February 2 was, of course, the Feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the temple, though before 1969 it was also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the pre-1969 liturgy, the Magnificat antiphon at 1st Vespers and the pre-Septuagesima Alleluia verse proclaim: Senex Puerum portabat: Puer autem senem regebat — “The old man carried the Child: but the Child governed the old man.”
Intergenerational Needs
The importance of the relationship between the generations has been understood by every generation except our own, in which fewer and fewer people appreciate the value of raising a child, let alone of dedicating a child to the Father, as our Lady and St. Joseph did according to the ritual of the Mosaic law. The almost universal acceptance of feminism’s tenets — even by many Catholics otherwise faithful to the Church’s social teaching — and their imposition by the State means that anyone (female but particularly male!) who wants to promote full-time motherhood must be brave. When Archbishop Mercieca of Malta described full-time motherhood as a “noble choice,” Malta’s Minister for the Family complained that he was generating guilt among women who had chosen work outside the home. Mater purissima, ora pro nobis!
Feminists insult the millions of women unable, through no fault of their own, to bear children, when they imply that not being “burdened” with children is essential to women’s dignity! Refreshingly, as well as Archbishop Mercieca, there are other brave voices. MaterCare, the obstetrics and gynecology wing of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, held a workshop on “the dignity of motherhood” in Rome in October. The best presentation was given by Maria Srodon née Klepacka, in which she said: “Motherhood [is a] radiation of God’s Fatherhood [and] His love” and “Motherhood knows no vacation.” At the World Meeting of Families in Valencia, Spain in July, one of the best addresses was given by Dr Jennifer Roback Morse, an American academic. Dr Morse was a committed career woman before having children, hut has made the choice to reduce her work commitments and make marriage and motherhood her primary vocation.
The Real World
Dr Morse has written: “The Real World is at home. This is where people are born and grow up. At home, people get sick, and get better. Home is where people love, where they fight, where they kiss and make up and love some more, and ultimately, where they die. The world of work and business is artificial by comparison.” Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI recalled that “[t]he visit to Valencia, Spain, was under the banner of the theme of marriage and the family. It was beautiful to listen, before the people assembled from all continents, to the testimonies of couples — blessed by a numerous throng of children — who introduced themselves to us and spoke of their respective journeys in the Sacrament of Marriage and in their large families. They did not hide the fact that they have also had difficult days, that they have had to pass through periods of crisis. Yet, precisely through the effort of supporting one another day by day, precisely through accepting one another ever anew in the crucible of daily trials, living and suffering to the full their initial ‘yes,’ precisely on this Gospel path of ‘losing oneself,’ they had matured, rediscovered themselves and become happy.”
Those who attended last year’s Pentecost pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres will recall the setting of a magnificent sermon given on Pentecost Sunday by Fr Alain Hocquemiller, Prior of the Holy Cross Institute of Riaumont. The sun was shining on the tens of thousands of pilgrims assembled for the open-air Solemn Mass and the wind blowing gently, as if the Holy Spirit Himself was physically present. Fr Alain said: “The true freedom of a child is in the hands of his parents! It is protected solely by the parents who, faithful to their sacred mission are ready, precisely, to sacrifice their own freedom, their tranquility, their comfort, their caprices, to set themselves at the service of the children to whom they have given birth. Who will speak of the renunciations, the sacrifices upon which the family is built, above all in a society which flouts its dignity and its legitimate privileges? Who will speak of the concerns, the pains, the fatigues, the worries of the parents, which weave the family’s story as the years go by? They are the arid compost on which, with the grace of-God, the purest joys grow. To love is to give all.”
Anthony Ozimic, here writing in a personal capacity, is Political Secretary of Britain’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).
