Taking Christ at His Word

 

            Living in a disposition of radical trust in Divine Providence is not incompatible with family life.

            Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they? … Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore do not be anxious…”

            When He said this, He was speaking to each of us.  This was not exclusively directed at consecrated religious or priests.  This was directed at all of mankind.

            Jesus was saying that complete dependence on Divine Providence is normal to mankind, and especially to His followers. 

            Now, this dependence necessarily looks different for a family than for a convent, but that doesn’t change the fact that both are called to radical dependence on God. 

            By our very nature, we are dependent on His love for our existence.  We do not subsist in ourselves.  We need Him, not just for our next breath, not just for the next beat of our heart, but for our very being.  If He should cease to love us, we would not simply die, we would be annihilated – we would lose our existence. 

            It is a lie of the materialist heresy that we are dependent solely on ourselves, that we are in control, that we are God.  We are not.  We are not the Creator.  We are creatures dependent on our Creator.  To forget this is to lose the source of our peace and joy in this life. 

            Whether we want to acknowledge it or not we need Him.  And whether we believe it or not, He wants to take care of us.  He is a loving Father.  He wants His children to trust Him.  He wants them to thrive and flourish.  He wants them to be happy, to be at peace.  He wants them to be with Him forever.

            The dependence of a family on Divine Providence is necessarily different than a religious’ dependence – just like a hand’s dependence on the heart is different than the eye’s dependence on the heart.  But both are equally dependent.

            What troubles me is that families who want to radically give themselves to Christ (in a way befitting a family) are counseled under the guise of “prudence” not to go “too far.”  They are counseled to settle for wage-slavery – although, they call it “financial security.”  They are being told that mediocrity is the lot of family life.  If they wanted to be saints, they should have become priests or religious.

            I wonder what Our Lady and St. Joseph think about this “prudential” counsel?  I wonder what Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin think about this?  Or Sts. Isidore and Maria?  Or Sts. Adrian and Natalia or Sts. Timothy and Maura or any number of the multitude of married saints? 

            Mediocrity is not the lot of any Christian. 

            The problem is that, as a society, we tend to equate obscurity with mediocrity.  Most families are called to obscurity.  But that has nothing at all to do with mediocrity.  The Holy Family lived in obscurity.  Jesus Himself spent 30 years in obscurity.  St. Anthony, St. Mary of Egypt, and all the desert fathers and mothers, and all the hermits and cloistered religious who followed their examples did not settle for obscurity, they sought it out.  And nobody would call any of them mediocre.

            In telling families to pursue holiness, to pursue greatness, we are not telling them to pursue notoriety or fame.  That is what the world, the flesh and the devil tell them to pursue.  We say that pursuing holiness means pursuing obscurity.  If God calls us out of obscurity then we must obey, but even so, we must learn to love the hidden life. 

            To choose wage-slavery which strips a man of his ability to be present to his family because he wants a “secure” paycheck is settling for mediocrity.  Especially if this man sees his family suffering in his absence and still is unwilling to make the jump of trust in Divine Providence that would allow him to structure his life so that he is with his family, he is being cowardly not prudent.  It is never prudent to be a heretic.  Materialism says that the needs of the body are of the highest importance.  Choosing to bring in a paycheck to provide for their needs (and their superfluous desires) and neglecting their emotional, relational, and spiritual needs for a father (or a mother) is to embrace materialism and all its ill effects. 

            I am not saying that prudence is not essential – it most certainly is, especially in the decision to go completely against the current and free oneself from wage-slavery in order to be present to one’s family – but prudence is not cowardice.

            The Catechism defines Prudence thus: “The virtue which disposes a person to discern the good and choose the correct means to accomplish it.”  The exercise of prudence leads us to the conclusion that, because the spiritual good of our family is of higher importance than their material good, we must not allow the material welfare of our family to become an obstacle to their spiritual welfare. 

Work is ordered to the good of the family.  The family is not to be sacrificed to Mammon on the altar of work, even under the guise of “doing our duty” to provide for the family.  Our duty is to assist each member of our family on his or her path to heaven.  Yes, we are humans and we need material sustenance, but that does not change the fact that we are made for eternity and what a failure it would be to feed and clothe the body that will turn to dust and to completely neglect the soul which is eternal. 

I do not mean to imply that we ought not work for the material welfare of our family.  St. Paul wrote, “If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  Of course we must take up our legitimate responsibility of providing for the material needs of our families.  And we must work incredibly hard to do that.  BUT not to the detriment of providing for them spiritually. 

Hard work is required to provide for a family, but that work does not have to take a man or a woman away from home for hours upon hours every week.  In fact, it doesn’t need to take them away from home hardly at all.  For most of human history, work was done by both parents at home by the vast majority.  That meant that work time was not separate from family time.  That meant that work was not separate from education.  That meant that providing for the body was not a detriment to the soul, because in watching their parents work and in working alongside them, children learned the Christian virtues that can only be learned through apprenticeship – through discipleship to those to whom they were entrusted by God.