Let love overcome power

I was hurt and upset the other day when a priest phoned me. It was in connection with the family calendars issued by MARFAM and the resources for building up and strengthening family communication.

Fair enough not everyone wants to read MARFAM’s media. Maybe they don’t appeal, maybe they are either too simplistic for some or too difficult to understand for others. The point that disturbed me and challenged me was that he said: “I don’t work for families!”

The next day, when I was giving a talk while visiting a parish I told the congregation: “The priest is there to serve the families of the parish, the parishioners and families are not there to serve the priest.”  The priest agreed, but the parishioners looked a bit shocked.

What is our attitude in the Church? What are the power relations?

In many programmes, projects, and the Interdiocesan Consultation that is still in progress, we often hear the comment: “You have to get the priests on board, otherwise it doesn’t work. They hold the power.”

I work with many priests who are deeply dedicated to family life. They are frustrated when they organise and promote a workshop for couples or families, and people don’t turn up, even if they have promised him they will be there.

That is another version of powerplay which also manifests itself in other ways in Church life, on pastoral councils and sodalities and the various parish portfolios.

The family theme for the month deals with power, in the specifically chosen context of marriage: the power relations in marriage.

It is often perceived, especially in Africa that men hold the power. They are stronger and usually more aggressive and can demand their rights, especially (perceived) sexual rights, more readily. But women have power too and more subtly deny the men or impose their own will. In fact, they often control the home situation. They are also becoming more assertive, if not necessarily aggressive.

The answer to power play in marriage, as in any other context, is communication.  Communication skills, negotiation and conflict resolution skills are ingredients that are absolutely essential in a relationship as intimate as marriage. Commitment is essential too, but while that alone can make the marriage tick over, it will not enhance the quality of the relationship so that the couple can experience the joy and unity that God wishes for his sacramental couples.

Fr  Chuck Gallagher, one of the founders of Marriage Encounter in the beautiful prayer “Our Father’s Call to a Couple”, spoke for God: “Nothing is more important to me than your loving each other. So valuable and so precious is that special love that my Son has made you one of the sacraments of his Church. You in your unique union in your everyday life together are a sacred sign of his caring, healing and life-giving presence. Wherever you are, whatever you say in tenderness to each other and whatever you do in loving union brings Jesus is his Body, the Church, alive to all whom you touch.” Power, well handled, aims at this unity and this witness.

To return to my first point. Does a priest, or should a priest work for families?  Undoubtedly yes. Pope John Paul II often said: “The future of the Church—and of the world—is through the family.”

In his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul stated that “no plan for organised pastoral work at any level must ever fail to take into consideration the pastoral area of the family”. Other post-Vatican II Church documents have made similar statements.

Families are the real basic building blocks of the Church and this awareness  is part of integrating the special African Synod concept “Church as Family”, and also its converse of the family as the domestic church.

Both priest and people themselves must work for the good of families. Couples should avail themselves of the different marriage enrichment programmes, skills training opportunities and resources that are available and priests should promote and support them, even becoming personally involved as much as they can.

May the vision of Jesus and our Church echoed in the popular quote by the late rock star Jimi Hendrix inspire us to greater openness to collaboration. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.”