This entire year has pulsated with the recurring theme of Our Lord's Divine Mercy. So many Catholics [and others] desire to plunge into that Mercy, to receive it fully and then offer it to others. In the past, I have spent much time reading books on prayer, mysticism, the lives of saints, divine providence, practicing the presence of God, etc. All have been excellent reads that have etched various pearls of wisdom upon my soul or influenced me in some way for the better, I hope. However, this year I have been much more focused on the basics of everyday living with my family and how to integrate all of these lofty notions of union with God, contemplation, mercy and love into my own household. This seems pretty basic and perhaps obvious that I should have started there in the first place, but God is very patient with me, thank goodness!
My husband and I began the Jubilee Year of Mercy attending a day with Dr. Allen Hunt who is a well-known marriage counselor and author of many books including Passion and Purpose for Marriage. This conference held on a beautiful fall Saturday morning was an eye-opener for my husband and I, who after 22 years of marriage, still loved one another very deeply, but needed some pointers on communicating and understanding one another's needs. Just by participating in a few exercises together, along with listening to the humorous and poignant stories of Dr. Hunt for 6 hours, we left with a better understanding of the daily commitment and awareness it takes to foster a deeper marital bond. The Scripture verse about the grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying in order to bear much fruit, became ever clearer. It dawned on me at that moment that this is the mercy which God calls us to each and every day in our very own home! To go out and perform corporal and spiritual works of mercy is always very pleasing to Our Lord, but it must start within my own marriage and family with the small sacrifices that we do for one another, in a spirit of unconditional love.
About this same time, I began to read Call to a Deeper Love, which is a collection of letters written by Blessed Zelie and Louis Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse. From the start, it was obvious that their daily lives were ones of mercy and sacrifice for one another, their children, and their neighbors. In one of the 14 letters included by Bl. Louis, he says, “Give, give always and make some people happy,” This attitude of generosity and thoughtfulness for others was always at the forefront of this family's household ways of life. Whether it was giving alms to the poor, helping sick neighbors, or spiritually and financially supporting those in need, we see a culture of mercy and Christian generosity cultivated on a daily basis. The reader discovers how Bl. Louis lived this exhortation himself, by giving up his own watchmaking business in order that he might help and support the very successful lace-making business of Bl. Zelie, his wife. He saw this as a natural means of supporting his spouse and living out his marriage vows, in creating what he described as, “the intimate happiness of the family... It’s this beauty that brings us closer to Him.”
Bl. Zelie had to radically trust in God's mercy and love through her own sorrows that beset her most of her married life, due to the death of their two infant sons, their five year old daughter Hélène , and a six and a half week old infant girl all within a short period of time. Zelie was to learn that her infant daughter died due to her nurse maid being an alcoholic and thereby being unable to provide nourishment for her daughter, who Zelie could not nurse herself due to a long-standing medical condition with her breast. She would also later learn that her daughter Leonie was emotionally and physically abused and threatened by the housemaid, Louise Marais. All of these situations could have left her quite cynical and hardened, but instead she was able to forgive these women and to trust in Our Lord's plan for her family in the face of such grief and tragedy.
One month after the death of little Hélène, Zélie writes, “Ever since I lost that little child, I feel a burning desire to see her again . . . not one minute in the day passes that I don’t think of her.” (Letter of March 27, 1870).
To her brother—who himself had lost a child—she writes, “Yes, it is really hard, yet, my dear one, don’t grumble. God is in charge, and for our good He can allow us to suffer a lot, and even more, but His help and grace will always be there for us . . .. ” (Letter of Oct. 17, 1871).
To her sister-in-law on that same occasion, Zélie gently shares her own painful experience: “May the good God grant you the grace to accept His holy will [Love]. Your dear little one is next to Him, He sees her, loves her, and you will see each other again one day. This is a great consolation, one that I have been feeling and continue to feel still. When I closed the eyes of my dear little children and was burying them, I felt much pain, and yet I have always accepted His will [Love]. I didn’t complain about the pain and the anxieties that I had put up with for their sake. Many people would tell me, ‘It would have been better not to have had them at all. ’ I couldn’t take that kind of talk. I don’t believe that all the pain and anxieties can compare to the eternal happiness of my children. And besides, they are not lost forever. Life is short and full of unhappiness, but we will see each other again up there.” (Letter of Oct. 17, 1871). [See http://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/sicari/]
What faith, mercy, trust exhibited between spouses and within this household as they experienced the tumult of life in 19th century France! How much can we learn from this attentiveness to one another's needs, and faith in God's loving plans for us amidst the crosses that are a part of the Christian family life!
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The second book I read on family life this year is called Mercy within Mercy: George and Pauline Vanier and the Search for God by Mary Frances Coady. This biography of the Vanier family focuses on a couple who balances a very visible diplomatic life in Canada and France, with their strongly held Catholic faith. within this vocation to marriage and family life, Pauline is also called to the spirituality of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, which offers the quiet prayer that she so longs for, as she often felt that she was walking a tightrope between her worldly duties of entertaining world figures; her family duties as wife and mother; and her call to contemplative prayer.
Her spiritual director wrote many letters to allay her fears that she might be failing God when fulfilling these duties at her husband's side. With great wisdom, Mother Mary of the Cross would advise her,
"I take full responsibility in telling you that it is God's drawing and to go fearlessly & humbly perseveringly along the path indicated - prayer and a prayer life amid your many calls and seemingly conflicting duties. Why should not God have souls to serve Him in that way, just because of & in spite of circumstances so strange."
After the strains of World War II, life would become even more hectic for the Vaniers who served in a variety of capacities to restore life to war-torn Europe, specifically France. By a special grace at this time, the couple, along with their daughter, Thérèse, would have the opportunity to meet with Mother Agnes of Lisieux and Sister Genevieve, the sister of St. Thérèse, who would make a great impression upon them all. They spoke of their little saint who had died at the tender age of 24, and shared about family life. The sisters promised to pray for the Vanier family and all of their intentions. Pauline was to write to her family about this life-changing meeting as follows, "We came away feeling that St. Thérèse was more than ever the protector of the family, more especially after the assurance of Mother Agnes's prayers. The whole thing is so closely linked."
The Vaniers would continue to deepen their commitment and practice to the Little Way. In the meantime, Pauline would continue to feel the strain of having her husband traveling and interacting with the de Gaulle provisional government, while herself participating in her ongoing commitment to the Red Cross charity. Again, she was advised, "I think of you with Our Lady in the epiphany Feast. She was indeed the 'Monstrance of Jesus' then, and so must you be by holiness of life and sweet gentleness in your own lovely home circle as in the broader sphere of your life. Make it your song of praise and love to Him for all He has lavished on you, and I am praying with you both."
As life carried them back to Canada and retirement, both had a perspective of how God's Divine Mercy had been so pivotal in their married life, and how exercising this mercy towards one another had blossomed into the ever strengthening bonds of their marital union, and the sanctity of their children; one of who would become a Trappist monk [Benedict], and another who would become the founder of l'Arche, a community for the mentally disabled. [Their daughter Therese became a medical doctor, who would later become a religious affiliated with l'Arche, and their two remaining children who became devoted family men.]
From the beginning of their nuptials, George and Pauline were aware of one another's weaknesses, with George's left leg being lost in battle during WWI, and Pauline's delicate temperament and nerves which often triggered depression for her when there was too much activity or the chaos of war and diplomatic appointments forced separation from their family of five children. When we read of the Vanier's amazing life of service and family, perhaps we don't relate to their high diplomatic circles and intercontinental lifestyle, but instead we see that it was their dedication and desire for God and to love and serve one another that bonded this family, and helped Pauline and George to reach the shores of eternal life with the mercy and assistance of the other through the ups and downs of life.
After the death of Pauline's husband George, her Trappist son Benedict wrote her a poignant and encouraging letter, "Daddy would have never been who he was without you. You made an astonishing little 'team', family-wise and career-wise. All the responsibility and affection into which he grew - as father of a family, as husband- would never have been, outside of your presence, life and heart. To say nothing of how he was gently prepared for grace and better understanding of who God is by that same presence, life and heart- yours. So- be at peace. You feel your poverty, your failings, and you are aware - even more- of who he was. But - remember how he was aware of his poverty, his failings. You more than any other can vouch for that."
Anyone who has been married for a length of time comes to realize that their spouse knows who they are without any filters- the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is in marital love, that those parts of ourselves that are contrary to Gospel values and the Beatitudes can be uncovered and healed through the patient and loving-kindness of our beloved. This is the vocation of marriage and its fruits over the test of time.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells speaks of these graces:
1641 "By reason of their state in life and of their order, [Christian spouses] have their own special gifts in the People of God."147 This grace proper to the sacrament of Matrimony is intended to perfect the couple's love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity. By this grace they "help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in welcoming and educating their children."148
1642 Christ is the source of this grace. "Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony."149 Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another's burdens, to "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,"150 and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love. In the joys of their love and family life he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb.
The last book I wish to speak of is the Story of Ruth Pakaluk in "The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God". This account of a young couple attending Harvard who convert from atheism, to evangelical Christianity, to Protestantism, to Catholicism in indeed a riveting one, as it takes place in our modern day. As we read about their search for truth and finding God and His Church, the challenges of their early married life, their plunge into parenthood, and the twists and turns of their studies, careers, and Ruth's dedication to the pro-life cause through speaking, writing curriculums, serving on boards, engaging in politics, and living this message of love for life in their own home, we can relate to their joys and sorrows, the love and compromises that make up the maturation of their marriage.
Amidst all of hubbub of this family who would eventually expand to seven children; the Ivy League academic career of Ruth's husband, Michael; the hiking trips around Great Britain and the Eastern United States; and the pro-life tours, debates and radio and tv interviews for Ruth, the inexplicable happens. The bombshell drops. Ruth is diagnosed with breast cancer in 1991. But we see with this couple's faith and the integration of the spirituality of Opus Dei into their daily lives, that Ruth calmly faces her disease, undergoing a mastectomy and five months of chemo. There was incredible community support, and after the completion of this regiment, Ruth's life returned to the normal routine of taking care of her brood of children, and preparing for the arrival of her next [and last] little one, Anna Sophia who would be born in April, 1993.
Later that same year, Ruth would notice severe pain in her lower back and hip. Tests revealed that cancer had become metastatic. With great grace and courage, we go on a journey with Ruth as she corresponds with loved ones and friends over the next five years, knowing that she will not escape inevitable death from this disease. Towards the end of her life she writes to a friend who asked her about the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church against contraception that, "Anyway, we adopted this way of living, thought I don't claim that I embraced it with wholehearted enthusiasm at first. It is the sort of truth [like fidelity in marriage] that you understand and appreciate more fully as time passes and you accumulate more life experiences."
She shares with another friend in one of her last letters, "I am relieved to have lived to see Sophie in kindergarten. Whatever happens, I am quite grateful for the great life I was given with so many more blessings than most people ever get. I am even just a little bit patient to see heaven, being - I suppose a true believer and also hard to please, I figure if the fallen world is this pleasant, what could heaven be but irresistible?"
She also pens a letter to a dear friend who was a former flame of hers in high school. She reflects on the change in their relationship and her marriage to Michael as follows, "I have also had many years to ponder why my identity went AWOL during freshman year. It was, I conclude, sinful self-will and self-absorption, pure and simple. Perhaps it was necessary for me to learn just how selfish I could be and how badly I could hurt people by following my own inclinations rather then what is really true. Anyway, as a result of the debacles of that year, I became serious about Christianity and ended up marrying Michael, the one person who has proved capable of forcing me to admit when what I want to do is, in fact, wrong."
