old woman whom I once met who began telling me how she had finally met the man of her life whom she loved, with whom she shares so many common interests, with whom she enjoys conversing, discussing things, who respects her and cares for her and is even capable of phoning her only to ask how she feels and so on. So I asked her why they don t marry. Because he has a wife, she replies, but she can sense He doesn t love Her. He only really loves me, she says. But what is real love? Can anyone who sees reality in its truth and freedom agree to a relationship which is a negation of the truth of married love? That s why we not only need marks, but also requirements, if our words about love are to be founded on truth and not on illusions. Hence, Paul VI first speaks of the marks, or characteristics, and then of the requirements of married love in the same paragraph. Love is first of all Human that is one of its marks spouses strive together to attain human perfection. Next, this love is total they enrich their beloved with the gift of themselves. I would like to return to this mark to explain it further because of its decisive importance to the pastoral directives of Paul VI. Then, marital love is both faithful and exclusive to the end of life intimate and lasting happiness flows Here we can also say that since love can be measured by the quality of the gift, this quality entails a second constituent element the permanence of the gift. Such quality the quality of deep, genuine love-- without permanence would be nonsense. One can t just love beautifully for seven years and then say farewell. Sorry, it was a mistake That would be a farce. Quality in the sense that we mean here genuine quality, the quality of of deep, true reality--demands permanence. And finally, this love is fruitful marriage and marital love are ordained by their very nature to the procreating and educating of children. It is worth emphasizing Pope Paul VI s insistence that the efforts of married spouses [to keep God s law] in fact serve to elevate human dignity and confer benefits on human society as a whole beginning of course with the small society that is their family, and expanding outward to broader society. Let s now turn to where these efforts, therefore, need to be exerted. Where do these efforts begin in marriage? Which dimensions of life do these efforts concern? We know that these actions are central to the pastoral directives which are essential to adequately expressing the thought and solicitude of the Church, the Mother and the Teacher of all nations (HV, 19). The crucial place here is the gift of self. In paragraph 8, Paul VI writes: Therefore, through mutual self-giving, which is unique and exclusive to them, spouses seek a communion of persons. Through this communion, the spouses perfect each other so that they might share with God the task of procreating and educating new living beings. The case here is of course an ideal one. Life often requires that the gift of one of the spouses be seemingly bigger than that of the other. The other may need to be away for some period of time be it due to work, internships, hospital, care of ailing parents and so forth. Married couples will always know, however, how to distinguish when they generously share everything with each other and when any undue reservations and concern for their selfish convenience creep in. from fidelity, like water from a fountain. This can also happen when instead of total and sincere gift of self, marital relations become an occasion for the synchronization of egoisms, which adjust to each other like gear wheels and remain together for as long as they provide one

9 another with various forms of pleasure. Such relations leave no room for gift of self and will fail to build a unity along the lines of a communion of persons. 4) fosters the fruits of tranquility and peace (HV 21) As I ve already emphasized, realizing the gift of self in everyday life needs constant effort and temperance. Paul VI noted that it also And this (virtue) fosters the fruits of tranquility and peace in the home and helps in the solving of difficulties of other kinds. It aids spouses in becoming more tender with each other and more attentive to each other. It assists them in dispelling that inordinate self-love that is opposed to true charity. It strengthens in them an awareness of their reposibilities (munerum exsequendorum). And finally it provides parents with a sure and efficious authority for educating their children (HV 21). 5) with the abundant grace of God, upon which the good moral choices of people depend and from which they get their strength (HV 20) These abundant fruits cannot be won solely through human endeavor, since our Redeemer knows our weaknesses, has compassion on the crowd, receives sinners (HV, 19) That is why we need the abundant grace of God, upon which the good moral choices of people depend and from which they get their strength (HV 20) That is the right response to weakness: Where sin abides, there grace abounds all the more. Paul VI wants to bring freedom to the enslaved contemporary man. That is why he refers to chapter 8 of St Paul s letter to the Romans in point 19 of his encyclical. Romans 8 emphasizes that although man has succumbed to original sin and temptations of the flesh, Christ is the one who quenches all our thirst and helps us overcome our tendencies to sin. In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God s will Romans 8: and to teach the law which is proper to 6) encouraging them to keep and respect the laws of God concerning marriage human life restored to its original truth and guided by the Spirit of God (HV 19) Undoubtedly, this also implies a challenge. Humanae Vitae is a great invitation addressed to every man to safeguard the dignity of every woman in his heart and in his actions. It is a call to every doctor, as well. The doctor is often the first person, even before the priest, who will be encountered by a woman who has been left by herself, with a man who has begun to use her as an object for self-gratification, and is tempted to seek safety in contraception rather than in her husband. His response can be crucial and may either mark the beginning of a turning point for his patient, or become a seal of complicity for a pattern of self-depreciation, consent for exploitation and intentional health-destruction. It is one of these examples when a doctor is asked to do something he knows will be detrimental to his patient, but there is also more to it this time. The physician s duty of care is then to defend, stand by the good and dignity of a person who may be almost unable to defend herself by that point. It is his vocation as a doctor to be mindful of all the things that make for the full good of each of his patients, and especially so when he sees things are going in the wrong direction. Inducing sterility, maiming the capacity to bear life, destroying fertility are mechanistic actions we know to be diametrically opposed to harnessing health, guarding the dignity of one s patients and maintaining a fully human, responsible and just doctor-patient relationship. We may seem to stand alone on this, but that is just a peculiarity of our times. We are now celebrating the 25th anniversary of an Institute which has been inspired at its founding by faithfulness to the teaching of Humanae Vitae. Professor G.E.M. Anscombe, a mother of seven children who held the Chair of Ethics at Cambridge University in England, once wrote about the importance of clear teaching on Humanae Vitae, and the unfortunate scarcity of such teaching: As things were, those lay people who were faithful in their lives were, humanly, in a sense alone. I am grateful I wasn t put to the test of these times. They had to lean upon God, not upon the encouragement of their pastors. A deathly silence from the clergy, I mean from those who did not actually dissent, was pretty discouraging. And spirituality dried up. All this was perhaps out of fear of driving people out of the Church. Well, it has often meant that the process was accomplished in two stages. First, you decide to reject the teaching about contraception. Then you become more and more watery in the dogmatic content of your faith.

10 Then, very often, it fades out altogether. Or it settles down to a total worldliness. 9 Strong words. It is wonderful, therefore, that Professor Hilgers has decided to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Institute by first recalling what all of us can and should do to build up a civilization of life and love. All of us. All the states of life within the Church. As priests, we also need to examine our consciences as to whether we have served our laity adequately in this area. This can also be an occasion to ask for forgiveness and renew our commitment to teach Humanae Vitae a commitment we should take up with all our hearts. And for this, I would like to thank Professor Hilgers all the more. I would also like to thank his wife, Sue, who has stood by him and supported him for all these years. A big thank you is also due to his family and all of you, his collaborators, friends and students. I thank you that you did not allow the isolation that you suffered for all these years to weaken you. In fact, it only strengthened you. I thank you that you have been so active in your work to safeguard the dignity of married love and the sacred privilege of married couples to be the exclusive collaborators with God, who is Love and Father, in bringing new life into this world. I would like to end with these words from Gaudium et Spes: Human activity, to be sure, takes its significance from its relationship to man. Just as it proceeds from man, so it is ordered toward man. For when a man works he not only alters things and society, he develops himself as well. He learns much, he cultivates his resources, he goes outside of himself and beyond himself. Rightly understood this kind of growth is of greater value than any external riches which can be garnered. A man is more precious for what he is than for what he has (Gaudium et Spes 35). 9. G.E.M. Anscombe, Faith in a Hard Ground,2008, p208

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