Do you believe in love?

Do you believe in Love?

Thoughts on

Humanae Vitae

forty years down the line

If you mention the teaching document

Humanae Vitae

in Church circles today, you either get a gasp, or a loud moan, a cry of despair, or even a sad look of embarrassment. Forty years have passed since this Encyclical of Pope Paul VI was offered to the world. Is it something we should quickly forget? Or is the inspiring message of

Humanae Vitae

prophetic for our times? In a series of short articles for the MTA Magazine, we can unravel the vision and the guidance that this teaching offers. Let’s look firstly at one of the big issues of

Humanae Vitae

: What does love mean in marriage?

Before we start, we need to understand

the dignity of the human person

first. What does it mean to be human? As Christians we share a global vision of what it means to be a person. Human life is more than just a collection of biological, social or psychological factors. Every one of us should be treated as an unique person who has a vocation – in this life and in eternal life - and whose dignity embraces body and spirit. The unity of body and spirit is essential to our understanding of who a human person is. We are created and made in the “image and likeness of God”

(Genesis 1:26-27).

We are not like any other part of creation, or any other animal on the earth. Human beings, therefore, should never be treated as an object, i.e. as a means to an end. Only when we bring body and spirit together in this close unity, then we will have a healthy and solid basis for deciding what is right and wrong in human life and relationships.

Keeping this global vision of the human person in our minds, let’s look at what the message is regarding love in marriage. The Encyclical begins with a ‘trumpet blast’ of a basic Christian conviction: Love in marriage – like all human love – comes from God Himself, who ‘is love’. All love comes from God and returns to him, the Source. It is God’s wonderful plan of love that brings people together; they fall in love and by giving themselves completely to each other, begin to establish an original “communion of persons”. The love between couples is not mere chance, it has a unique nobility and value because it is a part of God’s plan of love for us. Marriage is where two people share everything they are and have. This is called the “unitive” aim of marriage. To get a clear picture of what the vision is, we have to remember

four dimensions

about love in marriage that are raised in

Humanae Vitae

.

First of all,

love means giving yourself completely

. Love carries us through the ups-and-downs of life – the joys and the sorrows. Love, by its nature, never wants to stay in the same place, it wants to grow and increase and embrace everything and everyone. Love in marriage is an invitation to become a unity with “one heart and one mind”, where both spouses look out for each other and want the best for each other. In other words, if we love each other in a Christian marriage, then we want to make each other happy and fulfilled.

Secondly,

married love is a deep friendship

. Love involves sharing everything with a great generosity of spirit. Love wants to enrich mutually. Love is all about a deep friendship. A couple, in the Sacrament of marriage, don’t have two separate lives anymore, they want to live a community of life and love, where they share everything with each other. Couples love each other, not because of what they can receive from each other, but because true love urges people to love someone just for the sake of loving, just for their own sake. Christian love is always altruistic in the true sense of the word.

Thirdly,

love in marriage is faithful and exclusive

- “till death do us part”. The media and the entertainment industry often suggest that faithfulness in marriage is a nice ideal, but in today’s world it is totally unpractical, in fact, quite impossible. As Christians, we beg to differ. We base this on the example and testimony of so many married couples down the centuries, who have remained faithful to each other – even in extreme difficulties and problems – and have found true happiness because of their lasting commitment to each other. The entertainment industry and some politicians too readily would have us believe that adultery and unfaithfulness are almost inevitable, and that making “nuptial contracts” before marriage is the best way and most sensible way to go. In actual fact, they undermine marriages and promote suspicion and financial calculation over trust and an unconditional commitment.

Lastly, marriage in the Christian sense

brings new life

. Pope Paul Vi writes:

“the whole of this love is certainly not contained within the communion of the spouses alone, but it tends to extend itself and to give rise to new lives… Children are surely the supreme gift of marriage…”

Love is not a static reality, it is a dynamic and creative reality. It either grows or it diminishes. In the Christian vision, being open to the gift of new life, is an essential dimension of marriage. This is called the “procreative” aim of marriage. For Christians, children are not a nuisance, or a burden, but a gift. For God, there is no such thing as an “unwanted” pregnancy.

Compare these four dimensions of our Christian vision of marriage to what you see on television and what you hear from some politicians today. Father Joseph Kentenich once commented:

“You can only counteract a bad vision, by promoting a better one”

. In the vision of the married and family life, Christians have never been more counter-cultural, or never been more “a sign of contradiction” as they are today. How can we pass on this message of authentic love to others?

In the next issue: What does it mean to be a mum or dad?

Father Duncan McVicar SI

(For further reading, please have a look at the book from G.J. Woodall, Humanae Vitae – Forty years on.)