A Gentle Reminder

Last Autumn,  we heard the news that one of the priests of the diocese had succumbed to a tumor that had been rapidly growing in his brain for several months.  Aside from the trauma of his death, it created something of a personnel crisis.

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I like to believe that my own vocation to the priesthood is the result of the fact that our diocese has been praying for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life for nearly as long as I can remember.  Indeed, over the course of the last ten years or so, the Lord has been generous to our diocese.  Compared to the rest of the nation, we have a very young group priests in Western South Dakota.  We also have a significant group of truly exceptional young men who are currently in the seminary discerning priesthood for our diocese.  In a similar way, several young women have recently left the diocese to discern vocations with various orders of religious women.  God has richly blessed us.

Though these things are true, we must remain ever vigilant in our effort to encourage young men and women to consider religious and priestly vocations.  The recent death of Fr. Brian Fawcett was traumatic for the priests of this diocese in many ways.  Not insignificant to us has been the reminder of exactly how precarious our situation is.  The loss of any one of us places us in a near-crisis situation.  Though we have good, young priests, we are still in need of more.  This is a reality with profound implications for every Catholic in the Diocese of Rapid City.

 Priests and sisters do not magically appear.  They are not produced in gardens and distributed throughout the world.  Instead, they come from real families in real communities.  They rise out of the same circumstances in which all of us find ourselves.  This means that your child could be called to one of these vocations!  There is every likelihood that your son, grandson, or brother is called to the priesthood.  There is every likelihood that your daughter, granddaughter, or sister is called to religious or consecrated life. 

I have the privilege this year of instructing the young men and women who are preparing to receive the sacrament of confirmation.  These forty-two students are comprised of nearly equal numbers of men and women.  It seems likely to me as a result, that two of them are called to the priesthood and two to the religious or consecrated life.  If I were to ask them, however, I suspect that almost none of them have ever even considered either of these vocations as a possibility for themselves.  They are good kids, and most of them are serious about their pursuit of a deeper relationship with Christ.  Why then, has it never occurred to them that they might be called to a vocation other than marriage?  I suspect that largely, none of them has ever been encouraged to think about vocations priesthood or religious life at home.  Parents have a profound impact on the decisions their children make; if vocations are to flourish in our diocese, it will be because generous parents who offer their children to God in this way are also flourishing.

So, perhaps the short way of saying this is that when we pray for vocations each Sunday, we are not praying for someone else’s child.  We are praying for your child.  We are praying that you will have that faith, love, and spirit of sacrifice that encourages you to offer your children to God’s service.  Such generosity will not go unrewarded. 

10 Reasons To Go To Confession

From Advent . . . 

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1)  The Church is the continued presence of Christ on earth, and Christ has given the Church his own authority. With this authority, the Church has determined that making a thorough confession to a priest is essential for the forgiveness of sins.

2)  Throughout Christian history, it has been necessary for one to make some "public" reparation for one's sins. In the earliest days of the Church, this sometimes took years. Today, it just takes a few minutes.

3) Sacraments work. God has promised that the sacraments will do what the Church say they do. In other words, the Eucharist really is the body and blood of Christ, whether I believe it is or is not.  Baptism washes away Original Sin whether the person receiving baptism knows it happens or not. In confession, sins really are forgiven, even if I don't feel it. On what basis does one making a confession directly to God know his sins are truly forgiven?

4) Sin is not only personal reality. All sin has public ramifications. They do damage to the entire Body of Christ. Just as the priest stands in the place of Christ and pronounces a sin forgiven, so too does he stand in the place of the community, forgiving on behalf of the entire community.

5) How often has one actually knelt down before God and confessed one's sins? How often has one really, honestly, and thoroughly articulated to God the exact nature and extent of one's sins. I am willing to bet that more often, one goes before God with an indeterminate vague feeling of having "been bad." Feeling bad and telling God you are sorry does not constitute a confession of sins.

6) Confession is therapeutic. Ask any addict in recovery. They will tell you that part of the healing process is admitting to another human being the extent and nature of the ills one has committed (typically called the 5th step). Recovery cannot proceed until this has occurred. Many people will repeat this examination of life with their sponsor from time to time as a way to maintain accountability with oneself.

7)  Another person can give me perspective. Sometimes I am too hard on myself, and sometimes not hard enough. The priest helps me have the proper perspective.

8) Telling someone else makes it harder to commit the same sin again. If I go to a regular confessor (and I should) it is hard to have to confess the same thing time after time.

9) A priest is the doctor of the soul, and sin is a soul sickness. Not going to confession and speaking directly to God is a bit like going to the pharmacist before seeing the physician.

10) I need to hear someone say, "Your sins are forgiven." These are typically the last words spoken in the confessional. God seldom speaks so clearly.

 

Creating a Catholic Home

I am nearly finished with these posts from the archives . . .

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One of the primary assumptions of the Church with regard to the education of children is that the primary responsibility for teaching a child rests upon the shoulders of his or her parents.  This is a call that is found repeated throughout the Church’s magisterial documents regarding youth and catechesis.  In our own culture, this call can seem a bit frightening because we are all so used to expecting education to occur within the confines of a school building.  Math teachers will show my kids how to do algebra, English teachers will hopefully make them literate, and religious education teachers will make them Catholic.  The fundamental flaw with such an assumption, however, resides in the fact that unlike literacy or algebra, Catholicism is not accomplished simply by amassing a body of knowledge which can then be regurgitated at will.  Catholicism, rather, is a way of life, and, to be acquired, it must be practiced from infancy onward.

One must admit that there are certain things a Catholic should know.  He or she should be able to recite the Ten Commandments.  He or she should know the seven sacraments, and have a basic understanding of the importance and effects of each.  One should be able to describe the precepts of the Church and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  These are things which can and should be discussed in a religious education classroom.  Each of these lists, however, is meaningless if they do not find practical application in a home.  What is the point of knowing that we are commanded to keep holy the Sabbath if my family has a pattern of skipping Mass to go to the lake over the summer, or if Dad habitually skips Mass to go hunting with his buddies?  Of what value is knowing that the Church says we need to go to confession at least once each year if it has been twelve years since Mom received that sacrament?

The long and the short of it is simply that to accomplish a Catholic education, parents must shoulder the load.  They must be the primary examples of how one lives the faith, and they must be willing to become something of an expert in matters of the faith so that they are able to answer their children’s questions and to parent from a Catholic perspective.  This, in turn, requires that each parent believes as an individual, that there is something distinctly important about being Catholic.  It likewise means discovering how and why a Catholic family is different than any other family on the block.  

Unfortunately, parents often look at a task such as this, and, overwhelmed already, decide that a mediocre introduction to Catholicism is better than none at all.  Perhaps with all of the other business of life, they ask, “How am I to devote myself creating and raising a Catholic family?”  It seems sufficient to suggest that our own growth in holiness and commitment to becoming an ever more faithful Catholic is the first step.  Go to Mass every Sunday without fail, go to confession regularly, and learn how to pray every day (prayer is more than just asking God for things, after all.)  These three things will begin to make a world of difference.  These three things will begin to transform any family into a truly Catholic family.        

   

High School Dating

More from the Bulletin Cover Archives . . . 

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Boys are supposed to like girls.  Girls are supposed to like boys.  This is known as general attraction.  It only becomes a particular attraction when a young man or young woman enters a relationship with a person who has the potential of becoming their souse.  We do no favor to adolescents when we encourage and permit them to enter into romantic relationships too early or for purposes other than seeking a spouse.

In a recent conversation with teens I know rather well, I asked how long they thought an average high school couple waited before the relationship became sexual. Their answer: generally one month, not longer than three before sleeping together.  Other varieties of sexual expression begin even sooner.  I would like to believe that these answers are anecdotal and the result of locker room braggadocio, but experience in the confessional demonstrates that these teens are correct; the interval from the time a boy and a girl start “going out” until the time they have sex is very brief.  This fact reiterates an obvious truth: dating is for mating.  Unless your teenager is looking for a spouse, he or she should not be dating.

Popular media has done its best to convince us that “going out,” is necessary for healthy teens.  As a result, instead of virtuous friendships with members of the opposite sex, teens are entering into exclusive romantic relationships built upon a foundation of emotional and physical attraction.  The attraction is natural, but must be appropriately directed and expressed.  Such direction and expression can only be achieved through virtue and self-restraint.  Parents too often allow their kids to skip this step, and as a result, “feelings for one another,” generally remain precisely that – feelings.  And a feeling is a poor foundation for a good relationship.  Already a flimsy foundation, these feelings become more intense as the relationship progresses.  Because dating, by definition, permits certain physical expressions of feelings, the two parties almost immediately try to communicate their affection through kissing and sexual touching.  Unfortunately, if the two remain a “couple” for very long, their feelings will intensify, and they will desire to manifest them in a more intensely physical way.  Viola!  Three weeks later, they are in bed together.  Both use one another for emotional affirmation thus assuring that neither, upon the time of the nearly inevitable demise of the relationship, will be able to look to the other with any degree of respect or even as a friend ever again.  This sort of high school dating is as cute and harmless as C2 strapped to a suicide bomber’s chest.

So, if teens should not date, how can they learn to relate appropriately to persons of the opposite sex?  This learning should occur under the watchful tutelage of parents.  For instance, a young man might invite a girl he likes to share a meal with his family and join them for a family activity.  He might ask her to accompany his family to Mass.  He will most certainly ask permission of a girl’s father before doing any of these things.  Her father will insist on meeting the boy and perhaps his parents before giving permission.  Parents will permit their teens to attend events with other teens of the opposite sex only when they are in a public venue, or when they are supervised by adults that the parent knows and trusts.  Parents will set and enforce strict curfews.  They will check on their kids periodically, making phone calls to the child and supervising adult.  Parents might permit young people to have time alone on occasion, but only in the home of one or the other, only when a parent is present, and never in a bedroom.  Parents will insist that guests of their teenagers go home at a reasonable time.  Parents will forbid their child from bringing a person of the opposite sex into their home unless they are present, and they will forbid their children from going to an unsupervised home after school.  They will do all of this not because they are Puritanical tyrants, but because they love their children, and do not want them to become bitter, jaded, angry, and broken for the sake of a cute prom photograph.  If you want your child to be happy, emotionally mature, and prepared to truly enter into the demands of married life, do not let them date in high school. 

  

For Corpus Christi

Once again from the archives, and a foll-up to yesterday . . . 

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I wrote yesterday about the dignity and value that God assigns human sexuality precisely because of its capacity to reveal love as the self-same reality expressed by Jesus Christ on his Cross.  The mutual self-giving of a married couple is a sign to the rest for the Church of God’s love for us.  The love that is expressed by married people in symbol is the love the each of experiences in reality upon worthily receiving the Eucharist.

The parallels between marriage and the Eucharist are abundant and beautiful.  In the marriage bed, the bridegroom offers himself to his bride in complete surrender to her.  On the bed of the altar, the sacrifice of Calvary is made present to the Church once again, and Christ, the bridegroom, offers himself to his bride, the Church, in complete surrender.  In the context of marriage, the flesh of the groom and the flesh of the bride comingle so as to create a single body.  In the Eucharist, the flesh of the Christ enters into the flesh of his bride, the Church, as we literally consume his body and blood Sunday after Sunday.  This mutual act of giving creates life for the married couple.  In the Eucharist, we, as the bride of Christ, receive new and refreshed divine life within ourselves. 

As with love, the consequences of sin are similar in marriage and in our relationship with God.  In marriage, to properly love requires fidelity.  How can a man, cheating on his wife, offer himself to her completely and with surrender?  Each time he offers his body to her, he tells a lie to her.  If she is cheating, by receiving him, she tells a lie with her body.  Their infidelity is destructive to bride and groom alike, and they fail to serve as the image of Christ’s love to the world.  So too in our relationship with Christ – a relationship mirrored by marriage – do we do serious damage when we receive our groom unfaithfully.  Every time we receive the Holy Eucharist knowing that we are guilty of mortal sin, we tell a lie.  We are saying that we are in communion with out groom, Christ himself, and that we are in communion with the Body of Christ, the Church.  The fact is, however, that our sin has of necessity separated us from union with God and His Church.  We have been an unfaithful spouse, and we are in desperate need of reconciling ourselves so as to return to communion.

Luckily for us, to be restored to communion with Christ and his Church is much easier than healing a marriage that has experienced infidelity.  Christ, who is infinitely forgiving, invites us to that experience of his love, his forgiveness, and restoration through the sacrament of reconciliation.  There is a catch, though.  We do not get to decide the terms upon which he forgives us.  We do not simply get to say that I have asked Jesus for forgiveness in my heart, and he has forgiven me.  Christ himself decides the terms of our forgiveness, and he has been very clear about it.  If we are to be restored to communion with him and the rest of the Church, we must go to confession when we sin.

Allow me, in this final paragraph, to be very clear about the constant teaching of the Church in this regard.  If one willingly and knowingly breaks any of the commandments or defies any clearly defined teaching of the Church, he has committed a mortal sin.  He has ruptured his union with God and with the Church.  While suffering under the burden of this sin, he is not free to receive Holy Communion, and commits further serious sin if he does so, until making a good confession.  Stop cheating on our Groom.  Go to confession.  Get right with God.  Get right with the Church.  

Apologia for Theology of the Body

Yet another . . .

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Given its misrepresentation in nearly every facet of our oversexed society, it is imperative that Catholics have a firm grasp of the basic teachings of the Church regarding human sexuality.  Unfortunately, many assume that sexuality, according to the Church, can be summarized in a single word: “No!”  In truth, though, the Church believes human sexuality to be a beautiful gift from God through which humans are permitted to express the reality of having been formed in God’s image and likeness.

Catholic teaching on sexuality is rooted in our understanding of the Holy Trinity.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit love one another with an incredible intensity.  As the Scriptures say, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).  There is nothing squishy about this love.  Rather, their love constitutes an eternal relationship of self-gift, wherein they pour themselves out for the sake of the others.  The manner in which they love manifests itself to the world is Christ’s gift of himself for mankind in his death on the Cross.  Human sexuality becomes the physical means by which men and women exhibit the same qualities of love in their own lives, and thereby participate in the very mystery of God’s creative love.

The love Christ demonstrates on the Cross is characterized by four distinct but related elements.  First, his love is free.  As he relates in the Gospels, “No one takes my life from me.  I lay it down freely” (John 10:18).  So too must sexuality be an expression of freedom in which both partners willingly offer themselves for the sake of the other.  Similarly, Christ’s love on the cross is total and complete.  He reserves no part of himself for himself.  He gives everything even unto death.  So too must a couple be willing to reserve nothing to themselves in their sexual relationship.  They give their very bodies to the other for the sake of the other.  They hold nothing back, even offering with trust their own fertility and the possibility of the sacrifice accompanying a pregnancy.  Moreover, Christ’s love is faithful.  He will not go back on his promise.  He will not renege on his gift.  As the scriptures say, “Even if father and mother forsake you, I will not abandon you” (Psalm 27:10).  His gift for us remains, even when we are unfaithful to him.  In sexual union couples promise the same.  Their bodies declare that they will love one another even to the point of death -- even when one of the partners no longer deserves such love.  Finally, Christ’s love from the Cross is fruitful.  It gives life.  It opens to us the possibility of eternal life.  Human sexuality must do the same.  It gives life to the partners, as opposed to taking from them.  This life-giving quality is expressed most especially when the conjugal union results in the conception of a child.  

Given these qualities, it becomes clear that only one appropriate context for such love exists.  In marriage, couples promise each other in front of friend, family, and God Almighty, that their union will be permanent and exclusive so that each may give him or herself to the other freely, faithfully, fruitfully, and totally.  It is also clear, from what is described above why such things as pornography, masturbation, and artificial forms of contraception, constitute a serious sin.  They become acts of selfishness wherein, rather than giving, a person takes from the other.  They separate the essential qualities of union of partners from fruitfulness.  They make the means by which humans are most like God into an animalistic ritual.

What I have written above is only the briefest of summaries of the Catholic tradition regarding human sexuality.  The topic is covered much more thoroughly and eloquently in the exposition of the Church’s teaching by Pope John Paul II.  This exposition is popularly known as The Theology of the Body.  At Blessed Sacrament we introduce this material to students in eighth grade.  Regrettably, most parents do not have the context by which to reinforce this teaching at home.  It is my prayer that each of you will make a sincere effort to learn more thoroughly God’s astonishingly beautiful vision for human sexuality.  

 

Why Am I Catholic?

This is another from my series of bulletin covers. It might be interesting for you to try to respond to the questions I present in the comment box.

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Two young men with whom I am fairly well acquainted recently honored me by asking me to serve as their sponsors for the Sacrament of Confirmation. Though I was surprisedby these two invitations, I was quick to accept. After all, in what way could Ibetter use my time than assisting these two teens as they prepare for the final step of their full initiation into the Church, and in some respects, as they make a significant step toward full-fledged manhood? I am eager and excited to be a part of this process, and I look forward to the opportunity to meet regularly with them, and to watch them grow in faith and in charity throughout the course of the next several months. In a particular way, however, I am most eager for them respond to this question: “Why does it matter that I am Catholic?”

This question, it seems to me, pierces directly tothe heart not only of our identity as Catholics, but ultimately, to our identity as human beings. To describe why I am Catholic means that I must take into consideration what I believe about God, what I believe about human life, and how I understand my own existence in this universe. To say why I am Catholic is, fundamentally, to try to articulate the fundamental principles upon which I believe the rest of reality rests. So, perhaps the shorter way of saying all of this is simply to posit that it is not accidental that I am Catholic; it is the most important fact about my life.

"You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven." - Matthew 16:18-19

Having opined with such force on this matter, I would be remiss to not offer, albeit briefly, some explanation of why I am Catholic. First, I believe that God exists, that He always has existed, and always will. His existence is mysterious; he is both three and simultaneously one. For God to be is the same as for God to love,and out of that love, man first came into being. Man, out of all of creation, was and remains the pinnacle of God’s creation. Man is the most beloved of all the things God ever made, but man, in his pride, rejected that love, introducing both sin and death into the world. God, for His part, never stopped loving man, and when the time was right, God became a human to redeem man and to restore him to the full dignity with which he was first endowed at the moment of his creation. Jesus Christ reveals to humans what it is to be a human being, and he opens the means by which all the rest of humanity might become like him. We most readily access these means through the visible institution of the Catholic Church. In a word, God, through the Catholic Church, shows me who I am, who I am supposed to be, and the manner by which I can become who I am supposed to be. No other tradition answers the basic questions of my existence quite as thoroughly as does the Catholic Church.

In the coming months, I hope that the two boys I am sponsoring will arrive at similar answers for themselves, or at least that they will begin to find similar answers. I will be working to help them come to these realizations. As I do so, I will also be asking this question of myself in a new way. I hope that just as I am doing this, so will each of you. Why are you Catholic? Why do you come to Mass each weekend? Does it make a difference? Would your life be different otherwise? This is a question that can change your life.

A Summer Reminder

One of the reasons that my writing has been more sporadic during my tenure at Blessed Sacrament has been the fact that I have been writing for the cover of the bulletin every few weeks.  As a way of preserving those covers for future use, I think I will publish the better ones here.

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In the Church, there exists a long and venerable tradition of hiding from view what is most sacred and mysterious.  The tradition has Biblical roots.  Moses covered his face when encountering the Lord, and later, after his own face was transformed and radiant after another encounter with God, he veiled it when speaking to the people.  Likewise, when God delivered his commandments to Moses, he wreathed the mountain in smoke.  Similarly, when addressing his people through Moses, he appears only within the tent erected to house the Ark of the Covenant.

Many older Catholics will also recall a time when the tabernacle in the Church, in which any remaining consecrated hosts are reserved, was covered with a veil.  They will also likely remember a time when the chalice and patten (the vessels in which the bread and wine are consecrated to become the body and blood of Christ) were covered with a veil from the beginning of Mass until the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer.  These customs are still practiced in some places.

In each of these cases, such covering existed not to suggest that the eyes of common people are profane, or that “normal people” are unworthy to gaze upon beautiful and holy things, but rather, to remind us of the sacredness of that which was covered.  To veil a tabernacle or a chalice reminds us that the objects upon which we look are not ordinary and destined for pedestrian uses.  Rather, they are integral elements of something altogether otherworldly, but which God, in his profound generosity, has given us permission to approach.  To cover or veil something reminds us that the thing that has been covered is holy and must be approached and handled with the great respect and reverence due to it.

 It is for this same reason that we should all strive to practice the virtue of modesty in our dress.  The human body, created in God’s image and likeness, is endowed with dignity and is profoundly sacred.  It is in the body that one lives one’s life and progresses toward holiness.  It is in the body that one receives God’s grace through the sacraments.  It is with the body that husbands and wives, in imitation of Christ’s self-gift on the Cross, give themselves completely, freely, faithfully, and fruitfully to one another.  It is in the body, that these same husbands and wives demonstrate the mystery of the union of the three persons of the Holy Trinity, and it is in the body that they becomes signs of the love that Christ has for his Church.  The human body is sacred and mysterious.  It is not meant to be shown and flaunted to all who care to look.  As with a chalice or tabernacle, it should only be uncovered at the right time, by the right person, and under the right circumstances.

The consequence of this fact should lead us to a rather obvious conclusion.  We, men and women alike, should not attire our bodies in such a way so as to draw unseemly glances from others.  We should not clothe ourselves so as to suggest that our bodies exist as an object to be used for the pleasure of others.  We should not dress so as to lead anyone to believe that our bodies are anything less than the most sacred gift God has deigned to give us.  Likewise, we should be vigilant in assuring that our children, especially teens, do none of these things.

To be modest, does not require that one have no taste.  Modesty and class are complimentary.  Modesty does demand, however, that we acknowledge that the human form is beautiful, sacred, and mysterious.  We should never allow anyone, ourselves included, to approach it with anything less than the absolute reverence it deserves.

 

Marriage and the Holy Trinity

While still Josef Ratzinger, Pope Benedict wrote in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, "Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of the liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment."  This quote came quickly to mind on Saturday evening and Sunday morning as applause broke out in the Church while I made my way back to my chair following my homily.  I was embarrassed.  I do not preach for applause or other accolades.  I preach the readings, and sometimes I say things because they need to be said.  Because I am not in the habit of writing my homily prior to delivering it, in what follows I submit a written version of what I preached for Trinity Sunday.  It is not a transcript, but I intend to be as faithful to what I said as possible.  I do so only inasmuch as a number of people have asked me to write it, and it is easier to send them here than to send a copy to them by email.

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In Catholic teaching, we sometimes use the phrase "sacramental economy" which bears a bit of explanation.  The word "economy" is derived from a Greek word, which originally was associated with the ordering of one's household.  It was had to do with the manner in which one would organize one's slaves and laborers and the like.  The word implies something ordered and systematic.  We should also be reminded of the meaning of the word "sacrament."  Those who were catechized by means of the Baltimore Catechism would quickly tell me that a sacrament is an outward sign of an invisible reality instituted by God to give us grace.  A shorthand way of saying this is that a sacrament is a visible sign of invisible grace.  Thus, when speaking of sacramental economy, we are describing the manner in which God has created the world so as to communicate something about himself.  Another way to think of this is to say that when God created the world, he left his fingerprints all over it.  For example, in the transition of the seasons from spring, to summer, to autumn, to winter, and back to spring, we see something of God's eternity.  He is without beginning or end; He always has been and always will be.  Similarly, that we see plants die and the world go dormant each fall only to return to life in the spring reminds us of God's promise of resurrection; death is not the last word in life.

Today we celebrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity.  This mystery is the central mystery of Christianity.  As Christians, we profess that our God is Three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each distinct and yet equal in dignity.  And yet, even though distinct from each other, these Three Persons are One.  Our God is One in Three, Three in One.  Moreover, we believe that from eternity, God the Father has been begetting God the Son, and in return, God the Sun has been offering Himself back to the Father.  Another way of saying this is that God the Father has loved God the Son with the deepest intensity, and God the Son has loved God the Father with an equal intensity.  This love between the two of them is so profound that it takes the form of a third person, God the Holy Spirit.  This reality is a mystery in the truest sense of the word.  Though we can understand it in part, we will never plumb the depths of the Holy Trinity.  God, however, has always desired that we should know him.  As a result, within human life, he has given us an experience that mirrors the reality of God's love within himself.  This reality is holy matrimony.

It works like this: Within marriage, a man falls in love with a woman, and he loves her more deeply than he has ever loved another person.  Likewise, the woman falls in love with the man, and she too has never loved so deeply,  The love between the two makes them one, and the love they share actually manifests itself in the conception and birth of a child.  Family life is something of a mirror for the reality of God's love within Himself.  It is for this reason that no Catholic in good conscience may support any effort to define marriage as anything other than the permanent and exclusive union of one man and one woman for the entirety of their lives together.  Simply stated, the union of two males or of two females cannot express the mystery of God's love in the way that the union of one man and one woman is able to do.

The Holy Trinity is the foundation of all of reality.  Everything we experience in life, we experience precisely because of who God is.  Life as we know it would be altogether different if God were different than he is.  Likewise, because He is foundational to existence, marriage, the institution by which we recognize something about God, is also foundational to the human experience. Human society and culture are precipitated upon the existence of marriage as it has always existed.  Without the coupling of man and woman, we would have no culture, we would have no society, we would have no nation.  Marriage and its ensuing family provide the context out which all of these elements of human existence are born.  As a result of this, we must admit that there is no such thing as marriage between two men, and their is no such thing as marriage between two women.  They are incapable of accomplishing the ends for which marriage exists.

At this point a caveat must be made.  Mother Church does not hate men or women who possess this inclination.  She loves them as much as she loves any of us.  Nor must we say that two men or two women are incapable of great affection for one another.  We might even admit that what they share is a form of love.  Allow me to be very clear, however:  This form of love is not the kind of love that reflects the reality of the inner life of the Holy Trinity.  By its very nature, unions between two persons of the same gender are incapable of becoming this sort of sign to the rest of us.  

Because of the weight and value of marriage, because of the role marriage plays in helping us to understand God properly, it becomes incumbent upon every Catholic to do all within his power to resist whatever efforts are made to redefine or damage the institution of marriage as humanity has always known it.  It is equally pressing that we do all within our power to defend this institution.  Marriage is not simply a civil right.  It is not simply a social institution.  It is a union established by God Almighty, and it is not within the realm of our authority to redefine it or to try to make it something other than it is.  This is not a matter about which we can choose to be ambivalent.  Because marriage rests at the core of our society, and to change how we understand the nature of that union must necessarily affect how we perceive everything else, and most especially how we perceive God Himself.  Catholics must take a stand.

The Holy Trinity has existed from all eternity as a communion of love.  This love is deeper than any we can expect to experience in this life.  And yet, because of the union of man and woman in marriage, we know something of this Divine Communion into which we have each been invited by virtue of our baptisms.  If we are to properly know this God who is love itself, if we are to properly understand who we are in relationship to God whose very existence is a union of persons, marriage must stand and must be defended.  It rests upon our shoulders to do so.