Tag: Family

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Pope Gregory the Great: Advice to the Married

121814Every now and again when I write on Holy Matrimony, especially the Church’s more staunch biblical teachings (indissolubility, no contraception, etc.), someone will inevitably write in with a kind of sneer and wonder at or even laugh at a celibate man advising married people about marriage. To be sure, inner experience of something has its place, but so does external observance. I remember as a youth that my swimming coach, who was out of the water, would often correct us if our form was wrong, and advise us on how to adjust it to swim better and faster. His perspective from out of the water gave him an understanding that even I, an experienced swimmer in the water, could not have. I might think my form was perfect, but he could see that it was not.

Similarly, priests and other celibates (such as religious) DO have something to teach about marriage. What we teach is not better than the advice of married people, but it is different; it is given from a different perspective. From our position, sometimes we can see things about Holy Matrimony that even the married have trouble seeing. Further, it is to be hoped that priests and religious are also well-versed in the Biblical teaching on Matrimony and family life and can offer the benefit of our study of God’s Word and our relationship with the Author of Holy Matrimony.

With that introduction, I would like to present some of the teaching of Pope St. Gregory the Great and his advice to the married. For spiritual reading, I am currently finishing up his Pastoral Rule, which contains this teaching. Since he is a priest and Bishop, his advice is less on practical things (such as communication, conflict resolution, etc.) and more at the level of theology and priorities. And yet it does have very practical importance. The following excerpts are taken from his Pastoral Rule (III.27) and are presented in bold, italics.

My own comments appear in red text.

Those who are joined in marriage should be advised that, as they mutually consider what is good for their spouse, they should be careful that when they please their spouse, they do not displease their maker. In other words, they should conduct their affairs in this world without relinquishing their desire for God … They should remain aware that their current situation is transitory and what they desire is permanent.

And in this is the heart of St. Gregory’s advice: God comes first. And even if a spouse may pressure one to forsake what God teaches, or to neglect to pray or attend to sacred duties, let that one with charity and confidence withstand any temptation to negligence of or disobedience to God. Pleasing God is more important and more required than pleasing one’s spouse. And while these two are not necessarily or even usually in conflict, when they are, God must be preeminent.

St. Gregory also reminds that Matrimony is of this world and therefore transitory, while the things of God remain forever. We frequently forget this and focus instead on passing things, joys, and troubles, and forget or minimize the things of the life to come, which have greater significance since they are permanent.

Such an insight is focused on seeing not only marriage’s joys in their proper and passing perspective, but also its sorrows and difficulties. “Trouble don’t last always.” And in this is a remedy that helps to endure difficulties and to see beyond the crosses to the glory that waits and endures.

[Though] as [the married] cannot completely abandon the temporal things [they] can desire union with the eternal … therefore, the married Christian should not give himself entirely to the things that he now possesses, or else he will fall completely from that which he ought to hope … St. Paul expresses this well and so simply saying for he who has a wife should act as though not having one. [In other words he means that] he who enjoys the consolation of the carnal life through his wife, but does so in such a way that his love for her does not divert him. He also has a wife as though not having one, who understands that all things are transitory. 

Here, too, while the love of one’s spouse and the goods of marriage are not necessarily, or even usually, in conflict with the desire for eternal things, nevertheless the married must not fail to consciously work to keep these desires connected and to not allow worldly desires to eclipse or attenuate the desire for heavenly things.

This happens in other areas beyond marriage, too. For example, we have attained great comfort in the modern age with electricity, running water, entertainment, good food in abundance, etc. And sadly, there is a pronounced diminishment today for spiritual things and the things of Heaven. Even many Christians in their so-called spiritual life and prayers, pray more and longer for better finances, improved health, and worldly things than they do for holiness and even Heaven.

Thus the joys of this world and those of matrimony ought to be seen as a mere foretaste of far greater glories to come for which we must more truly long.

The married should be advised that they endure with mutual patience those things that occasionally bring displeasure and that they exhort one another to salvation … They should be advised that they not worry themselves so much about what they must endure from their spouse, but consider what their spouse must endure on account of them. For if one really considers what must be endured on his account, it is all the easier to bear the things of others.

It is so easy to list the sins and shortcomings of others. But every spouse should begin by saying, “My marriage is not perfect because I am in it … I am a sinner and I married a sinner, knowing he was a sinner … I am living in a fallen world, governed by a fallen angel, and I myself have a fallen nature.”

The patience that Pope Gregory reminds us of is a reference to the Cross. And the Lord tells us that we must be willing to endure the Cross or we cannot be His disciples. Frankly, people often lay the heaviest crosses on those whom they love. This is because they care about them.

And love brings vulnerability. The word “vulnerabilty” is rooted in the Latin word “vulnera” meaning “wound.” Thus to be vulnerable is to be able to endure wounds out of love. And patience is rooted in the Latin word “patior” meaning “to suffer.” Hence patience bespeaks a capacity or willingness to suffer on account of others.

The married should be advised to remember that they come together for the purpose of producing children, but when they become immoderately enslaved by intercourse, they transfer the occasion for procreation to the service of pleasure … Thus St. Paul, skilled in heavenly medicine writes “Concerning the things you wrote to me, it is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman, but on account of fornication, let everyone have his own wife and every woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:1).  And thus, by beginning with the fear of fornication, Paul did not extend this precept to those who were strong, but rather showed the couch to those who are weak, so they would not fall to the ground. He then adds, “Let the husband give what he ought to his wife, and similarly the wife to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:3). … [He says this] because there are many who [though] clearly forsaking the sins of the flesh [i.e., fornication], nevertheless, in the practice of marital intercourse have not limited themselves solely to the confines of righteousness (i.e., intercourse without procreative intent).

And thus, though marital intercourse is both licit and noble, like any pleasure it can take on an importance either too large, or out of connection with its truest purposes.

In the modern age, the contraceptive mentality insists that there is no necessary connection between sex and procreation. When this error (contrary to both natural law and revealed truth) is indulged, sex is reduced to the thing itself and we divide what God has joined. Sex merely for pleasure too easily devolves into demeaning, even unnatural behaviors and to the reduction of others, even spouses, to sexual playthings, rather than eventual parents. A man who looks at his wife as (potentially or actually) the mother of his children sees her differently than if he sees her as a sexual plaything.

It was in this context that Pope John Paul controversially stated that it was possible even for spouses to lust after one another in violation of the Lord’s teaching in Matthew 5:28. And what is lust? Essentially, it is reducing the human person to his or her body and the pleasure that body can provide. It is forgetting that this is a person to be loved for his or her own sake, even if his/her body is not available for pleasure, or becomes less “desirable” through age or sickness.

Thus sexual desire, though beautiful and given by God, is, on account of our fallen nature, unruly and must be governed carefully by reason. It must not be allowed to eclipse what is right and what is greater than sex—God and the new life and the family life of which it is in service.

St. Gregory therefore interprets that St. Paul also teaches that a man ought to give his wife what she is due: not merely his body, but himself, wholly. He also should give her what is due by loving not merely her sexual charms, but her very self, her whole self. Likewise for the wife in return are all the same duties. 

If marital intercourse is just about pleasure and not about bigger and lasting things like the other person and children, pleasure has a way of running its course and becoming routine or boring. Building a marriage on things more lasting than pleasure and happiness is essential. Hence Pope Gregory uses creatively the notion that St. Paul shows couples the couch of true marital sexuality and bids them fall on that couch rather than all the way to the ground through lust, contraceptive sex, or fornication. 

Some wisdom from a great Father, pastor, and Saint of the Church. St. Gregory the Great, Pray for us! 

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Pondering”Gradualism”and the”Midterm”Report

"St Peter's Square, Vatican City - April 2007" by Diliff - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
“St Peter’s Square, Vatican City – April 2007” by Diliff – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0via Wikimedia Commons.

The so-called “midterm” report of the Synod is out. Please remember, it is only a rough draft and the final report may in fact look very different. Frankly, I am not sure why we are even being permitted to look at a rough draft. Nevertheless, presuming the Pope is serious about inviting discussion, let me consider a certain aspect of the report and a few particulars.

A governing principle that seems to permeate the report’s reflections is one that some refer to as “gradualism.” As a pastoral strategy, gradualism can be an effective, even necessary approach in order to lead people more deeply into the moral and spiritual life of the Church. However, as with any pastoral strategy, there are serious concerns and pitfalls to avoid.

What is gradualism? While I myself have never personally called it this, gradualism is a way in which we meet people where they are and seek gradually to draw them more deeply into the true life of a Christian. All of us who have journeyed toward Christ realize that we have we have not always been where we are today, and that future growth is necessary. Growth usually happens in stages and by degrees, ideally leading us more deeply to Christ.  

Perhaps an analogy involving a doctor and patient may help. Suppose a doctor meets a man in his late 50s who presents with a large number of health issues. There are many things wrong with the man (obesity, hypertension, diabetic tendencies, pulmonary and cardiac issues, etc.). Many aspects of the man’s lifestyle (drinking and eating to excess, poor diet, smoking, lack of exercise, etc.) may be contributing to this deterioration in his health. Seldom does a doctor give a patient a list of 25 things to do immediately. Such a “prescription” might leave the patient discouraged and unlikely to comply. So most doctors choose to chip away at the problem. What are some small changes that the patient can reasonably make in the next month? Perhaps it is beginning to take short walks, or making small  changes in his diet.  And thus the doctor begins with what he thinks is reasonable and achievable right away, and then gradually draws the patient to a more healthy lifestyle and better health. Small changes can eventually lead to a lot of progress.

In the pastoral ministry, similar strategies are often employed and they sometimes make good sense. People who show up at the front door of the rectory (or at our RCIA or marriage preparation programs) often present in a state of extensive spiritual disrepair. Many unhealthy and sinful moral issues or spiritually irregular practices are evident. Many have also been influenced by modern errors and misinformation. In many cases, the best place for a priest to begin is with a conversation, laying a foundation of trust that will assist the person in being conformed once again to the truth of the Gospel. During these conversations, the priest can clarify doubts and errors, display careful reasoning based on Scripture, and explain why we teach certain things. This approach can inspire repentance from sinful habits or patterns.

Priests and other pastoral leaders engage in this process frequently even if we don’t use the term “gradualism.” Not everyone is ready to go right into the confessional. Most people must be carefully prepared and led back to the truth. It is obviously a process that will vary considerably from person to person depending on his or her needs.

However, as with any pastoral strategy, there are pitfalls that must be avoided. Here are a few concerns that the practice of so-called gradualism might raise:

1. Gradualism works best when the one who administers it remains committed to seeing the whole process through and is not simply trying to evade the difficult work of restoring people. Again, for example,  the doctor who begins in small ways to help a person to better health must remain deeply aware of how serious things like heart disease, pulmonary disease, etc. are. Well-trained doctors must have a proper sense of urgency for the overall goal of actually restoring health. Today in the Church, however, it is not certain that a similar urgency is evident among the laity, the rank and file clergy, and I would suppose even some bishops.

However, the prevalence of “universalism” (the unbiblical view that all are saved in the end no matter what) in the Church has led to a profound lack of urgency. Very few in pastoral leadership today have a strong sense of concern about the fact that so many people are confused, are in darkness, and are living in serious, unrepentant sin. In the midst of a great moral crisis, many pulpits remain strangely silent and most parishes seem more focused on the next chicken dinner or the upcoming fundraiser than about how to reach out to those who live in darkness.

It is very troubling, akin to a doctor suddenly saying, “Well, heart disease, cancer, etc. are not really big deals, so in the end it doesn’t really matter whether we do anything or not.” And yet for many in the Church this is exactly the way they speak, at least implicitly. Apparently, for many, it is no big deal that people are living in great moral confusion, or that many are not coming to Mass, receiving sacraments, or explicitly confessing Christ, or that many are fornicating, divorcing, and engaging in or celebrating homosexual acts. If, as universalism implies, everyone will be saved in the end, who really cares all that much that people do these things?

This widely held pastoral stance has left many in  the Church without an appropriate sense of urgency to reach out to people who may in fact be lost.

In such a climate, gradualism is not likely to work well since there is no necessary goal to which we must urgently summon those to whom we minister.  In such a climate of little urgency, the emphasis is more on how people might feel. And even if gradualism is attempted, at some point, even in gradualism, there are difficult things that have to be said and unpopular truths that must be announced. Without that urgency to drive it, it’s hard to imagine a “gradualist” approach really moving the ball much.

Only if the priest or pastoral leader is deeply committed to the truth and is aware of the urgent need for people to live that truth, can gradualism bear the necessary fruit. Do such leaders exist? Yes, but how numerous they are is debatable in the Church today, so infected is it by universalism.

2. Gradualism as a strategy is poorly attested to in Scripture, where an urgent call to conversion and repentance is more the norm. The biblical evidence paints a picture of prophetic urgency and a strategy that strongly, even sternly asserts a clear contrast with the sinful world. The call to come away from worldly thinking is unambiguous and is to be done singularly and without lots of careful steps laid out.

For example, Jesus says, If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me (John 15:18-21). And Paul admonishes,  Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:2).

Some will argue that Both Jesus and St. Paul were dealing with a small window of time and thus had to work urgently and in this manner. Fine. But Scripture cannot be wholly set aside as a model for evangelization. And even though our culture may prefer the “kinder, gentler” approach, and gradualism has its place, it must be balanced with other pastoral strategies that emphasize contrast and urgency.


3. Gradualism is a personal pastoral strategy, not  a global strategy. That is to say, it is directed to a specific person. The skilled pastor will have to adapt such a strategy to the specific needs of different people. Gradualism is a very complicated thing to try to pull off toward a group.

On any given Sunday, a pastor looks out upon a congregation filled with people at all different stages of spiritual and moral growth. He cannot possibly have a homily perfectly crafted to draw every one of them in stages, gradually closer to the truth. He will have to speak generally, but also very clearly, to the issues.

St. John Vianney was reputed to have remarked that a pastor should be tough in the pulpit and more gentle in the confessional. This illustrates to some degree the problem with gradualism applied to a large, diverse group such as a typical Catholic congregation. It works better as a personal strategy wherein a confessor or pastor can help a person work on particular areas in order to lay the ground for other areas. But this is very personal and varies widely from person to person. 

And this leads to the next point.

4. The cultural climate also presents challenges for the widespread use of gradualism. Generally, in these days of rapid cultural collapse and deep cynicism about biblical morality, a silent, quiet, or highly gentle approach is likely to be regarded as evidence of implicit agreement. Many today will say, “See, I went to this parish or that confessor and no one said anything to me about what I’m doing; no one seems concerned. So I guess it’s all right.” Thus, gentleness is confused with approval.

The Synod “midterm,” as published, contains a lot of ambiguous language about being “welcoming” and finding what is beautiful in non-traditional expressions of family and sexuality. OK, I get it; even a broken clock is right twice a day. And in certain personal settings, we can sit down with people and find areas of agreement. But when “gradualist” notions are issued to a wide, unbelieving, skeptical world such broad notions are subject to a thousand interpretations and may signal to some that the Church has “moved” in her doctrinal stance. Gradualism must be more carefully articulated. Signaling this approach without proper distinctions clouds more than it clarifies; it blurs the Church and her teaching.

Thus, when the document speaks about homosexuals and being open to the gifts they bring, to whom is it really referring? To those homosexuals who are living celibately? Or to those openly living in unions and engaging in activity that the Catechism calls gravely disordered and sinful? One can surely see that celibate homosexuals heroically living chastely in a world gone mad would indeed have the gift of heroic witness to offer, among other gifts. I am less certain that whatever gifts an openly practicing homosexual would bring would not be eclipsed by the scandal and confusion caused by that open practice.

When the document speaks of “accepting the reality of civil marriage and also cohabitation …”  and goes on to state rather generally that many such “unions” have “reached a notable level of stability through a public bond … characterized by deep affection, responsibility with regard to offspring …” one wonders what “gradualism” is necessary for seemingly so lovely a thing. It sounds like the Synod is equivocating between true marriage and the endless arrangements of the world that clearly vary from God’s plan.

One can see a pastor working quietly with a cohabiting couple and encouraging them to validate their union, even telling them that their relationship appears beautiful and strong and that the Church’s blessing will make it even better. But for a Roman document to use such broad and affirming language to an unspecified audience is to invite the notion that affection equals approval.

Our modern culture is not usually going to understand these “outreaches” as an invitation to come to Christ, but rather as a capitulation by the Church to the status quo. The subtle approach of gradualism does not translate well to a culture that takes a mile when the Church offers an inch.

The better approach is that reputed of St. John Vianney: the Church should be clear in the pulpit and work quietly and in stages with people who struggle to meet the norms (and that is all of us, really). Let the norms and teachings of the Church be clear. Let local pastors and clergy work carefully within guidelines to clear obstacles, apply canonical remedies, and draw people (gradually) through preaching and teaching to a deeper adherence to the true and clear teaching of Christ and His Church.

Gradualism has its place: as a local and very personalized strategy under the direction of Church norms. I do not think it is viable as a worldwide pastoral strategy, one which will surely be misunderstood and likely misapplied.

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“I did not know him.”A mediation on a saying of John the Baptist

012014In the Gospel from this past Sunday John the Baptist says something strange about Jesus:

I did not know him (Jn 1:30)

Kind of an odd thing for John to say of Jesus. He was his cousin, and one would presume he knew Jesus quite well. Even if they lived in different towns, it was common for larger family gatherings to occur, as well as pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

It seems likely that John did know Jesus, yet he says he did not know him.

And thus we likely have here a declaration that refers to a deeper appreciation of Jesus, that John, by a work of the Holy Spirit, has come to know Jesus more deeply. St. Paul says something similar:

Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. (2 Cor 5:16)

Thus seeing Jesus in a mere fleshly way must give way to a deeper seeing, according to the Spirit. Jesus is no mere man, he is the Lord. Mary Magdalene made a similar transition when she ran to the Apostles after the Resurrection and said, “I have seen the Lord.” St. John says it too when he declares from the boat, seeing Jesus on the shore after the resurrection: “It is the Lord!”

Seeing and experiencing the Lord more deeply is an on-going work of the Spirit. And even as we do this with the Lord, in a lesser but still important way we are called to do so with and for the people we love. We are called to appreciate more deeply the mystery and dignity of their lives.

I have had to make this journey with people I love. I think especially of my only sister, Mary Anne.

Over twenty years ago she died at the age of thirty. Mary Anne was very debilitated with mental illness. From about the time she was 13, she was in a dozen different mental hospitals and four or five different group homes. She could be very sweet one moment, and then quite violent the next. She heard voices and was diagnosed with a very serious form of schizophrenia.

I struggled about how to deal with my sister. I didn’t really know what to say or do, and, to be honest she troubled me.

In 1991 Mary Anne died in a fire; a fire she likely started according to the investigators. That was also one of the tendencies she had manifest several times before. She was also a smoker, and that may have contributed to it.

At her death, the funeral director made her as presentable as possible given that she had died in a fire. And while he recommended we have a closed casket for the public he thought we could view her body.

For me it was an astonishing and eye-opening moment. As I looked upon her, I could see that she had died weeping. The funeral director explained that her face was very delicate from the fire and could not be “adjusted.” I’ll never forget the look of her face. I saw her pain, her grief, her suffering. I wept. I saw too her dignity, and I regretted very deeply that it took her death for me to see it.

I prayed that day I would learn to others more deeply, appreciate their dignity and understand their pain with greater compassion. I will not say I have done so perfectly, but I have tried, especially with those with whom I am closest.

There is a depth to every human person, and a dignity we are called to see. As St. Paul says, we are no longer to regard others in a merely human or fleshly way. We are to see increasingly with the eyes of God.

An old spiritual says, “Nobody knows the trouble I seen, nobody but Jesus. An while we can never see as Jesus sees, if we grow in union with him we will see more as he sees.

St. John said, “I did not know him.” But of course he did come to know him far more deeply. And so must we know Christ more deeply, and in Christ, know one another more deeply.

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Literally Messing with their Brain. What Recent Scientific Studies Can Teach Us About Ourselves and Raising our Children

120913In modern times there has been a tendency to downplay the differences between men and women, preferring to see whatever differences have historically existed as simply social constructs. This thinking was insisted upon by many as a kind of political correctness that must be held otherwise punishment and excoriation was sure to follow.

Nevertheless, most people with common sense have always known that men and women are very different, and that these differences are not simply the result of social constructs or the way people were raised.

Now scientists have made discoveries not only affirming that men and women are different, but helping to show one of the reasons why.

At the heart of the recent studies, and discoveries, is the fact that men’s brains and women’s brains are usually wired very differently. While the pathways that set up in the brain can be influenced by the setting in which one is raised, especially at the time of puberty and before, the study shows that there is a very strong tendency for men’s brains to be wired front to back, and for women’s brains to be wired right to left.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

Researchers found that many of the connections in a typical male brain run between the front and the back of the same side of the brain, whereas in women the connections are more likely to run from side to side between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

This difference in the way the nerve connections in the brain are “hardwired” occurs during adolescence…

A special brain-scanning technique called diffusion tensor imaging, which can measure the flow of water along a nerve pathway, established the level of connectivity between nearly 100 regions of the brain, creating a neural map of the brain…

Because the female connections link the left hemisphere, which is associated with logical thinking, with the right, which is linked with intuition, this could help to explain why women tend to do better than men at intuitive tasks…

Men tend to outperform women involving spatial tasks and motor skills – such as map reading – while women tend to better in memory tests, such as remembering words and faces, and social cognition tests, which try to measure empathy and “emotional intelligence”.

“It’s quite striking how complementary the brains of women and men really are,” said Rubin Gur of Pennsylvania University, a co-author of the study.

You can read more of the study here: Study Shows Brain differences

Now of course I’m not writing a science blog here, but I would like to make a couple of comments, one of them theological/philosophical, and the other moral.

First, regarding the theological/philosophical point. While it is refreshing to see science affirming what we all basically know by ordinary sense and experience, namely, that men and women think very differently, it seems nevertheless that a certain caution is in order. For in our materialistic and reductionist times there is a tendency to reduce the human person to merely the biological and especially, to the brain.

But of course, even at the physical level, we are more than a brain on a stick. Our whole central nervous system, interacts with our brain, as does the whole of our body, forming a very mysterious mind-body, connection that contributes very strongly, and collectively to our sense of “I” as a person.

Beyond the complexities and magnificence of our physical nature, is also the mysterious and powerful presence of our soul. Surely our soul interacts with our brain, and our whole body, both influencing it and being influenced by it.

And good though this study is, and interesting besides, we cannot simply explain the differences between men and women by studying brains. Why is this?

Theology and philosophy speak of the soul is being the “form” of the body. What does it mean to speak of the “form of the body?” Well consider if you’re going to design a glove. How would you design it? Well, you would look at the form and function of the hand. The hand then, is the form of a glove. Now a  hand has a certain size and four fingers with a fifth opposeable thumb. But the fingers of the hand also move along three hinges or joints.

Thus, in designing a glove, four fingers, with an opposeable thumb are required. And also required is the capacity of the glove to permit the movement of the fingers. All of these factors give rise to the design and features of the glove. Thus the the hand is the form of a glove.

And so, when we speak of the soul as being the form of the body, we are saying much the same thing. The soul has certain capacities, and the body, that God designs, reflects these capacities. And thus, our soul as a powerful intellectual capacity, and the capacity to reason, therefore we have large brains. The soul also has the capacity to express its thoughts, and so the human person has the physical capacity, using our larynx,  tongue, lips etc  to communicate. Our souls also have an emotional capacity and the ability to exhibit subtle cues, and thus our faces and hands and other bodily movements are very expressive of our emotional state and inner thoughts. Our soul also has the capacity to do both grand works, and very delicate and close work, and thus, our hands especially, are able to lift heavy objects, and yet also do very delicate and close work.

Well,  you get the point, the design of our body is reflective of the capacities of our soul, the soul is a form of the body. Now dogs, for example, do not talk, not simply because they lack a larynx, but chiefly because they have little or nothing to say. Human beings on the other hand have a lot to say, and our body has many faculties to accomplish that fact.

Therefore, in an article such as this, science is doing what science does best, namely looking at the physical aspects of the human person. I do not ask more of science than this, and appreciate the insight of an article like this.

But as a theologian and a philosopher I want to insist that men and women are different, not simply because their brains tend to be wired differently, but also because their souls have different capacities and gifts. I am not male simply because my body is male, my soul is also male.

We live in an age the things that thinks a “sex change” operation can change our sexual identification. It cannot. Our bodies manifest our soul, for the soul is the form of the body. Mutilating the body, does not change the soul. In a fallen world, there are occasional situations which set up where, due to genetic damage etc. some are born with ambiguous bodily features. But this is an anomaly, and anomalies do not deny the nature of things, but on account of their rarity, affirm the nature of things.

In no way do I write this reflection on the soul, as a denial of what science shows. I only write to remind those of us who believe to remember that we are more than brains and bodies. And this is especially important to remember in reductionist times such as these. In this case, science affirms the clear differences men and women generally show. I wish only to add that these differences are explained by more than brain chemistry; they reach also the soul.

The second principle I wish to speak to, is more in the moral realm. For, as the study shows,  it would seem clearer than ever, that not only are men and  women different, but that they complement each other.

The study says that men are more spatial and analytical, less and less empathic whereas women are better at tasks requiring memory, intuition, and the navigating of complex relationships.

It is strongly evident, that all these qualities are important, even essential to properly navigate life and therefore, men and  women need one another both socially, but also in marriage, and especially in the important and critical task of rearing and forming children.

It is  commonly held today that it does not matter if a child has only one mother, or one father or two fathers or two mothers. But of course common sense tells us that it does matter.

Those of us were blessed to be raise by a father and mother know that our mother witnessed to and taught us many things that our father could not. Likewise our father witnessed to and taught us many things that our mother could not.

Masculinity and femininity have important things to contribute to the raising of every child. To intentionally deprive children of this complementary relationship of a father and a mother is to impoverish that child.

The study shows that the wiring of the brain tends to take place especially at the critical moment of puberty. And thus, it seems that for a child to be lacking masculine and feminine examples close at hand, we may find that the wiring and pathways of their brain are quite literally affected,  surely also their soul.

Of course this insight is affirmed by our experience of the last 40 years where increasing numbers of children are not raised by their father and mother,  but are raised in all sorts of other abnormal situations. It is quite obvious that many social ills come from this abnormal situation ranging from lower test scores and graduation rates, all the way through more serious social problems such as teenage pregnancy immaturity, poverty, sexual confusion and even suicide. The study even hints at the rise in autism as being tied to how the brain is formed in the critical puberty and pre-puberty years.

If it is true that there is more to our thinking patterns than social convention etc. and that our thinking patterns are quite literally hardwired into our body in our critical formative years, then we can see the moral imperative of ensuring that children are in the proper environment with a father and a mother, a male and female influence, and  help ensure proper brain development. And I would add at the soul be properly formed.

A young boy, without his father, without a male influence may find many conflicts set up as his brain which is meant to be wired from front to back does not receive the proper example for this to more properly take place. Likewise for young women.

I can hear some of the rebuttals now: “Where’s your data, where are all the studies?” And to this I would simply say “Where are yours?” Studies ought to be made. But in the meantime, we have no business experimenting on children if there is reason to doubt the children are effectively raised in single-parent settings or single-sex settings. And common sense tells us there is reason to doubt it.  I should think that the burden of proof would be on those who want to engage in social experimentation with children.

If anything, this study tends to reaffirm that the formation especially at the time of puberty, is important to get right. Nature, and nature’s God supply a father and a mother. We are foolish to set aside this model, as we largely have culturally speaking. We may literally be messing with our children’s brains and futures.

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Raising Boys

100813Some time ago I read an article in First Things by Sally Thomas entitled: The Killer Instinct. The article ponders the modern aversion to the male psyche. Young boys are full of zealous energy, full of spit and vinegar, and have a a proclivity to rough and even violent play. Many modern parents and educators seem troubled by this and often attempt to soften boys, make them behave more like girls. Sadly there is even an attempt by some to diagnosis typically rough-house and energetic boys as having ADHD and they are put on medicines to suppress what is in the end a normal male energy. I do not deny that there can be a true ADHD diagnosis in some cases, but it may also be a symptom of an increasingly feminized culture that finds normal male behavior to be violent and a diagnosable “disorder.” What I have said here may here may be “controversial” but in the finest male tradition, remember, we can always “spar” in the comments section!

I’d like to present excerpts of the article here and then add some of m own comments in red. You can read the whole article by clicking on the title above.

The default mode of many parents is to be as alarmed by [the] proclivity in their sons [to shoot and stab at things and be aggressive]…..An obvious fascination with shooting things might seem like one of those warning signals we all read about…It used to be that parents waited for Johnny to start torturing the cat before they worried. My generation of parents seems to worry that owning a rubber-band shooter will make Johnny want to torture the cat. A friend of mine told me that he and his wife had decided not to give their boys guns for toys. What they discovered was that without the toy everything became a gun: sticks, brooms, scissors, their fingers. In the end, they “made peace” with the fact that boys love guns and swords and stopped worrying about latent tendencies to violence. Somehow it was in a boy’s nature and they couldn’t “nurture” it away.

As a toddler, one of my sons liked to stand behind his baby sister’s chair and pull her head back as far as it would go, to watch it spring up again like a punching bag on its stem….and then she screamed….From my son’s point of view, it was altogether a gratifying exercise. My intervention was always swift and decisive…I implored my son, “Don’t be rough. Be gentle.” …I am struck, now, by the strangeness of what I said to him. We don’t tell someone struggling with lust simply not to want sex; we don’t tell a glutton that his problem will be solved if he stops being hungry. Yet, I might as well have said, “Stop being a boy.”…. What I think I have come to understand about boys is that a desire to commit violence is not the same thing as a desire to commit evil. It’s a mistake for parents to presume that a fascination with the idea of blowing something away is, in itself, a disgusting habit, like nose-picking, that can and should be eradicated. The problem is not that the boy’s hand itches for a sword. The problem lies in not telling him what [the sword and itch] are for, that they are for something. If I had told my aggressive little son not, “Be gentle,” but, rather, “Protect your sister,” I might, I think, have had the right end of the stick.(This is a very brilliant insight. It is essential that we not try to destroy the innate gifts that God gives us in order to “control” them. We must learn to harness them and sublimate them so that they achieve the end to which they are intended).

Anne Roche Muggeridge, who reared four boys in the 1970s and 1980s, observes that

prevailing society now thoroughly regards young men as social invalids. . . . The fashion in education for the past three decades has been to try to make boys more like girls: to forbid them their toy guns and rough play, to engage them in exercises of “cooperation and sharing,” …to denounce any boyish roughness as “aggressive” and “sexist.”

Muggeridge writes of a visit to a doctor who urged on her a prescription for Ritalin, saying that a child as constantly active as her two-year-old son must be disturbed. “He’s not disturbed,” she responded. “He’s disturbing.” It is to realize, as Anne Roche Muggeridge did while watching her sons take turns throwing each other into a brick wall, that what you have in your house is not a human like you but a human unlike you. In short, as Muggeridge puts it, you are bringing up an “alien.” Yes, it has been very frustrating to be a man in the modern age let alone have to grow up under the tutelage of social scientists and education bureaucrats who scorn and suspect your very nature. Boys are aggressive. That is natural and good. They must be taught to master it and focus the energy of their aggression on the right object, but they should not be scorned for who and what they are. Such scorning has become for too many a sense that they are socially “enlightened.” It is time to see this attitude as a the type of bigotry and sexism that it too often is. To many women (and some feminized men) a boy in his raw state may in fact seem like an alien, but even aliens deserve respect 🙂

[There is an] initiation rite, devised and performed by our parish’s young priest twice a year in the church. This rite involves a series of solemn vows to be “a man of the Church,” “a man of prayer,” and so forth. It includes induction into the Order of the Brown Scapular, the bestowing of a decidedly manly red-and-black knot rosary, and the awarding of a red sash. What the boys look forward to, though, with much teasing of soon-to-be inductees about sharpened blades and close shaves…is the moment when a new boy kneels before Father and is whacked smartly on each shoulder with a large, impressive, and thoroughly real sword. Great idea. I’m going to work in my parish about initiating something like this.

These Holy Crusaders are, after all, ordinary boys—sweaty and goofy and physical. For them to take the Cross seriously requires something like a sword. For them to take the sword, knowing what it’s for, requires the Cross. …A boy’s natural drive to stab and shoot and smash can be shaped, in his imagination, to the image of sacrifice, of laying down his life for his friends. In the meantime, this is the key to what brings these boys to church. It’s not their mothers’ church or their sisters’ church; it is theirs, to serve and defend. Yes, yes! Amen. Greater love hath no man that to lay down his life for his friends. Christian manhood needs to be rediscovered in some segments of the Church. Too many men stay away from Church because it seems feminine to them. Sermons about duty, courage and fighting the good fight have given way to a steady diet of compassion, kindness, being nice, getting along, self actualizing and, did I mention being nice? These are not wrong virtues but they must be balanced by virtues that call us to stand up and speak out with courage, accepting our duties and fighting the good fight of faith, if necessary unto death. Men respond to the call when it is given in a way that respects their manhood. Balance is needed in the preaching and teaching of the Church and it seems that in recent decades we may have lost this in many settings, IMHO. If you think I’m crazy, remember this is a conversation. Hit the comment button and have it.

Sally Thomas, a contributing writer for FIRST THINGS, is a poet and homeschooling mother in North Carolina.

Here’s a video summoning boys unto manhood:

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Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, Nobody but Jesus. A meditation on a grief observed.

My Father died a little over five years ago, and except for essential papers related to his estate, I simply boxed up most of his papers and stored them in the attic of my rectory for future attention. At long last I am sorting through those papers. Among his effects were also many papers of my mother, who died some seven years ago.

I must say that there are many moving things I discovered, as I read through their papers and I was reminded that many of us never really know the pain and grief that some others bear. I particular I was struck at the poignant file that was simply labeled, “Mary Anne.” (Picture of all of them at right)

My sister Mary Anne was tragically afflicted with mental illness from her earliest days. My parents knew there was trouble early on when she did not speak a word till she was well past two, and then only at home. She had a pathological shyness that led her to shut down in the presence of others outside the home. By six years of age, the counselor at her elementary school spoke of her as “disturbed” and insisted on psychiatric care.

Discretion and brevity limit what I intend to share. But she was deeply troubled, by age 13 she had to be hospitalized and spent the remainder of her life in 15 different mental hospitals and 6 different group homes. She was often able to visit with us, and even stay over on weekend passes. She had stretches where she was stable. But soon “the voices” returned, as did the dreams that afflicted her. Her psychotic episodes often led to running away, outbursts of violence, and suicidal attempts.

Through all of this my parents fought very hard for her, and to be sure she go the care she needed. This often led them to various courts and generated quite a correspondence with insurance companies and mental health officials of the State and private hospitals where she was confined. Indeed, in her life my parents made many sacrifices for Mary Anne, financial and personal, to ensure her care. At one point in the early 1970s, aware that Mary Anne felt isolated in the house with three brothers and wanted a sister, they went so far as to seek to adopt a baby girl, filing papers and coming very close, but the plan fell through. The baby sister we never had.

Maryanne died in a fire in the winter of 1991 at the age of 30. She likely had a hand in that fire, and had often set fires before when the voices told her to. I could see the pain on her face as her body lay in the casket. And I wept when I saw her. The funeral director explained there was little he could do since her skin had been singed in the fire. She had clearly been crying when she died. A grief observed.

Of her, my father wrote this on the frontispiece of her file that I discovered:

Mary Anne Pope was our first child.
She led a tortured existence during a short life
and fought hard against great odds.
We remember her for her courage.

And as I read my own parents’ touching recollections of Mary Anne I could not help but moved too by their own pain. Such a heavy grief punctuates each page. I give them great credit for the fact that they insulated the rest of us, their three boys, from most of the dreadful details of poor Mary Anne’s struggle. They kept their pain largely to themselves and stayed available to us. It is true their were episodes we had to know about, but as a young boy and teenager I saw in my parents only strength and stability when it came to this matter. I saw my father’s grief and pain for the first time, as he wept, standing there at the funeral home looking at my sister. A grief observed.

After my sister’s death, my mother’s grief grew steadily worse and it caused her struggle with alcohol to worsen as well, to the point that she became increasingly incapacitated. Her life ended tragically and suddenly on a cold February day. My father had looked away only for a moment, gone to the kitchen to make a sandwich, and mom wandered out into a snowstorm. Incapacitated by alcohol, and disoriented, she died of hypothermia. We found her body only after three days of searching when the snow melted a bit. She had died almost a mile away, near the edge of the woods. A grief observed.

My father never quite forgave himself for letting her slip away. The open front door, a first sign of trouble. The searching on a dark frigid and stormy night, and the steady awareness, “She’s gone.” Those memories haunted him. In the months that followed he often wondered how he could go on when half of him was gone. He too was gone within two years. His congestive heart failure worsened and he died of a literal broken heart, and a figurative one as well in 2007.  A grief observed.

All these thoughts sweep over me as I look through this file “Mary Anne.” I pray, dear reader, that I have not lingered too long for you on these personal matters. But the truth is, all of us carry grief, and perhaps this story will help you with your own, which I pray is not too heavy.

There is an old spiritual that says, Nobody knows the trouble I seen….Nobody but Jesus. And it is a mighty good thing that he does know. Sometimes the grief is too heavy even to share, even to put into words. But Jesus knows all about our trouble. There is a beautiful line in the Book of Revelation which refers to those who have died in the Lord and says of Jesus and them He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Rev 21:4-5)

And for my brave parents and courageous sister, who all died in the Lord, but who died with grief, I pray this text has already been fulfilled, and they enjoy now that everything is new. A grief observed no longer.

Requiescant in pace


This second video I made on what would have been my parents 50th anniversary. I picked the song “Cold enough to snow,” since it spoke to my Father’s grief in losing mom on that snowy night.

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Not a story, not a word will be lost. But we shall recover it all, and tell the old, old stories once again.

When my Father lay dying, I remember that one of the losses I began to grieve was that he was the keeper of many family stories. He was the one who could look at an old family photograph and tell you who they all were and something about each of them. As I saw him lying there, no longer able to talk much, I thought of all the memories stored up in his mind, all the stories, all the people he once knew and had spoken so vividly of.

And not only the family stories, but he was also a great historian and a great wellspring of the classics. He had read all the “Great Books” all of Shakespeare, all of Sacred Scripture, so many other worthy writings, and had memorized many lengthy quotes.

Such an encyclopedic mind, vivid thoughts, vivid memories, the keeper of the family story. And though I knew he’d take it with him in his soul, there was a grief to me that his magnificent mind was now closing to me. I regret I did not more carefully retain all he told me.

Thankfully he had written a family history that stays with us, and all his many photos and family films, that we worked to preserve, stay with us. We his sons, are moving much of this to digital, but it took Dad’s living presence to really bring these things home.

The video below put me in this reflective mind. It is of an old man who lays dying. And in various flashbacks we see his life, his stories, his good moments and tragedies. And then he passes.

I remember a Bible verse my father had jotted down on the frontispiece of a book he was reading at the time of his own father’s death:

But as for man, his days are like the grass, or as the flower that flourishes in the field. The wind blows, and he is gone, and his place never sees him again. (Psalm 103:16)

Reading that, as a very young teenager, I realized, for the first time that the Bible was very beautiful and I was startled to think that the house in which I was sitting would one day “never see me again.” All the stories, all the memories, gone with the proverbial winds.

The photo at the upper right is the last picture I ever took of my father. He standing in front of the family home. This was taken as he was leaving it for the last time. He moved into a retirement community for a brief while, but he was not long for this world.  And, there he is, standing in front of the place that “never sees him again.”

Yes, there is something very precious about our memories, our stories. They are meant to be shared, handed down. But something irreplaceable, dies with each person. A very personal glimpse of history, a very personal story, something that can never be fully shared with anyone, no one but the Lord.

Only the Lord really knows our story, knows it better than we ourselves:

O LORD, you search me and you know me.
You yourself know my resting and my rising;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You mark when I walk or lie down;
you know all my ways through and through.

Before ever a word is on my tongue,
you know it, O LORD, through and through….

For it was you who formed my inmost being,
knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you who wonderfully made me;

My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being fashioned in secret
and molded in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me yet unformed;
and all my days were recorded in your book,
before one of them came into being…

at the end I am still at your side… (Ps 139:varia)

Yes, the Lord knows. He knows all about us.

An old spiritual says, Nobody knows the trouble I seen, Nobody but Jesus. For in the end, he is the keeper of every story, my father’s, my own, yours. And whatever is lost in death will be restored a hundredfold, with understanding besides, in the great parousia. Not a story, not a word will be lost, but we shall recover it all, and tell the old, old stories once again.

Enjoy this poignant video:

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On The Coarsening of Culture and What We Have Lost

I have been working on a photo project today and have not been able to spend much time on the Blog. I wonder if you might permit me to re-present an older blog on a movie that has a lot to say to us about our culture and what we have lost. Perhaps some new readers to the blog will not have seen this post that I wrote about a year and a half ago.

There was a movie from back in the late 1990s called “Blast From The Past” The Movie begins in the early 60s at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. An eccentric man and his pregnant wife have built and elaborate fallout shelter underground in their backyard. It is no ordinary bomb shelter but a large and well stocked one that even allows the growing of food and fish and has many amenities.

When a plane crashes nearby they think the country is under attack and that the Atom Bomb has hit. They run into the shelter and lock it behind them setting the automatic locks not to open for 35 years when the radiation had dissipated.

During this time the pregnant wife gives birth to their son, Adam whom they raise in that shelter. Adam receives the usual education one would expect in the early 60s, strong on reading, writing and arithmetic, American and world history. He also obtains a liberal arts college education from his father who was a professor. The education included Latin, Greek, French and German. Adam also learns all the usual social skills of that time such as basic manners, how to treat a lady, ballroom dancing, the meaning of life. He is also raised to reverence God.

In a way the family was frozen in time and preserved the values of that time of the early 60s. The film does not present that time as flawless. The mother has a bit of a drinking problem, the father is rather eccentric and xenophobic etc.

Suddenly it is 1997 and the locks come open. The family makes its first excursion since the “bomb” went off. The father expects to find that those who survived will show signs of radiation poisoning and that the world will surely manifest many signs of the destruction the bomb surely wrought so they go forth cautiously.

Now, you and I know that no atom bomb ever did go off. Or did it? As they emerge from the bomb shelter the once quaint neighborhood they lived in has become a red light district. They see shocking things. Not only prostitutes and adult book stores, but also drug addicts, trash-filled streets and signs of grave disorder. People are coarse in their behavior etc. They run back into the shelter concluding that things are worse than they thought. They send their son Adam out to get provisions and possibly to find a wife if he can locate someone who is less effected by the “radiation.” Then they will once again throw the locks on the shelter and wait for things to improve on the outsiide lest they be poisoned by it all. In this scene Adam emerges from the shelter and first encounters a drug addict who thinks Adam is God. Adam then goes forth and sees things and people outside for the first time.

As Adam goes forth he discovers that beyond the world of the red light district is less devastated but he still struggles with what he experiences. Families seem in disarray, people are coarse, cynical, and use God’s name in vain. The technology amazes him as do simple things like rain, the open sky and the ocean. In this scene he is troubled by some modern cultural trends and then sees the ocean for the first time:

It is quite clear to us who watch the movie that much has been lost. Adam is head and shoulders above the modern people who surround him. He is kind, respectful, polite, innocent in his interpretation of the world. He is much smarter than those around him as well, having quite an encyclopedic knowledge compared to the moderns around him. In this scene two things are illustrated: his superior education and also his coming to grips with modern technology. How can a computer (a giant thing in his world) be in a house?

And he can dance, really dance! Not just the gyrating common in modern dance floors but the flawless execution of 40s swing is natural to him since he was trained in every form of ballroom dancing by his parents. Here is a dance scene that shows that, while dancing was getting a little risque, it still required training and talent. Pardon some of the language in this clip, but remember the coarsening of culture is what is in on display here.

He is befriended by a young lady named Eve and her brother. They think him to be strange and naive but come to discover he has much to teach. In this scene they ponder something he has taught them about graciousness, kindness and the blessing of strong family ties.

This movie is worth seeing. It is not preachy (like me). It gently suggests to us that we have lost some important things in the past 40 years. Things like kindness, optimism, the value of traditional education, the importance of parents teaching and raising their kids. In many ways the movie gently suggests that we have become coarse, cynical, even vulgar. Family ties have often been severed and culture has melted down to more base level. Education is less thorough and broad, simple things like learning to dance are lost.

As I have already said, the early 1960s was not a perfect time. Many troublesome cultural trends were already well underway. These are not unreported in the movie. But still the point remains, some things of great value have been lost. Adam and his family entered the shelter at the end of an era. Then, a young man steps out the past and is bewildered by what he finds. Technology is impressive, but people seem lost and cynical. The world is hostile and disordered. But he brings with him some healing balm, some of the best virtues of the past, to remind us all that we have lost important things along the way.

The bomb did go off. Not the Atom Bomb, but an even more devastating cultural bomb. Rebuilding will take time.