By Abhishek Prasad –
The Catholic Church cares deeply about marriage because it is a foundation of human existence, fundamental good in itself and a blessing from God. Each marriage forms its beginning in the foundation in- waiting of a new family and each marriage- based family is a basic ‘cell’ of the society.
The traditional view of marriage, which the church has always supported, is different. It sees marriage as about connecting the values and people in our lives which otherwise have a tendency to get fragmented: sex and love, male and female, sex and babies, parents and children. The view has long influenced our law, literature, art, philosophy, religion and social practices. Not to ignore the fact that the ‘marriage’ and ‘family’ are two faces of the same coin, they are interdependent and one cannot exist without the other. Nevertheless, to our dismay, despite all our efforts to safe- guard, the sanctity of marriage- the distortion on marriage is mounting up and this distortion is increasingly evident, shockingly, it has crept into every realm of human life and existence.
Ronald Rolheiser, the author of “Holy Longing” was giving a talk recently for a group of young adults preparing for marriage and was trying to challenge them with Christian teachings on love and sexuality. When he finished speaking a young man stood up and said, “Father, I agree with your principle in the ideal. But you are totally unrealistic. Do you know what is going on outside there? Nobody is living that ‘stuff’ anymore. Everyone is living differently now. If everyone lives according to his/her own vims and fancies then how the ‘religion’ is going impact on our lives and what is the relevance of Christ’s mission today? Is the world making ‘God’ a mere spectator to watch how human beings can prove that they are no less than ‘God?’. A great question to ponder upon!
Today nobody wants to listen to anyone. I once heard a story about a married couple that goes like this: In the first year together, the husband spoke while the wife listened. In the second year, the wife spoke while the husband listened. In the third year they both spoke, neither listened. Despite constant tireless effort from the church to convince the sanctity of marriage and upholding its faith -traditional position on marriage the world is turning its back on the Church not wanting to listen anymore, thinking that religion has nothing to do with their private choices.
Having brought up in a strong Catholic family my conscience does not permit me to reconcile and compromise with the post-modern idealism of marriage. It is gradually melting away like an iceberg carrying with the original “will” God intended for human sexuality. Rolheiser in his book “Forgotten Among the Lilies” beautifully puts how an idealism against the church would sound like, he says, like this, “whether certain principles and values are true or false is not so relevant. What is relevant is everyone has decided to ignore them and live in a different way, then this way must be right.” Values by common denominator. What an incredible and tragic loss of morals! The world around us influences the communities in which we live. Cultural and legal norms shape our ideas of what the world is like, what’s valuable, and what are the appropriate stands of conduct, and this in turn shapes individual choices.
Sooner or later these symptoms are bound to appear and sweep across our society today if we run the high risk of adopting modernity and western life-style obsessively. I recently read in one of the reports by a psychiatrist that “being lesbian or gay is not a disease but a trend which is slowly picking up in our country”. It is purely irrational and unnatural in reality and in terms. Down through the centuries what had been transmitted from one generation to the next as an unchangeable component. A small segregated group of the society cannot downplay the basic of social structure.
Thus a view of marriage- as between a man and a woman-which was previously common to believers and non-believers alike, across whole variety of culture and times, is increasingly becoming a truth which cannot be spoken. In this modern era of scientific advancement our world is staggering on the precipice of a psychological and moral disaster. As in Paul Ramsey’s words- “Playing God” – a desperate battle to take the place of God. I am reminded of the movie “The Lord of the Rings” J.R.R Tolkien’s epic adventure – which depicts battle between two great powers- powers of good and evil. A self-imposed autonomy. As a result people have lost their ability to distinguish between what is morally right and wrong and have virtually lost their sense of faith and morals. Society is messed up so much so that it’s been disfigured beyond recognition and identity of moral glimpse. The society in which we live has become sexually saturated on a high profile as a matter of fact the real meaning of love has lost its credibility- it has strongly replaced ‘sex’ for ‘love’.
The term ‘love’ has become the most misinterpreted, misunderstood and mistreated term today. Keeping in mind, that the world today is drawing everyone crazy- ‘pleasure’ as the ultimate purpose of life. And this culture has tampered the meaning and values of life and existence. ‘Pleasure’ as the immeasurable priority in every society, especially among younger generation. Do whatever gives you pleasure! Avoid pain and maximize pleasure. This is the post-modern dictum ringing in every society. India is no exception. This pleasure theory has distorted the whole understanding of love and friendship, relationship and marriage. It has blinded people from looking into the reality of ethical constraints.
People do not hesitate to twist the law, culture, tradition more importantly faith to suit their own inordinate selfish desires and interests. When one is filled with material prosperity then he/she is compelled to lose sight of God, then values of love, friendship, marriage and relationship make absolutely no sense to them. No sooner they realize their imperfections they crumble like a pack of cards. The world is littered with the wreckage caused by ungodly spiritual ideas. To ‘playing gods’ is to run ahead of God and fall, which is spiritually dangerous.
The word marriage isn’t simply a label that can be attached and transferred to different types of relationship as the fashion of the day dictates. It has an inherent meaning prior to anything that we may invent. It is all part of God’s plan to ensure that intellectual boasting, academic pride, power-lust and the cult of celebrity does not in any way prove our greatness before God. As ‘Creatures” we have limited boundaries of ethical confinement. Any attempts to do otherwise would only bring disaster. Therefore, before the crisis reaches its pinnacle of demoralization, let us step out in faith, and in solidarity with our deeply inherited culture of relationship, marriage and family and strive to restore the original “will” of the ‘Creator’ for human relationships.
Abhishek Prasad holds a Ph.D in Psychology – Doctoral Research Scholar, Department of Psychology at Periyar University- Salem in Tamil Nadu.