The Nuptial Mystery: John Paul II and the Civilisation of Love for Simon and Angela, Teresa and baby Ann Dr. Stephen Milne "Man and woman he created them" In this article, I examine John Paul II's teaching on what Pope Paul VI once called the "Civilisation of Love". In many of John Paul's writings, an underlying understanding of the human person informs his teaching, one that he developed whilst at the University of Lublin. His personalism is, in many respects, an answer and an antidote to today's individualistic and utilitarian culture in the West. For John Paul, the term "civilisation" has in some senses the same meaning as "culture" and so, we can speak also of a "culture of love" when talking about this topic. In his Letter to Families (Gratissimam Sane, 1994) 1, he explains with great richness clearly what it means to develop a true "civilisation of love". At the heart of this civilisation, says John Paul, is the family centred in marriage between a man and a woman that remains open to the gift of new life in children. In the Genesis story of the creation of man and woman, one of the texts upon which John Paul builds his Theology of the Body 2, the anthropological key to understanding the person is in their likeness to God. Likeness, as made in God's image means drawn from the very fatherhood of God and from God's Trinitarian mystery: "The divine "we" is the eternal pattern of the human "we", especially of that "we" formed by the man and the woman created in the divine image and likeness." (Letter to Families 6) Only the human being, of all creatures on earth can claim to be made in the image of God. This means that human generation through fatherhood and motherhood, although biologically similar to that of animals, is also fundamentally different. It contains a likeness to God in being able to create a family which is "a community of human life...a community of persons united in love ("communio personarum") (LF, 6). Created from the beginning as male and female, the human person derives both "masculinity" and "femininity" - a "primoridal duality" that enriches every community in which it expresses itself. Created in God's image, both 1 Gratissimam Sane, John Paul II, 1994. 2 References to Theology of the Body are from the edition by West, C. The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan, Pauline Books & Media: Boston, 1997. 1
man and woman derive an equal dignity as persons but a complementarity due to their being two different ways of being human. In this way, we discover the "very origins of human society, the qualities of communion and complementarity" (LF, 6). Neither of these fundamental norms are especially popular in today's "relationship culture", based as it is on an individualistic and often utilitarian understanding of the person. Sexual difference, where it is acknowledged, is held to count for little especially if it interferes with a successful career, a desired goal or with a promised liaison. But in John Paul's account of the person, both man and woman derive their dignity from being created for their own sakes (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 24) 3 and from their joint vocation to love. But as John Paul reminds us elsewhere, "Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love" (Familiaris Consortio, 11) 4. To the contemporary mind, however, body and spirit are placed in a radical opposition such that the body comes to be treated merely as an object for pleasure or consumption. In this new Manichaeism in which "the body does not receive life from the spirit, and the spirit does not give life to the body" man thus "ceases to live as a person and a subject". As a result, human sexuality ceases to be a source of "primordial wonder" but becomes subject to ceaseless exploitation and manipulation (LF, 19). For contemporary couples, the temptation to treat each other as objects, no matter how subtly has become very great. Without a return to "the beginning" and to an account of human sexuality and love grounded in truth, it will be difficult to reclaim marriage as an indissoluble vocation based on total self-giving until death. Without mystery, man becomes the object of rational calculation. Without the "great mystery" proclaimed by the Church, man will remain a purely material being for whom the beauty of love is removed from the realm of the Real to a matter of 'lifestyle choice' and opinion. When this happens, men and women lose touch with the eternal and are left with a love that is subject to death. But death, as all men know, favours none and makes no distinctions between husband, wife or child. Without the norms derived from Revelation, men and women cannot know the love that is "as strong as death" and which "many waters cannot quench" (Song 8:6-7). And in today's world of broken families and orphaned children, nothing could be more needed. Marriage, indissolubility and the family I referred earlier to how when discussing the civilization of love one can also speak of a 'culture of love'. For the contemporary family, John Paul's message 3 Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Vatican Council II, Catholic Truth Society: London, 1966. 4 Familiaris Consortio: The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, John Paul II, 1981. 2
continues to be both timely and urgent. Despite the struggles that many modern families undergo, many would still agree that the family is "the first and basic expression of man's social nature" (John Paul II, Letter to Families, 7). Because of this, it is the irreplaceable 'sanctuary' where children learn what it means to be loved and to love. A community of persons living in love, the family is distinctively human. This is because "only persons are capable of living "in communion"" (LF, 7) or in 'common-union'. To do this effectively and in a way that protects the person from harm, this kind of communion - what John Paul calls the communio personarum - needs to be permanent and indissoluble. Anything less goes against the common good of the family and is contrary to the truth about the person - that he or she is made for and in the image of eternal Love. This is not a popular message today. Transient 'relationships' appear more suited to today's culture because it is a culture that has lost touch with what is permanent, eternal and transcendent in man - his capacity for the divine. In particular, that most intimate of communions - mother and child - is under attack from forces that wish not only to destroy its basic image in the mother's relationship to the unborn, but also to promote a false view of freedom and the person that accompanies it. This can be seen in terms of the radicalisation of an individualistic view of freedom and a utilitarian view of the person. The problem with this view is that when it is applied to the family, it is disastrous. Family members, in order to live together (in common) have to make continual adjustments and sacrifices to others in order to get along and live together. To do otherwise leads to discord, disharmony and resentment. Human selfishness can sometimes appear stronger than a capacity to love in a way that is sacrificial. However, in fatherhood and motherhood - whose existence depends so much upon children themselves - we see a particular proof of that love. A love that can only "be deepened and preserved through love, that love which is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us' (Rm. 5:5)" (LF, 7). Even with this token and seal of God's presence in the sacrament of marriage, such a love must be continually renewed - through suffering, prayer and grace. Threats to the family are increasing today, not diminishing. All the more reason to strengthen the communion of two that leads so joyfully to the family who are "we". On faithfulness I shall continue examining John Paul II's "Civilisation of Love" by focusing on the capacity of man and woman "to live in truth and love", especially within marriage (Letter to Families, 8). Although many couples still marry today in the UK, many marriages end in divorce. In fact, in 2007, over 155,000 marriages ended this way with the average marriage lasting about 11 years. 3
The ease with which this is possible is illustrated by the availability of securing an online divorce for as little as 69 or less 5. On marriage, we make several promises - one of the main ones of which is "I promise to be faithful to you always...all the days of my life". Marriage itself, as John Paul points out, puts that promise to a difficult test because it is a demanding love that can only grow on the basis of self-sacrifice and conscious self-giving. Only "persons", says John Paul are capable of this and are capable of living the truth of their humanity - that they fulfil themselves in self-giving. "Man's need for truth and love", says John Paul, "opens him both to God and to creatures...to other people, to life 'in communion' and in particular to marriage and the family" (LF, 8). To live "in communion" or as a communio personarum is to live the objective truth of the person and to live according to the "innate and authentic dignity" of the person. This, of course, is lived not just in a spiritual sense, but importantly in a bodily sense. Through the body man and woman form a "communion of persons" in love from which children and the family can flow. This is what John Paul means by the "nuptial meaning" of the body, a dimension of gift that raises the person above that of a mere object: "There is a deep connection between the mystery of creation, as a gift springing from love, and that beautifying "beginning" of the existence of man as male and female, in the whole truth of their body and their sex, which is the pure and simple truth of communion between persons." (Theology of the Body, John Paul II, 9.1.1980) In our society, this truth is no longer recognised or even understood. Marriage, as a social contract now often fails to reflect this "eternal language of human love", not because marriage itself is flawed, but because the dominant view of the person has become de-sacralised and utilitarian. Promises - an expression of confidence in the permanent nature of truth - easily become foreshortened by relativising them according to circumstances. The effects of such an approach to marriage - an approach that is based on the belief that the meaning of human life and love has no truth to it - are making themselves felt in growing trends towards separation and divorce. Divorce itself, however, is in many ways the perfect metaphor for the way in which man has divorced himself from his own capacity to "live in truth and love". Abandoning God's plan for marriage and the family, man denies its transcendence over less permanent and more superficial arrangements. In doing so, he makes it more likely that the union of the two we call marriage will simply become indistinguishable from co-habitation. Faithfulness is a virtue, one that requires a conscious choice to live out. Because it is hard to acquire and hard to maintain, men and women sometimes need help 6. Secularism, despite presenting itself as the best approach to the organisation 5 See www.divorce-online.co.uk facts & figures and services. 6 Many oranisations now exist for this purpose such as www.marriagecare.org.uk. 4
of society, is closed to the transcendent and therefore offers few solutions to the problem of marriage and few moral or spiritual resources for couples. The Church, however, has a two thousand year old tradition of schooling the heart in virtue. It is called prayer and is nourished by the Eucharist and Reconciliation - the two sacraments that help keep the Marriage Sacrament alive. Scripture too contains wonderful material about marriage for reflection such as the miracle of the Wedding at Cana in which, as John Paul put it, God wishes "to make clear to what extent the truth about the family is part of God's revelation and the history of salvation" (LF 18). The truth of the family. To a world in which truth about human sexuality and love is all-but scorned, this might seem absurd. But the only alternative to truth, as most people recognise, is falsehood and error. And that way leads to shipwreck. The great mystery of human generation The contraceptive culture in which we live permeates almost every aspect of our lives. Literally 'against conception', and thus against the origin and beginnings of human life, our culture has a tendency to relegate the "great mystery" (cf, Eph. 5:32) of conception and birth sterile by the promotion of an anti-culture that destroys what John Paul II calls "the genealogy of the person" (Letter to Families, 9). It is an anti-culture that has cut itself off from the knowledge that every act of begetting "finds its primordial model in the fatherhood of God" such that when a new person is brought to life, right at conception, he or she brings "into the world a particular image and likeness of God himself" (LF, 9). Called forth in conception, in an act that is an echo of God's own creative action, each new person is also called to live "a life "in truth and love"" - a life that is open to both what exists in time, but also what exists in eternity. For every child, whether born or unborn, God therefore "wills" him or her for his or her own sake (Gaudium et Spes, 24). From the moment of conception, the new person begins the journey of discovery we sometimes call 'finding oneself' but it is a journey that extends beyond the boundaries of time, not one enclosed within time and therefore closed to the transcendent. Created for divine life, the unborn child not only exists for his or her own sake, but exists in the freedom of the gift - the gift by which man fulfils his very existence. To destroy this gift as abortion does, is thus to destroy man's capacity for expressing love; it is to destroy what John Paul calls the "nuptial attribute of the body" by which the body is a source of "fruitfulness and procreation" in the natural order (Theology of the Body, 16.1.1980). This destruction renders the possibility that the person can be seen as a gift and replaces it with the utilitarian notion that the person is a disposable object. In a culture that aggressively promotes contraception and abortion, we 5
should not be surprised that children are now sometimes seen, not as a gift but as a burden: "For the culture of use, the "blessed fruit of your womb" (Lk 1:42) becomes in a certain sense an "accursed fruit"." (LF, 21) With the recent publication of the report of a year-long study by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the medical magazine the Lancet 7, it has become clear that there are not scores but thousands of maltreated or neglected children in Britain - as many as one child in 10. With nearly 11 million children in this country, this means that an estimated one million children suffer abuse and neglect in this country, often at the hands of adults who perhaps no longer see them "as a priceless gift" (LF, 9). If our culture wishes to see children and childhood rehabilitated to the status of a gift, it will have to take a radical turn around. Away from the anti-life mentality that stalks even our schools, and away from the notion that children are simply inconvenient and that destroys between 500-600 of the unborn every day. If we continue to destroy the fruit of conception, we should not be surprised that many of those that escape such destruction are resented according to the same criteria of inconvenience. For those families and couples who are blessed with children, remember that "the history of mankind, the history of salvation, passes by way of the family" (LF, 23). In a culture that now so often chooses death, remember also that "the family is placed at the centre of the great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and all that is opposed to love." (LF, 23) This advent, celebrate your family life in preparation for His coming into the Holy Family of Nazareth. Make Advent a pilgrimage to the stable in Bethlehem where the Word became flesh and a Child was born to bring "good news of a great joy...to all the people" (Lk 2:10-11). The child as Paschal sign To further understand John Paul II's vision of a "civilisation of love", it is very important to consider the place of the birth of a new child in relation to the "sincere gift of self" called marriage. With more couples increasingly rejecting marriage as the authentic basis for love between man and woman the place of children and their futures is becoming increasingly unstable and fractured in modern Britain. According to The Children's Society report A Good Childhood 8, 15% of mothers in Britain are single, 25% are cohabiting and 60% are married. Cohabiting parents, however, are also more likely to separate than married parents (A Good Childhood, 27). 7 See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/03/childprotection-children, accessed 5.12.08. 8 Layard, R. and Dunn, J. (eds.) A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age, Penguin Books: London, 2009. 6
According to one study cited by the report, for the children of the 40% of mothers who do not marry, this has consequences which begin early. About 9% of young children (3-year-olds) who live with married parents have poor conceptual development for their age and about 5% have behavioural difficulties. This figure rises to 13% and 10% respectively for the same age children living with cohabiting parents, 19% and 15% for those living with a lone parent and 23% and 15% for those with a step-parent (AGC, 23). This suggests, apart from anything else, that marriage as a social structure is better for the development of children, especially at an early age. It confirms what other reports and studies such as that of the Social Justice Policy Group (Breakdown Britain, 2006) 9 have been saying for some time now. It also confirms what the Church has always taught: that marriage is the authentic basis of family life, a life that is truly worthy of love between man and woman. This is because, as John Paul teaches following the formula from Gaudium et Spes, man cannot "fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self" (GS, 24), a gift that must be "lasting and irrevocable" if it is to lead to the creation of new life. By consenting to marry, the couple come to partake in the redemption offered by the blood of Christ and so enter into the "logic of the...gift of self" upon which, and only upon which can the "communion of persons" in love become a "communion of parents" (Letter to Families, 11). The new life that is born of such a union "gives itself to its parents by the very fact of its coming into existence." Indeed, John Paul insists here that its existence "is already a gift, the first gift of the Creator to the creature", a gift that represents the common good of the family (LF, 11). Not only this, but the new child is a good for all those into whose presence she comes; a gift to brothers, sisters and the entire family. A gift to the community into which her presence comes, a presence given to man by God and therefore what the Good Childhood report also calls a "sacred trust" (AGC, 12). John Paul goes even further than this, however, in describing the new born child as a Paschal sign by comparing the pain of childbirth with the "hour" of Christ's death (cf. Jn 13:1): "...the birth of a new child fully reflects the victory of life over death brought about by the Lord's resurrection...the manifestation of life beyond the threshold of death...a manifestation of life, which is always destined, through Christ, for that 'fullness of life' which is God himself." (LF, 11) Children, and especially newborn and unborn children are therefore a reminder of Christ's victory over death; they represent a sign of our Redemption and an assurance of that Love by which we receive our hope in eternal life. Ratified by Baptism, this love brings the child into the "freedom of the children of God" for whom Christ died (Catechsim of the Catholic Church, 1250) 10. 9 See http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/default.asp?pageref=180, accessed 5.12.08. 10 Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 2000. 7
What a contrasting vision this is to the spiritually barren landscape of today's contraceptive and abortion culture in which not life, but death and sterility reign over the hearts of so many. Only by safeguarding the nobility of marriage can the "sincere gift of self" by which man "finds himself" be made secure against advocates of what John Paul II called a "false civilisation of progress" (LF, 11). A civilisation that rejects fertility and that damages children because it fails to see them in the light of the truth about human love - that man "is called by God to be a witness and interpreter of the eternal plan of love...which from the beginning was constituted by the sign of the union of flesh" (Theology of the Body, 22.8.1984). Image: Nativity by Duccio.. 8