(2nd Section of the Post-Lourdes Study Topic) for December Prayers.
I would not blame any woman for feeling rather put-down by this passage from St. Paul’s writings. He really does seem to make women second class, doesn’t he? But let us try to be fair to Paul. If any other man had been writing on this topic at the same time, he would most likely have written in a similar vein, as it seems that, while we of this generation and time could hardly condone such a misogynic approach, could we really expect Paul to be different from the culture and thinking of his time? I am certain Paul’s main aim in writing this passage was much more to enhance the power and status of marriage in society, than to downplay women’s role or status. He recognises the difference of needs, feelings and values, experienced and expressed between the man and the woman in a marriage (Have you ever read John Gray’s book on marriage “Men are from Mars, Women from Venus” (1992)?). He also wants to establish the central role of love in marriage. To this end he likens it to Christ and his love for his Church. For what are probably obvious reasons, I am reminded of St. John’s First Epistle where he states that “God is love.” (1 Jn. 4: 7-13.) Surely the love a man and his wife have for each other must be a participation in God himself?
God shares himself with us when he creates us (we are made in the image and likeness of God), and we express his gift of love (himself) to, and through each other. Only in marriage can this intimacy and sharing be so humanly, and yet divinely, expressed. Paul was so convinced of this, and wanted the people he was writing to, to be as convinced as he was.
Despite all the above, it seems Paul himself did not marry. There is no mention of a wife in all of his writings, and it would certainly have been very difficult for Paul to have made all his journeys, and gone through all of the very dangerous and threatening situations which he suffered, with a wife at his side, even more with children. Paul was totally given to Christ (“I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me.”), but this does not mean that he did not appreciate the value of the married state. Some people have drawn from Paul’s writing on one’s state in life that he saw the celibate way of life as a “higher” vocation than the married state. I am no expert on Pauline thinking, but I cannot see how a man with such global vision, and such insight into the creative plan of the Almighty, could not be aware of the tremendous significance that man and woman play, together, in the working out of creation. I would imagine that Paul saw himself, and others who chose the celibate state for the sake of the Kingdom, as observers, and propagators of the Divine Plan which was being worked out through the married state of others. This places married couples at the heart of that Divine Plan. This is not just in creating children, but in their love for each other, as well as their love for their children. God, as love, is present in the bonds of love which each of you experiences and expresses in your family – God is that loving presence! How do you feel as a creative instrument used by this Almighty and Omnipotent God to work out his Divine Plan? Can you see your husband/wife as such a creative instrument?
Can you see each child as a product and potential vital spark of that love which he/she can take from your family to others who are sadly lacking any sense of that loving presence?
Father John Maclean
The need is on us to ask God to enhance our awareness of his loving presence in and through each member of our families.