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| Rev. Fr. Augustine Vallooran V.C. |
The scourge of this
generation is the disintegration of families. Relationships are limited to the
superficial. Commitment to the other is looked at as foolishness and negation
of the individual freedom. People have become very conscious of and adamant to
determine their individual destinies. To sacrifice one's opinion is understood
as slavery to the stand of the other. In the process, relationships have lost
their value and charm by common understanding today. This trend of thinking
and Iiving has become a threat to the very foundations of the family and
relationships. For everyone concerned about the welfare of humanity the
question looming large is, "How can the family be saved?"
The one credible and
proved solution for this predicament is the Promise of the Word of God - "Believe
in the Lord Jesus, you and your family will be saved." (Acts 16:31) Here
the Scripture charts out the way explaining that in order for the family to be
saved, its members should look beyond themselves to make a space for God's Presence
in their midst. "To believe" means to abandon oneself in the Hands of
God. The relationship between husband and wife, parents and children, are to be
moulded according to God's great design of love for them. It is very false
understanding that would suggest superficial solutions such as merely spending
more time with the other or looking at each other. The only deep and edifying
hope for the salvation of relationships is to turn to God together, to look at
His Face and wait for His Will to be revealed. It is then that the Power of God,
the Holy Spirit, takes charge to heal and restore the relationship to its true
depth and beauty. The Word of God is pointing us to a divine dimension of the
human relationship of marriage and family.
The miracle at Cana
reveals to us very pointedly how when human calculations fail, God is able to
take charge of such situations and accomplish what is beyond human imagination
in a miraculous way. In fact every failure in the family is an opportunity for
God to reveal His Power. The gospel concludes the narration of the miracle
at Cana with these words - “Thus Jesus manifested His glory.” (John 2:11)
This is the salvation
offered to every family that turns to God in the moment of distress. At Cana, Mother
Mary had directed the whole family to Jesus "Do whatever He
tells you." (John 2:5) Instead
of listing the losses and the causes, what is urgent is to turn our gaze to the
Lord, to listen keenly to His Word for us and trusting that Word to obey Him. There
is a very revealing comment attributed to the chief steward. When he is given
the wine that Jesus provided, he is most perplexed not that there was wine but
that the new wine should taste better than the old wine. Anyone would know that
old wine is always far superior to new wine. The steward’s remark has great
significance. When God intervenes, the family is elevated to a Divine status and
its blessings are superior to a family that has not a space for God. The love
in the family becomes anointed with the Powers of the Holy Spirit described for
us by St. Paul as the Fruit of the Spirit which is “love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians
5:22-23) The miracle at Cana reveals to us what God
does for us when we enthrone Him in our relationships.
It is of such a
Divine family relationship that St. Paul speaks of as a mystery. Mystery implies
that which is more than what can be perceived by the senses. Mere human love cannot
bind husband and wife together. Only God's Power of the Holy Spirit can! With
this Divine dimension, marriage gets incorporated into the relationship between
Jesus and the Church. “This mystery (of marriage) is a profound one, and I am saying
that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:32) St. Paul
continues to instruct the families, "Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the Church
and handed himself over for her." (Ephesians 5:25) St.
Paul draws a parallel between the love of the husband and the Love of Christ
for the church. Christ's Love was salvific for the Church where He took upon
Himself all its sin and pain and sickness. “He himself bore our
sins in his body… By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)
St. Paul is detailing
for us a spirituality for the love of the husband. What Jesus did for the Church
is what a husband should be willing to do for the wife. Christ loved the Church
and offered Himself for her “That He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing
of water with the word, that
He might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:26-27)
The goal of the love
of the husband for the wife is to accomplish in her the holiness of God.
Anything lacking in her is the responsibility of the husband to provide for. St.
Paul uses yet another imagery - “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of
the church, His body, and is Himself its Saviour.” (Ephesians 5:23) This is an imagery to be understood in the sense
St. Paul intended it to be. The fact that the husband is the head of the wife
does not mean that he can dominate, control or humiliate her. The functioning
of the head is to take upon itself everything happening in the body. Medical
science will tell us that when any part of the body receives an injury it is
the head that suffers the pain first and then relays it to the body as a
warning. Any pain of the body is felt first by the head. It is based on this
principle that the technique of anaesthesia works. When a doctor has to apply
his surgical knife on the hand of the patient, in order that the patient is not
struck by the pain, he administers anaesthesia. The connection of the nervous
system from the hand to the head is severed temporarily. As a result when the
hand is cut, the pain will not be relayed to the head and therefore it will not
be felt in the hand. This reveals to us how vitally the head and body are
connected. Applying this principle to Jesus and the Church, the mystery of the
salvation of the Church is made clear. Jesus took upon Himself everything wrong
in His Body, the Church, so that the body does not have to pay the price of
sin. So also whenever the wife faces distress, faith must be aroused in the
husband to rise up to his mission. It is for him to take the distress upon
himself so that the wife does not feel the brunt of it.
A
doctor shared with me his mission in life. His wife got paralyzed during the
delivery of their third child. The child survived but the mother became confined
to the bed for the rest of her life. When I met him, the three children were
educated and settled. The doctor, though now retired from government service,
had to continue to work in a private clinic in order to meet the medical
expenses of the wife and the cost of running the household. When he left to
work in the morning, a home nurse would come and watch over his wife. In the
evening he would return home and sit by his wife and share with her how his day
went. Often he would not be able to sleep because of the convulsions that she
would suffer regularly at night. What struck me most was the way he evaluated
his life. He said that there was great joy in his heart in every little help he
could render to his wife. However tired he would be when he comes from a long
day of work at the hospital, he felt a great surge of joy in his heart when he
sat by her side and did the little services she needed from him. In the morning
he would feel very refreshed even though he slept little at night. He concluded
saying it was this relationship that gave meaning to his life. Here indeed was
a life moulded in the vision that St. Paul had of Christian marriage.
Some years ago. a
lady had come here for retreat. Her husband was a businessman and they had two
children. He was making great gains in business, taking many risks. He got an
offer to make big money by buying shares in a multinational company. This
however required him to invest a lot. She warned him against this venture
because the company in question was suspect. His friends tried dissuading him
but he was determined to rush ahead because of the rich dividends offered. Soon
it was clear that the company was fraudulent and all his investments were lost.
He had pledged his other holdings in a bank to get money for this investment.
Therefore he lost everything he had. Because of the shock and the guilt, he had
a stroke and was bed-ridden. The family had to move into a small rented
apartment vacating their large palatial house. The wife was describing to me
her dilemma at that moment. She despised him for the costly blunder which the
family was now paying for. She could not say anything to him as he was sick. She
felt desperate and angry. She even thought of abandoning him and walking away
with the children for the sake of their education.
At this time,
there was a weekend retreat in her parish church. When she entered the church,
she heard the preacher proclaiming “Wives, love your husbands.” It occurred to
her that love means whole-heartedly sharing the plight of the beloved. If she
abandoned him, it would be a grievous failure in her fidelity towards him. However
sinful and foolish he was in his greedy and irresponsible venture, she realized
she could not hold it against him. She took up a teaching job and worked hard
to earn enough for the education of the children and the treatment of her
husband. However difficult her life had become, she was a happy person because
she said, “All I live for is love.” I realized this was indeed the Holy Spirit
who gave her this courage and mission in life. As at Cana, the catastrophe in
the family became the occasion for God’s Glory to be manifested. The
irresponsible decision of her husband had turned out to be an opportunity for
her to experience and live in the power of God’s Love.
The culture today reveals
that people give up easily on each other and on themselves. They take to the
blame-game, finding comfort in finding fault with the other. That is why
relationships are so easily strained and become a burdensome. Hearts become
empty, unable to feel any love. If only we listen to the gentle invitation of
Mother Mary “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5) and
turn to Jesus, our hearts will be filled with the new wine of the Holy Spirit.
Then will our lives and relationships become a celebration.
Let Us Pray
Lord Jesus, we thank You for the great love You pour into our
hearts by giving us the gift of the family. We bring to You all the families of
this world, especially those shattered by failure, sin, sickness and tragedy.
We pray O Lord that the Holy Spirit may move in the members of the family
leading them to become instruments of salvation and love.
We welcome You into our own homes. As we look to You, may we be
moulded in Your Goodness and rejoice in the giving off of ourselves. May we be
filled with your Holy Spirit that our hearts’ seeking would be to give and not
receive. Thank you Lord for Your Presence and for this great call You have
given us to walk in Your way of love and sacrifice. May Your Kingdom come in
our hearts and homes.
Amen.
