The Christian Family and the Religious Family

The Christian Family and the Religious Family
Father Marie-Dominique Philippe, O.P.

During the audience that he so kindly granted us, the Holy Father spoke to us about both the Community of Saint John and the family. This is important, and we must understand that the Holy Family is the one and the same model for the Christian family and the religious family. Thus for the earthly family as well as for the religious family, the renewal can be made only through the Holy Family. It is something radical. Everything began with the Holy Family, and everything has been renewed by it in an admirable way. And the Christian family is part of the Holy Family through the sacrament of marriage. The Christian family is not only sacred; it is something divine, and the sacrament of marriage requires holiness. Thus it is not surprising that it is not easy to be a Christian family, and that it constantly demands going beyond ourselves. It does not mean taking the easy way out! Someone told me one day: "In marriage, everything is allowed." No, everything is not allowed! According to the wisdom of God, everything has to be lived in the family in light of the Holy Family.
As for religious life, we know quite well that everything is not allowed. The three vows are not exactly easy to live. Viewed from a Freudian perspective, religious life goes in precisely the opposite direction. The spirit of virginity to which the vow of chastity commits us can only be kept thanks to contemplation. We make a commitment to the spirit of obedience for our entire life, and for Freud obedience is not exactly a blossoming! And in the Freudian perspective, the spirit of poverty is not a profound development either! Thus it is a mystery. The Christian family is a mystery since it is sacrament, and religious life is a mystery. That is why some very easily oppose domestic life and religious life at a psychological level; but this is a human psychological perspective. It is true that the difficulties are totally different; the struggles are not the same, yet the finality is the same. If we no longer look at the finality we only see the oppositions, yet the finality is indeed the same since these are two paths toward holiness. We must grasp this very firmly. The Church is a great living being, and in the Church the Christian family has a place that is fundamental, and religious life also has a place that is ultimate. The two have been somewhat separated because people have forgotten the finality, and when they forget the finality they "formalize"; they fall into formalism. Religious life is easily formalized; people separate the Christian family and religious life or place them in opposition, instead of understanding that there is a common finality. It is the same thing for the Christian family: one can fall into formalism and easily set the family and the demands of the Church in opposition. Some go so far as to say that the Church does not have the right to speak about the family! Some say, among other things, that the Church has no right to make a pronouncement on the "morning after pill." What? The Church is Christ, and Christ is God, and Christ reminds us of the fundamental law of marriage.

Christian marriage is not simply a demand of moral life. It is a demand of Christian life, and thus requires from the will a constant striving towards holiness. What the Church asks us is to strive for holiness, and this is not something to be acquired overnight. Just as in religious life: it takes years to acquire religious mores and to understand what they mean. This takes time; the Lord knows this well, and therefore He never accuses us. He forgives us all the time, if we have a poor heart. It seems to me that it is the spirit of poverty that effects the fundamental unity between the Christian family and the religious family. Because the spirit of poverty (the first of beatitudes) is the same for both. In the Middle Ages, Saint Dominic was at the origin of a renewal of apostolic monastic life from the standpoint of poverty. Saint Dominic, who was meek and good, cursed in advance those of his brothers who would no longer be poor, who would start building convents that would be palaces; for he knew quite well that even if each monk is poor, the community can be rich--even more so than the family, because it is larger! The community must remain poor, and each religious must live by the spirit of poverty. For their part, Christian families must live by the spirit of poverty. This does not mean that they need to become "stingy"! This is not at all the spirit of poverty. The spirit of poverty, on the contrary, renders us magnanimous since everything that we have is for God, for Christ, for those that we love, and for the poor. This is what is great.

This has happened on our pilgrimage. There are Christian families that have enabled so many religious to come. This is something we must tell you: we religious would never have been able to afford this trip. You could have paid for three chaplains and said: "That is enough." However, you have had extraordinary generosity and I thank you very much for this. God alone knows the sacrifices that you had to make, and I know that for some it has truly been the widow's mite: it was not taken from an abundance; it was taken from what was necessary (cf. Mk. 12:44). And you have come with your children. You saw how very happy the Holy Father was about this. This is what gave him the greatest joy. He was like Jesus at the audience: "Let the children come to me" (Mt. 19:14; Mk. 10:14, Lk. 18:16). He paid far more attention to the children than to the religious, and I am not jealous about this! On the contrary I am very happy, because in the depths of my heart, this is what I was hoping.... He welcomed all the children, while he was not able to let all the brothers and the sisters come to him. Here we have seen his heart uniting the religious family and the Christian family. And this shows us that when the Christian family and the religious family are united, the Christian family teaches the religious family! Let us be poor. Everything is gratuitous, let us live everything in gratuitousness. This is what I believe made all of us so happy: to see that everyone was living in the gratuitousness of love. What you have given you have given generously; what we have received we have received gratuitously.

All of you here are in the "Family of Saint John". There are oblates, and there are those who have participated for the first time in a Saint John pilgrimage. I am very happy about this, because we do not set limits on the "Family of Saint John." We have only one desire: that it spread. The Holy Father has asked this of me. When we came for one of his Holy Tuesday Masses he told me at the end, "Go throughout the entire world; I am sending you." That is why we turn our gaze to the entire world and we go wherever we are received. If we are not received, Jesus tells us to leave, just as in the Gospel (cf. Mt. 10:14; Mk. 6:11; Lk. 10:10-11), and we leave. Some cry over our departure, but others no longer want us because we are a "sign of contradiction" (Lk. 2:34) to them. When we left Fribourg because I stopped teaching at the University (I had reached the age limit) and the first 80 brothers returned to France, someone said to me, "Father, you give a counter-witness." I said, "What do you mean"?--at such times, we must appear as stupid as possible. He replied, "You are proving that there are still vocations." To which I replied, "That is evangelical! 'Pray to the Lord of the harvest that He send harvesters; the harvest is many and laborers are few' (cf. Mt. 9:37-38, Lk. 10:2). Do you pray that there no longer be vocations"?--"No," he replied, "But some say that there are no more vocations because priests do not marry." Then I answered, "We are religious; thus it is not the same thing. There will always be religious; it is stronger than anything. That's life! You see plants that grow in cement, making it crack and growing over it: this is religious life. There is no point in laying concrete, building turnpikes, organizing everything independently of religious; it keeps growing back! Providence finds places where it can grow. This may frighten some people, but that is the way it is"!

Similarly, there will always be Christian families. Sometimes people look at them and say, "Five children is a lot"! Or, "Seven children? That is incredible; you are medieval"! Better than that, we belong to the era of Christ! This is what we must say, "I do not belong to 'the 20'th century '; I am Christian, I try to live as a Christian, and hence I am bound to Christ. I know that economically I belong to the 20'th century, but I do not live at this level." Indeed we respect those who have economic responsibilities, and we pray for them; we have "Saint Josephs" to whom we owe a great deal! Yet none of us live at the economic level if we are Christian; we live at a Christian level while respecting the economic point of view.

This is Christian life. It is lived in marriage, and there are Christian parents who are more profoundly holy than some religious. I do not hesitate to say this. My mother was a saint, and I know Christian mothers today who are holier than many religious. But they have a vocation as Christian mothers, while others have a religious vocation. If these less holy religious were in the world, I do not know what they would be! Religious life is a place of mercy for some. It does not embarrass me to say this, because it is true. Religious life can be and is a place of mercy: one has the support of one's brothers; whereas if some religious were in the world they would perhaps be poor beggars....

Religious life is not reserved for an elite, and it does not necessarily represent Christian nobility. Not at all! Religious life is meant for the poor. And if we are truly poor, Jesus gives us everything. That is what is wonderful. In religious life we sometimes want to say, "Just think about mothers who wake up several times every night, when their small children call them and cling to them saying, 'Don't leave me, Mommy'"! This is true heroism and it is a great witness given by Christian life today. I greatly admire this, and I admire what is happening in the Community of Saint John. In particular I am thinking of the General Chapters of the Congregation of Brothers, when the priors and those who have great responsibilities gather together. Those who have been entrusted with a foundation are sometimes heroic.... I could tell you many stories; the "fioretti" of the Community of Saint John ought to be written, because sometimes there are small miracles! I dare say the Holy Spirit asks us not to listen too much to what is said here and there but to listen to Him, and ask Him to be there and help us to conduct ourselves in a manner that truly comes from Him and Mary. Many say to us, "You are not prudent." But this was also said of Saint Dominic.... Thanks be to God, Saint Dominique did not want to hoard the good grain. By sending his brothers to start foundations while they were still young and not so numerous, he said, "Hoarded, good grain rots; thrown to the wind, it bears fruit." We do not hoard good grain in the Community of Saint John. We are told, "It is folly." Yes, I agree it is folly; but it is the folly of the Cross (cf. 1 Cor. 1:18-31; 2:14-23; 3:19; 4:10), and we stick to this. I would rather be considered crazy-with the folly of the Cross-than be called wise and prudent in the sense of worldly prudence. We prefer to follow the rhythm of the Holy Spirit, as much as we can. We can make mistakes; we are not infallible! Only the Pope is infallible when he speaks at the level of dogma and at the moral level. Thus when he speaks about the Christian family--just as when he speaks about religious life--his infallibility is involved because he is the guardian of the Christian family and the religious family.

The Holy Father has explicitly asked us to be in the renewal of apostolic and contemplative monastic life, and he has asked us to go to the end in the demands of truth. That is why we confidently emphasize studies and require newcomers to go through six months of darkness, in a "tunnel," so to speak. During this time they have the impression that they do not understand anything at all, because it takes at least six months to get rid of the old man in our intelligence, i.e., to free our intelligence from its overly rational exercise and from the imaginary. This requires considerable time. To no longer go to the cinema every week (or perhaps every day) creates a terrible deprivation, a "lack." There are drugs that are visible, but there are also hidden drugs; time is needed to get rid of all of this. That is why you must pray a lot for the Community of Saint John. I ask this of you now that you know it a bit, that you have seen it at work. I hope that it has not scandalized you! During a pilgrimage, when we live together for a few days, we see the faults of brothers and sisters better than when there is a cloister! This is wonderful, since this fosters a deep bond. I am very happy about this because it is evangelical. At the end of Saint Dominic's life people did not did not say of him that he was a contemplative or an apostle; they said: vir evangelicus, an evangelical man. It is beautiful! Our contemplative sisters must be evangelical just as Mary was, and our apostolic sisters as well. All brothers, whether priests or not, must be evangelical men. Then there will no longer be this type of opposition between contemplative and apostolic: we want to follow Jesus and be faithful to the grace that the Lord gives us and to what He asks us. And the Church asks us to take means which allow us to preserve as much as possible this total, exclusive gift to Jesus. This is evangelical. This is what Mary did. Mary followed Jesus in His apostolic life, for the Apostles, and especially for John. She did not know it explicitly, but it was for John. And when Jesus gave her John as her son (cf. Jn. 19:26-27), she understood that she had lived this apostolic novitiate for John. Our contemplative sisters are for our apostolic life, that of their brothers and that of their sisters; they must carry it. I admire this very much, as I admire the brothers' life and the life of our apostolic sisters, as a grandfather admires his grandchildren. For a grandfather or grandmother the grandchildren who are growing up are wonderful; they are the most beautiful in the whole world! It is the same for me.... Sometimes people say to me: "When you talk about the Community of Saint John, you only see the good side." This is true... but I do so as God does, because God always looks at our good side, and never the bad. The demon always looks at the bad in us; he is the "accuser of our brothers" (Rev. 12:10), of each of us. As soon as we do something he thinks is wrong, he pounces and proclaims it (he is fond of this). Then instead of being joyful we are sad (this is what he wants); he does this all the time. The demon is terrible; he always wants to divide. But we want unity and we pray for unity. Joy demands unity, and God wants to see great joy in us. Think of the joy in large families; it is something very great. During the last family reunion which I attended, we were 170 direct descendants! Perhaps this is also why I like so much to be in this large Family of Saint John that unites all of us in light and in love. Let us live that fully-thanking all those who made it possible and who organized everything.

To conclude, we will speak a bit about Mary and John, Mary and Peter, Mary and Joseph. It is so beautiful to consider these three great bonds. With the novices, during an entire year, we looked at Mary's bond with Joseph. The Holy Family is so great! It is the patriarchal family. Isn't Joseph invoked as "light of the patriarchs" (cf. Litany of Saint Joseph)? And Mary, his betrothed (Mt. 1:18; Lk. 1:27), his wife (Mt. 1:20), is the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God. Saint Thomas does not hesitate to say that there was a very great friendship between Mary and Joseph. Never in the world has there been as strong and great a friendship as that which existed between Joseph and Mary, unique in limpidity and strength.

Mary and John: this is a very great secret. We can have a discussion as to whom must we love the most: John or Joseph? I remember having once said that it was John, of course. But Father Dehau, who was there, replied: "Be careful; not so fast! Joseph was very great." I have not forgotten this. We spontaneously look at John, the bond between the mother and her beloved son; yet there is also the bond between husband and wife. These are two different qualities of love. What we can say is that there has never been greater supernatural charity than the charity between Mary and John. With Mary and Joseph there is a human friendship between husband and wife, sanctified by grace, of course, yet a human friendship: Joseph chose Mary. And we can say that he is the patron of those who have good taste! When I see a young man who has chosen his fiancée well, I tell him: "Saint Joseph was surely there since you have chosen well." The choice between fiancées, between husband and wife, is something very great, because even though it is indeed a human choice, it is also a choice that comes from God! Did not God Himself present Eve to Adam? And Adam sang the first Magnificat: "Here is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh" (Gen. 2:23). It is God who has chosen, before the spouses. It is God who made the choice, since He blesses the choice of husband and wife, since Christ sanctifies this through the sacrament of marriage.

Therefore this bond between Mary and Joseph is very great. The bond between Mary and John is more mysterious, because it is more divine. It began with a divine choice, and this divine choice was then incarnated in a very great, very divine human friendship. And Mary was truly the mother of the heart of John, the mother of the priest. This is why we must love John and Joseph so much, to discover and enter into the heart of Mary.

There is also Mary and Peter. We do not know much about this bond; it is curious. In the New Testament, we never see Mary in the presence of Peter. At the Cross, Mary did not try to see whether Peter was present. Mary Magdalene surely did this, and she must have been furious because Peter was not there. There are sometimes in the Church Mary Magdalenes who correct their priest: "What are you doing? This is not worthy of you, Father"! Mary Magdalene must have said that to Peter: "What are you doing"? While Mary, Mother of Jesus, kept quiet and prayed for him. If you carefully look at the Gospel of John, you see that Mary Magdalene, after the Cross, went to John's house: "So she ran and went to Simon-Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them..." (Jn. 20:2). Peter, after having shed a few tears, perhaps went to John's house and there he found Mary. Nothing is said about this, however.... Mary-Magdalene went to John's house and there she found Peter, and John put Peter very close to Mary, his mother. Mary had deep respect and great affection for Peter. He was the one whom Jesus had chosen to exercise authority, to pasture His own sheep (cf. Jn. 21:15-17), and John was the one chosen by Jesus to be the beloved son of Mary so that she might entrust all the secrets of the Heart of Jesus to him. This distinction and unity is curious-a distinction that God Himself makes and a unity that He preserves, without separation. Mary is the mother of the Christian home and of the religious family. And Mary carries Peter. In the last days, Mary envelops Peter-the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (1854) and the Assumption (1950) envelop the mystery of Peter, the infallibility of Peter (1870). Isn't it surprising to see this? We are living something very great in the history of the Church and humanity. We did not chose this. Sometimes we conjecture: "Oh, if I lived at the time of Jesus"! The time of Jesus was the daybreak, and perhaps we are living at dusk. Now dusk is always stormier; there is all the heat of the day that weighs heavily... (cf. Mt. 20:12).

I do not know where we are in the life of the Church, but there are very strong signs, and Jesus asked us quite explicitly to be attentive to signs (cf. Lk. 21:25 ff; Mt. 24:32 ff). Now the greatest signs are attacks of the devil concerning the two great fundamental covenants of man with the Creator (see M.D. Philippe, Les trois sagesses, pp. 426-431): one at the level of the intelligence--the human intelligence is capable of discovering God--and the other at the level of procreation, the family. The two major attacks of the devil focus on these two covenants. Today the devil attacks the Christian family in a very particular way and shakes it up by attacking the mother; and he attacks the children when the mother hides behind Mary. This must be said: the devil attacks the children of Christian families. But we must not be afraid, and the mother must hide in the heart of Mary. Psychologists say that the first three years of education are capital. When these first three years are Christian, it remains for eternity. Even if there are struggles and setbacks during the difficult years, the first three years remain of paramount importance. A mother who has prayed with her child, a father who has prayed with his child; this is something which remains for eternity. Even if a man or a woman have been corrupted by the environment in which they have lived, what was done during the early years remains if they were Christian. God loves Christian mothers because they safeguard the first three, four or six years, until First Communion. It is a bond that remains eternally.

I emphasize this point so that Christian mothers understand that their gift is something very great that remains eternally. And what is true for mothers is true for fathers. A father who sees to the Christian formation of his child until he is ten or twelve years old and who continues to give an example is something very great. A father who kneels down to recite evening prayer is something very great for the child who suddenly sees his father become as small as he. It is the same when a mother or a father carries his or her small child while going to Communion: the child sees the priest give Holy Communion to his father or to his mother, and the priest traces a small cross on the forehead of the child... this is beautiful. This is part of Christian education which is much stronger than we think because it is part of the mystery of Mary.
Let us remain beside her, since it is she who united us.