TIM AND SUE MULDOON
FOR
SIX SACRED RULES FAMILIES A Spirituality for the Home
PHILIPPINES
SIX SACRED RULES FOR FAMILIES A Spirituality for the Home Š 2013 by Tim and Sue Muldoon
Published by Ave Maria Press, Inc. P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition Š 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C., and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Published and distributed by Paulines Publishing House Daughters of St. Paul 2650 F. B. Harrison Street 1300 Pasay City, Philippines E-mail: edpph@paulines.ph Website: www.paulines.ph Cover design: Ann Marie Nemenzo, FSP All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. 1st Printing 2016 ISBN 978-971-590-810-8
at the service of the Gospel and culture
CONTENTS Introduction VII PART ONE: A NEW VISION OF FAMILY LIFE 1. Change Your Perspective
1
2.
Our Desires, God’s Desires
9
3.
Awareness in Everyday Life
17
4.
Family Life as a Vocation
23
PART TWO: RULES FOR FAMILY SPIRITUALITY 5. The First Rule: God Brings Our Family Together on a Pilgrimage 6. The Second Rule: Our Love for One Another Leads to Joy 7.
The Third Rule: Our Family Doesn’t Care about “Success”
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8. The Fourth Rule: God Stretches Our Family toward His Kingdom
53
9.
The Fifth Rule: God Will Help Us
59
10. The Sixth Rule: We Must Learn Which Desires Lead Us to Freedom
63
PART THREE: PRAYING AND LIVING THE RULES 11. Sacred Stories
71
12. The Witness of Others
77
13. Reading Scripture
81
14. Searching for Jesus
89
15. Conversion and Forgiveness
95
16. Compassion
103
17. Family Celebration
109
18. Discernment and Vocation
117
19. Self-Knowledge and the Good
125
20. Discernment for the Kingdom
131
CONCLUSION: Beyond the Rules
139
APPENDIX: Spiritual Practices for Parents and Families
141
NOTES
146
PART TWO RULES FOR FAMILY SPIRITUALITY
CHAPTER SIX
THE SECOND RULE: OUR LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER LEADS TO JOY In the context of the Christian spiritual tradition, family life is a vocation, a calling, a fundamental choice about how to live out one’s pilgrimage life. It is a particular role within the Body of Christ, which is to say that it represents a specific way of serving the world. Family life is always a public life, inasmuch as the members of the family intersect with the world in many ways: school, sports, work, clubs and organizations, and so on. What the rules propose is that the life of following Jesus is about living purposefully, and a particular way of doing that is by learning how to love the members of our families. To say it a bit differently, the purposeful life is always about imitating God by pouring out our lives in love, and family love is a privileged vocation. To echo an earlier point, practicing this vocation means actively seeking to learn it in the context of doing it. What makes this task difficult is that we’ve seen a breakdown in models of family life in recent decades: there’s not much agreement on how to parent well. Older parents, 43
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psychologists, spiritual guides, economists, teachers, coaches, and many others may have wisdom to contribute, but in the end, each parent must develop the desire to improve his or her understanding of what it means to parent within the unique circumstances of one’s family. Thomas Merton’s famous prayer might be helpful as a reminder of cultivating this desire. My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.5 This is a prayer that most parents can pray easily because it captures the inherent uncertainty of our vocation. We simply cannot know everything there is to know about parenting well, and so we are frequently left to our own confusion in sorting out how to proceed. We’ve been deeply moved by the stories of parents close to us who have had to negotiate difficult questions about how to parent children with special needs. We’ve seen moms and dads who have had to move heaven and earth to get proper
The Second Rule: Our Love for One Another Leads to Joy
educational services, medical care, or psychological testing. At every stage, there are experts who can cite studies and point to the state of knowledge within their disciplines, yet parents have had to fall back on the recognition that their child is not “the state of the discipline,” but a unique individual whom they themselves have come to know best. One mom very dear to us, for example, put on hold a teaching career to focus full-time on her autistic son who had significant speech delays. She holds a prestigious advanced degree and worked for a number of years both in the classroom and in the training of teachers to use technology in their work. But what recently has taken her time and energy is a passion to help her son develop the ability to speak and read. He has learned those things but not without massive efforts by his mother to advocate for him at every stage of his development. The 1993 film Lorenzo’s Oil tells the true story of Lorenzo Odone, whose parents (Augusto and Michaela) struggle to find a cure for the obscure disease afflicting their son. In real life, their efforts against adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) yielded the discovery of a mixture of rapeseed and olive oils that helped certain people afflicted with the disorder. The film, nominated for two Academy awards, shows in dramatic fashion the lengths to which the couple goes in advocating for their son. It is a remarkable story of what real love can summon from those who embrace a vocation to parenting. Most parents, of course, are exempt from the kinds of challenges the film portrays, yet all parents face challenges in learning how to really love the members of their families. Love is demanding; it involves paying close attention to the beloved, spending time with him or her, and looking for opportunities to help seek his or her good. The rules propose that the whole process of paying attention, spending time
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with those we love, seeking out ways of serving their good, being stretched in our time and patience and abilities—all these things are shot through with grace. Recalling that our very life’s purpose is loving our families, we are emphasizing that there need not be a “my, this feels holy!” feeling all the time. Quite the contrary: it may be frustrating, debilitating, boring, or stressful at times, while at others it may be exhilarating, peaceful, empowering, or reassuring at others. As a pilgrimage, family life will involve highs and lows along the way that we do well to stop and reflect on. But it also will involve moving along the pilgrimage, mindful that, in the end, it is the way we are achieving eternal life. It will involve moments of doubt and darkness as well as moments of crystal clarity, as if the fabric between heaven and earth has been stretched so as to become translucent.