If
you’re looking for a good book to read, I highly recommend this one – The Screwtape Letters by C.S.
Lewis. It’s a quick read, a
thought-provoking, sometimes funny, deadly serious look at the struggle between
good and evil, vice and virtue, temptation and grace.
The
book is a series of letters from a worldly, wise old devil named Screwtape to
his nephew, Wormwood, a novice demon who is just learning the ins and outs of
temptation in service of the one whom Lewis calls “Our Father Below.” This is of course, Satan. Wormwood has been assigned a human to tempt
and his task is to lead his human further and further away from God, whom
Screwtape calls “the enemy.”
This
book came to mind as I was pondering the current state of the family in our
nation and our world. For I could
imagine a letter from Uncle Screwtape in which Screwtape spells out Our Father
Below’s master plan of attack. Attack in
an attempt to bring havoc to God’s people and lead them astray.
The
letter I imagine would go something like this:
My
dear Nephew Wormwood,
In
the interest of your continued education in the ways of temptation, I would
like to explain to you Our Father Below’s latest plan of attack against the
enemy. The great war nearly achieved all
of our objectives, but in the end was a failure. So rather than to conquer by force, the new
plan is much more sly and devious! The new
plan is to attack from within – to attack the Christian family. For the enemy’s servant John Paul spoke the
truth when he said “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes
the whole world in which we live.” So,
my dear Wormwood, if we are able to destroy the family, we will destroy their
entire world! Which is our goal, to be
sure!
So here are a few of the specifics
of the plan:
1.
We must completely devalue their institution
of Marriage. We must advance the idea
that Marriage is disposable, that Marriage is unnecessary, that they can get
along fine without it, that it’s perfectly acceptable to conduct relationships
as they please, without the unnecessary burden of commitment and
responsibility.
2.
We
must spread the idea that their sexuality can be separated from
procreation. That they be in complete
control. After all, the fewer their
children, the better! And it’s fine if
they welcome God our enemy into their homes but by all means, keep him out of
their bedrooms!
3.
And
we wish them to view their sexuality as entertainment. Either as a participant sport or a spectator
sport. Banish from their minds any idea
that sexuality is a sacred gift from God!
4.
This
thing they call television – we will make sure there are few good role models
of healthy marriages and healthy families to be seen there. On the contrary, we will use the media to
reinforce all of the ideas I’ve outlined above.
5.
Finally,
Wormwood, and this is the most important – keep them as far as you can from
Church. Let them see Church as one
entertainment option among many, and give them all sorts of distractions that
keep them away. For there they will find
the perfect model of the Christian Family, there they will find Joseph, Mary
and Jesus, and Our Father Below is no
match for their power!
Well, my dear Wormwood, there are
many other details to this master plan that I will share with you when we are
together next week. Until then, keep
warm.
Yours affectionately, Uncle Screwtape
This letter, of course, is a
figment of my imagination. But, based on
what we’ve seen in the last fifty years, it sure is plausible! For without question, Marriage and the
Family are under attack and are severely strained in our contemporary worldly
culture. And there is good reason – for
the Family, which Vatican II calls “the Domestic Church,” is the bedrock of
both our civilization and our Faith. And,
according to the Pope, the family is the first way of transmitting the
Faith.
And
that’s why the current state of affairs is so distressing. 41% of births in the U.S. are out of wedlock (it
was about 5% in 1960) and that figure is rapidly rising toward 50%. 15 million children live without a
father. And while we praise those
single mothers who choose life and work long and hard to raise their children
and bring them up well, single motherhood is the single leading predictor of
both poverty and crime in our nation.
That’s
the bad news.
The
good news is this – the Family is a creation of God and a significant part of
our building the Kingdom of God is rebuilding the Christian Family. And we have confidence that it is a battle
that Our Blessed Lord is engaged in and will win.
You
and I are called to take up this battle as well. And how do we do that? First, by prayer – prayer for healthy, strong
and holy families. Next, by doing all we
can to make sure our own families are as strong, and as holy, as they can
be. Make no mistake, no family is
perfect. Every family has its share of
disfunction, of disunity, of sin. I
stand before you as a husband and father who has made my share of mistakes and
brought my share of pain to my own family.
But
you and I are called to strive, to do all we can to strengthen and make holy
our families. Here are just a few ways
to do that, and I’m sure you can think of more:
First,
come regularly to church. Here we come
together to worship and give thanks to God.
Here we are called and formed to be His Church. Here we receive His forgiveness and are
strengthened by His Eucharist, to go forth and be His presence in our families
and in the world. Go regularly to
confession and don’t miss Mass.
Next,
pray together as a family. There is
great wisdom in that old adage “the family that prays together stays together.”
Third,
get help when needed. There are all
kinds of resources to help you to build the kind of Marriage, the kind of
family, which God desires for you. Nine
years after our wedding day, my wife and I were in a pretty bad place in our
marriage. By God’s grace, we went on a
Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend that was like a u-turn in our lives
together. Words can’t describe how much
joy we’ve experienced as a result of that decision. More recently, we had family issues and had
no idea how to deal with them. A wise
family counselor helped us to sort things out and where needed, to change.
Finally
and most importantly, we must stay close in prayer to the Holy Family. Stay close to Our Blessed Lord, his foster-father
Joseph and Blessed Mother, Mary. They
give us a perfect model of the qualities we should strive for, in our lives and
in our families. We see in Mary her
humility and complete surrender to God’s will.
We see in Joseph, her most chaste spouse, the values of hard work,
trust, and complete self-giving. We see
in Our Blessed Lord the values of obedience, devotion and love. Let us entrust our families to the
intercession, and protection, of the Holy Family of Nazareth!
Let us pray:
O
God, Heavenly Father, it was part of your eternal decree that your
only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, should form a Holy
Family with Mary, His blessed mother, and His foster father, Saint Joseph. In
Nazareth, home life was sanctified and a perfect example was given to every
Christian family. Grant, we beseech Thee, that we may fully comprehend and
faithfully imitate the virtues of the Holy Family so that we may be united with
them one day in their heavenly glory. Through
the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
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