I am pleased to welcome to the Cathedral tonight those associated with the Archdiocesan Department for Natural Family Planning as well as members of the Natural Family Planning Association. Each year the Natural Family Planning Network in the Archdiocese sponsors a liturgy in July to commemorate the anniversary of the promulgation by Pope Paul VI of his Encyclical Letter, Humanae Vitae Ñ On Human Life. This July 25 marks the thirty-third anniversary of the promulgation of Humanae Vitae.
On behalf of Archbishop Rigali, I express gratitude to all of you who are involved with the promotion of the complete teaching of the Church on married love and life. I thank you for the powerful witness of your lives as married couples to the truth of the teaching contained in Humanae Vitae.
The promulgation of Humanae Vitae thirty-three years ago occasioned sharp criticism from within and without the Church. It was said then, and it is repeated today, that Humanae Vitae demonstrated the lack of understanding by those with teaching authority in the Church of the realities of human love and human sexuality. Pope John Paul II has on numerous occasions reaffirmed the doctrine contained in Humanae Vitae. Critics of Humanae Vitae offer, as evidence of its errors, polling data revealing a large portion of Catholics disagreeing with the Church's teaching regarding artificial contraception.
It is in this context of commemorating the anniversary of this important and yet controversial teaching that we reflect on today's scripture readings for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary time.
One of the central themes of today's readings is the joy the Lord desires for his people. In our first reading from Isaiah, the Lord expresses his desire to comfort his people like a mother comforts her child. The prophet, in describing the joy of God's people, uses the imagery of a child in the safe comfort of a mother's arms who is delighted with being nourished at her breasts.
Recently, I was at a gathering where a mother with a young infant asked me to hold her baby so that she could take a picture of me with her baby. I was happy to comply with her request, but I cannot say the same for her baby. No matter how I struggled to create a comfortable position for the baby, he wailed and was inconsolable. I am sure that he could sense my lack of experience and competency in holding him and this added to his distress, but I think largely my crime was that I was not his mother.
It was amazing to see his transformation as soon as I returned him to the familiar and comforting arms of his mother. It was instant joy.
I have always been amused when visiting in homes of friends how children love to be on their mother's lap. This is not just true of infants and toddlers and small children. I have seen more than once, teenagers almost crush their poor mothers as they plop themselves on their laps Ñ half in jest but half in an unarticulated desire to return to those simpler and securer days when they spent a good deal of time in their mothers' arms.
In today's gospel, we see Jesus commissioning the seventy-two to go forth and prepare the way for his coming by proclaiming the Gospel message. The passage concludes by describing their return and the disciples' expressions of joy and enthusiasm at the healing God effected through them. Jesus counsels them not to make their joy dependent on any perceived power they possess or the apparent positive effects of their ministry. Jesus tells them their joy is that their names are written in heaven, in other words that they are beloved sons and daughters of the Father who has prepared an eternal home for them.
The message for us is clear - the Lord's desire is the greatest and most profound joy for his disciples. It is a joy that is not dependent on our accomplishments or achievements. It is a joy that is not bestowed upon us by the acceptance or the approval of those with power and authority in this world.
It is a joy that comes from the goodness of God. It is a joy that is based on our identity in Him, not our productivity in the world. Our joy is derived from being made in His image, from being so loved by Him that Jesus came into the world to fully share in our humanity. God so values us that the Son of God gave His life for us. Through the grace of our baptism our names are indeed written in heaven where the Lord has prepared our eternal home.
It is a joy that no matter what the turmoil of the exterior circumstances of our life, we are resting in the loving and comforting arms of our God. Whether the world may criticize or mock or reject or ignore us makes no difference, we are as content as a child in the arms of his mother. We have the joy of a child on her mother's lap, who knows and only cares that she is the delight of her mother.
Thus, Jesus could dispatch the disciples for their mission without many resources, as lambs among wolves, knowing that some and perhaps even many would not welcome them or their message. It was their task to bring Jesus' message of peace and hope and healing to as many who would receive it with open hearts. They were not to argue with those who chose not to listen or retaliate against those who were hostile to the Gospel message.
They were not to take a poll to see what most people wanted to hear them say and change the Gospel message to conform with popular opinion. They were simply to move on and try to reach others whose hearts were disposed to the truth and life contained in their preaching and teaching.
In fact, like St. Paul, even our adversities become a source of joy for us for they allow us in some small way to connect with the cross of our Lord Jesus. They are reminders to us of the depth of his love for us. They provide us with opportunities to give witness to our appreciation for what Jesus endured for us as we strive to transform our human suffering with the same love and faith that he evidenced on Calvary.
These readings for us today invite us to discover anew the sheer joy of understanding ourselves to be brothers and sisters with Jesus and through him beloved daughters and sons of the Father. Each time we come to Mass, this central truth of our faith is reaffirmed. We encounter again the love first revealed on Calvary, the love of Jesus Christ willing to give his life so that we might have life.
We receive anew the living presence of Jesus in communion and are renewed in our Christian identity as living temples of God and members of the Body of Christ. This is the source of our strength and our joy, and no one and nothing in this world can deprive us of it.
Our liturgy also offers a challenge to each of us. For those of us today who have not been open to, have not understood, or even rejected the Church's teaching on the dignity of human life and the joy and responsibility of human love, we are being called to open our hearts to these important truths taught by our Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
We do not want to be like those who closed their hearts to the teaching of Jesus and his disciples. We do not want to be counted among those people and places where the disciples were instructed to shake the dust from their feet.
So many who have rejected this teaching have never really heard it, or never had the time - or made the time, to understand its rationale. In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI acknowledged some of the reasons many would have difficulty accepting this teaching. He respects the good intentions and legitimate concerns for the emotional and physical well-being of married couples who at times are overwhelmed with the responsibilities of parenthood. The Pope acknowledged authentic concerns about problems of poverty in nations where population is the densest. Yet, in the end he reminded us of the simple truth that we cannot seek to do a good with an evil means.
When you compare what those who advocated thirtythree years ago for the moral permissibility of artificial contraception predicted would happen in our society to what Paul VI in Humanae Vitae prophesied, it is readily apparent who understood the implications of what was being chosen. When you look at what has actually transpired during the past thirty-three years, it is hard to deny the vision of Paul VI and the wisdom of his teaching.
Advocates for artificial contraception asserted that access to contraception would strengthen marriages by relieving the pressure of additional children and the limitations on couples' opportunities to express their love through sexual intimacy. They were convinced sexual experience before marriage would help make the choice of a marriage partner better and, therefore, marriages stronger. They predicted a dramatic decrease in unwanted and problem pregnancies. We were told that abortion would disappear because with no more unwanted pregnancies the need for abortion had been eliminated.
Paul VI, on the other hand, expressed concerns that the widespread use of artificial contraception would result in lower moral standards. He predicted an increase of pornography, sexual activity before marriage, and adultery. He saw the reliance on artificial contraception bringing about a general weakening of marriage and family life. In Humanae Vitae, Paul VI even predicted what has actually occurred in China governmental policies imposing contraception and abortion. Paul VI foresaw a diminished respect for the human person and an increase in reliance upon abortion as the back-up to failed contraception.
With 1.3 million abortions annually in our nation, a persistent high level of teen pregnancies, a higher and higher number of single-parent families, pornography that is cabled into our living room, a divorce rate that more than doubled and remains at fifty percent today, it is difficult not to admit the accuracy of Paul VIs concerns. Similarly, one can only conclude that advocates for contraception were either clueless or deceptive in their prognostications about the consequences of artificial contraception.
The last thirty-three years have brought about a great refinement in Natural Family Planning methods providing a morally acceptable means for couples to make responsible decisions, while being respectful of the balance God created in linking human fertility and sexual intimacy. The statistical effectiveness of Natural Family Planning, when a couple believes it is best for their marriage and family to make choices to avoid a pregnancy, is impressive. The less than five percent divorce rate for couples using Natural Family Planning speaks volumes about how Natural Family Planning improves couple communication, intimacy, and mutual respect. The many previously infertile couples that have been able to conceive a child assisted by the knowledge of the fertility cycle and hormonal treatments are an important part of the good news of Natural Family Planning.
The strongest and most effective affirmation of the truth of Humanae Vitae is not statistics and numbers but the couples present at Mass this evening and many like them throughout the archdiocese who are living daily the teaching of Humanae Vitae with fidelity and joy. Your marriages and your families are living testimonies that marital and family happiness will be found by honoring God's plan for married love and life.
You are very much like the disciples in the Gospel today who were sent two by two to proclaim the good news. Your married love and joy are a beautiful proclamation of the good news about God's plan for marriage and family life.
In Humanae Vitae, Paul VI challenged married couples to do exactly what you are doing Ñ to live their marriage covenant with love and joy thus evangelizing other couples to the wisdom of God's plan for marriage. Paul VI recognized artificial contraception as the beginning of a troubling process of human beings attempting to seize control of the life-giving process. Today, with in vitro fertilization, researchers calling for the ability to experiment with tissues of discarded embryos, advocates for human cloning becoming more shrill in their demands, the use of genetic screening to produce designer children, we are reaping the consequence of what was unleashed with the acceptance of human intervention to destroy the balance that God had created in uniting sexual intimacy and the life-giving process.
Our liturgy today challenges each one of us to reconsider or reaffirm our commitment to the truths contained in the prophetic teaching of Humanae Vitae. Each of us in accord with our state of life and particular responsibilities must strive to do whatever we can to communicate the good news about Christian love and marriage. In an age that is so attuned to what is natural and suspicious about the human manipulation of nature, we must communicate anew the folly of employing chemical warfare on a woman's fertility and the tragedy of surgical interventions to render men or women infertile.
Each one of us needs to become witnesses for chaste love, using the great gift of our human sexuality in a way that is proper and appropriate for our state of life. We need to communicate in word and action that only chastity provides the true plan to healthiness and happiness in our human relationships.
The world may consider us foolish and mock us. We need not be afraid for even in the midst of struggle and adversity, we know that in following the Lord's way we are placing ourselves in the arms of God. Perched on his lap what else do we need? Nothing can deprive us of His peace and His joy.