Family Week Talk By Fr Wisdom Chikezie

Posted on:November 2nd, 2017

TALK DELIVERED BY REV. FR. WISDOM CHIKEZIE AT THE FAMILY WEEK HELD IN ST. AUGUSTINE CATHOLIC CHAPLAINCY, AKOKA, YABA, LAGOS.

DATE: FRIDAY 18^TH AUGUST, 2017.

TIME: DURING THE 6:30PM MASS.

Preamble:

Early this morning, I got a phone saying-father I am tired of this marriage! My husband keeps making me angry. He doesn’t perform his duties as a man neither the biological activities. I am just like a fellow man living with him in the same house. No affection. No care. Infact father, it is better been a single mother than been a married woman. In fact father I am tired… I want out. She burst into tears!!!.

After much persuasion and pleas… she simmered down and allow the conversation to go normal. One thing amongst other thing I said to her was… marriage is a vocation and it is a call and special grace is given to fulfill the obligations of this state you are in if you cooperate with it.

I also told her, if you are not called to the single state of life you will never find meaning and fulfillment in life. I told her don’t think that those who parade themselves as single mothers are truly happy. Whatever they do is a make shift. A false belief that they are okay and doing great with good jobs, nice apartments, and flashy cars. I told her they accepted this because they don’t want to be under any man. They don’t want to be told what to do and how to cooperate with the family in order to make the home a wonderful one for all. I said to her, If you were given such an opportunity, do you think you will be happy? How many sexual partners do you think will make you feel like a woman? Do you think you can call any man your own or can any man call you his own? What does family life mean to you? Do you think you will be happy if your child grows up and cannot call or identify any man as his father? Do you think its only the biological activity that makes marriage meaningful? Where have you placed the unitive aspect of marriage? I told her you should be happy that you have got a home to call yours and be proud of it, manage it in such a way that it will bring joy and happiness to both of you.

After all that was said, she said she will reflect on it and give me a call. Later this afternoon she called and began to say thank you father for those questions I put across to her. She said I never thought of it in this direction? I will work in this direction and with prayers, make my home a blessed one.

This is just one out of many who may not even get the right counsel in the midst of challenges. So many have been taken advantage of and led into delusionment and frustrations and regrets haven to abandon home in hot pursuit of shadows.

No wonder Rev. Wright truly was right when he said those powerful words of prayer that not only shook the Kansas house representatives but the world. It popularly quoted and referenced in higher institutes of learning and in other gatherings of learning. He prayed those:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. Lord, we know your word says, “woe to those who call evil good,” but that’s exactly what we’ve done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.

We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word and called it moral pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have neglected the needs and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it political savvy.

We have coveted our neighbour’s possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called enlightenment.

Search us oh God and know our hearts today, try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

It is on this note, I say Good evening everyone. We thank the Lord for such an occasion for us as a community of Christ’s faithful to gather around the table of the Lord to reflect on family life. In a special way I thank all the speakers who have done justice to the topics given for our reflection. Today, we are gathered to reflect again on another topic: Families become what you are!

In the words of His Grace, Alfred Adewale Martin, at the press conference which ushered in the year of the family in the Archdiocese of Lagos, “destroy the family and you will destroy the society.”

The family has a strong link to the society. A good society is a reflection of good families. A society exists because families exists hence there is need to return to the foundational principles for which God intended the families.

This topic has its root in Pope Saint John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation to families-Familiaris Consortio where the Holy Father calls for the family to “become what you are.” A request which stands in contradiction to what the world is constantly telling us. In the west, governments and forces in society are demanding that we change the way we understand marriage and family and to construct our vision of family along very different lines which include divorce, contraception, multi-partners of either gender, intentional and induced childlessness, single parenthood, gay marriage, gender transformation-that is a man becoming a woman, and a woman becoming a man, bestiality etc. These stem from an individualistic and a selfish culture where the self is exalted above God and his commandments. The world tells us that human nature is plastic; we are our own gods and we can make of ourselves whatever we please.

Pope Saint John Paul’s reminder stands out like a sign of contradiction opposing all the secular confusion. He is taking up the biblical mandate that proclaims that man has a “received” nature, he is created and must discern what that nature is, if he is ever to be happy. The word of God tells us that we have a God, not that we are gods and even where the bible makes use of that statement, it is in reference to strict compliance with the commandments of the Lord as those who have been given a mandate to fulfill. Subdue the earth, multiply and be fruitful. The promises of secular philosophies ultimately are delusional and this is confirmed by the increasing wreckage we see amongst families which buy into this way of thinking.

Familiaris Consortio begins by saying, “The family finds in the plan of God the creator and Redeemer not only its identity, what is it, but also its mission, what it can and should do.” We do not create the structure of the family. Our task is to discover how God has created us and to work within His plan. This and this alone, leads to joy. God does have a plan and purpose for our families and for our marriages. This is not something we are inventing. Ultimately, families are a gift to be received.

St. Paul was always encouraging Christians to be what they were. They had come out of paganism, out of sin, out of destructive lifestyles and had found new life in Christ. In Him, they discovered their natures as sons of the living God. This is who they truly were. They received this nature in baptism and now they had to live this out day after day. The temptation was always to fall back into their former identity which was alienated from God. But Paul encourages them to forget what went before and to continue to strive towards the prize of eternal life. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation-2 Cor. 5:17.” The force of our fallen natures and this world pulls us away from the truth of who we truly are. Our task as Christians is to remain rooted in Christ, affirming who we are in Him, so that we can gain eternal life.

This process is the same for the identity of the family. We must not allow the world to tell us what the family is. We must not let the forces active in our society become inimical to the family and deform our understanding of the family in Christ. ‘Families, be what you truly are’

Families can become what they truly are if they begin to understand their mission and do those things Christ expects of us

1. Openness in marriage builds an effective home where effective communication is established and it only through this can we learn to know each other better, and deal with our frustrations together. What kills marriage and relationships in the society is our tendency to avoid communication about the important issues and feelings of our daily lives. The system breaks down, and we become distant from one another.

A marriage or any deep relationship has three stages: being together, differentiation, and being together but different.

1. Being together: this occurs when we see all that we have in common.
2. Differentiation: occurs when we begin to perceive our differences, when we begin to see each other as we are; we are both good persons, but are different, unique, having different backgrounds, opinions, perceptions, and ways of doing things. This is normal in any relationship. This is when we are faced with the possibility of growing together or growing apart, of divorcing or finding intimacy. It is only through painful communication that we can come to understand each other, learn to compromise, cooperate, collaborate, tolerate, and learn to live together. Otherwise this is often the period when divorce occurs, or families become loosely connected, with the members manifesting a “proper” but superficial niceness to one another. This is when relationships die.
3. Being together but different: occurs when we can admit our differences and work through them and accept them, we develop a deeper relationship, a way of being together but different. We preserve unity and individuality; we are equal but different. Any genuine relationship involves struggle, some tension, and adjustment. When we maintain our individuality we will preserve the relationship. “The two shall become one” (Genesis 2:24).[1]

In Matthew Jesus stated clearly: “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst” by this Jesus meant people not only praying together but about people having the courage to face each other to talk openly and honestly, and to recognize the many aspects of their personalities and the differences that make each one unique. It is not a time when people are caught up in power struggles, or the desire to control or manipulate, or have another submit. It’s a time when people truly reveal themselves to one another. As God reveals himself to us, so God calls us to reveal ourselves to one another. When we do that, we find God in our midst.

1. Children must be taught Listening skills:

If communication is the skill by which we reveal ourselves to one another, then listening is an art by which we open ourselves to the revelations of others. Listening requires attentiveness and patience. Listening can be very healing, especially when one really hears the pain and needs of another. Listening demands intense emotional focus and eye contact with another person. It requires that we understand what others are saying, but above all, what they are feeling. Listening can make or break relationships.

One of the first requirements for being a genuine and effective listener is the ability to be in touch with our own inner world. What are our thoughts, our attitudes-above all, our feelings? We need a connectedness with and an awareness of our inner selves. In other words, are we truly able to listen to ourselves? If I don’t listen to myself, how can I possibly listen to you? If I am not in touch with my inner world, how can I be in touch with your inner world? Thus, listening to myself is an absolute necessity. Without it I will not be able to probe the depths of another person. Yes, I can hear, but hearing alone is not listening. If I can’t handle my own angry feeling, how can I possibly be comfortable with someone else’s? I can’t be in touch with what that person is truly saying and above all, feeling.[2]

Being aware of what we are feeling means being able to identify specific feelings within ourselves. We often claim that we are upset, but what does that mean? Can we identify precisely such feelings as hurt, anger, sadness, or disappointment? That is why, in the case of so many marital problems, it is necessary to help each spouse to name, claim, and frame what they are feeling. Only then they can reveal to the other what they are feeling.

When we listen to others, we need to help them sort out and identify their feelings by asking them what they are feeling, and then by reflecting back to them what we think we hear them saying. For example, if I say to another to whom I am listening, “your boss really did hurt you badly by her sarcastic remarks,” then that person will realize I have truly been listening. The person in pain feels connected, feels you are caring, and realizes you are truly walking in their shoes. We call this empathy. It is not just counselors who need to practice empathy; all of us do if we are to be in tune with others.

Listening means focusing all our attention and energy on the other. Our body language can show that we are there, present, for the other. Our eyes are focused on that person. Such listening is responsive and reflective. We are not just sitting there like mannequins. We reflect back the other’s feelings and thoughts. We echo their joy. We are shocked when they are shocked, angry when they are angry, sad with their sadness. We don’t give them intellectual answers or advice right away, or tell them of similar experiences we’ve had. They are not really interested in those responses at that point. They need us to be there for and with them. This type of listening without interrupting requires much discipline, so that we stay focused on the other person. When we listen to people, like Jesus power goes forth from us to heal the other person and bring them back to reality and they will be able to reveal deeper stories they feel within themselves.

One thing is sure that when we have listened well enough to the other without been distracted or make them feel we are not listening to them or use remarks that are a little harsh, they end up saying to us “thank you for listening, thanks for your help.” We may think we did nothing more than listen. But what a gift that is! It is this type of genuine, penetrating listening that touches the center of the storm in people’s hearts and calms them down.

Benefits of listening

• Healing will never really take place in our society, or in our churches, until we start to listen to one another only then will we be able to have healthy and better relationships and marriages and society. Listening heals relationships because it helps dispel many of our misunderstandings and misinterpretations that have accrued between us and that are the causes of so much dysfunction in marriages and families.
• Listening helps us gain insight into another person, to know that person, to understand him and to help him understand and know himself. Listening is part of loving. Only when we have truly listened to a person can we genuinely begin to love and accept the individual as he/she is.
• Listening is a part of living. It means being in touch with the realities around us. Being in touch with reality is what makes for good mental health, as painful as that reality may sometimes be. To be fully alive and vibrant is to listen intently to the world around us to learn about life and appreciate it.
• Listening often involves laughing. This means we are in touch with the ridiculousness and the ups and downs of life. Because we laugh with people, and not at them, after we have truly listened to them, we know people are healing and getting better because they have begun to laugh at themselves, and we with them. Humour helps us to put life in perspective, eliminates the distortions that we perceive, lightens the burden of living, and reduces stress. Humour is probably the least used therapeutic skill in counseling as well as in living!
• Listening means letting go of ourselves. When we listen to others, we get out of ourselves, our self-centered world. We reach out and touch other people. We get in touch with their pain and sorrow. We begin to understand what another aspect of life is about. As the Christian tradition says, “When we lose ourselves, we find ourselves.”
• When listen to others we become able to put our issues in perspective and become able to cope with them. For example- when others hurt us and seek forgiveness, we have to listen to their story, as to why whatever happened and thus gain understanding. Then we can let go of our hurt, anger, and pain. We can forgive because we understand.
• Finally the more we listen, the more we become human ad spiritual because we are able to rise above ourselves and get in touch with others and with God.
• Prayer is about listening: listening to what is in my heart; listening to what others are saying and placing all of this in the hands of a listening God. Prayer is the belief that there exists a caring, loving, ever-present listening God. In this we are strengthened, consoled, and find peace. Prayer can be healing because in prayer we can let go and get in touch with God, who cares for and loves us no matter what he hears and knows about us.

1. Children must be taught conflict resolution and management: children must be taught to understand that conflicts are part of life and necessary if a healthy, functioning relationship is to be maintained. Jesus when he came into the world, he fell into conflict with that world. Jesus said, “I did not come to bring peace, but dissension” (Luke 12:51). The bible is full of conflict! The psalms reflect the conflict going on within us, among people and between us and God. Anytime people attempt to become close to one another, there will be both warmth and friction. In a close relationship, warmth and friction go together. If a relationship becomes stuck, there is neither warmth nor friction. The relationship breaks down. The one important element necessary for keeping a mechanism operating is the lubricant. It prevents burnout or the gears from becoming locked. The necessary lubricant in any close relationship, especially in marriage and families, is appropriate conflict.

One thing we must know is that anger is a normal, healthy emotion and needs to be expressed in an appropriate way. We need to distinguish between appropriate anger and inappropriate anger, which can be destructive. We need to realize there is a difference between conflict and violence. Violence is conflict out of control.[3]

When spouses suppress their anger, hurts, or disappointments with one another, and let them build up, it will create a serious dent on the relationship. This repressive type of relationship is like a cancer eating away at and eroding the bond of trust between the two people. The partners drift apart emotionally, at first unknowingly. Gradually, they realize they are emotionally distant from each other and become sexually uninterested. They panic. They begin to think they no longer love one another and that their marriage is over.

This is not necessarily true. This numb state, in which there are no feelings, is a sign that the relationship is in trouble. The parties are stuck. Underneath the numbness are hidden layers of hurt, anger, even hate and rage. The partners need to start surfacing all the accumulated, unresolved debris within themselves. They need to begin a serious, difficult dialogue. One of the painful aspects of such communication is that disturbing misinterpretations, unresolved differences, long-time resentments, and deep wounds will be exposed.

Extramarital affairs are destructive and unfair ways of resolving obvious and/or usually unrecognized discontent in the marriage. Partners are often attempting to have their unmet emotional and sexual needs met in the affair. Such liaisons almost never become permanent and viable relationships. Sometimes they are stepping stones out of marriage. Affairs are symptomatic of problematic marriage. They always indicate repressed or suppressed anger at the other spouse, as well as other underlying, unresolved conflicts in the marriage. Silenced conflicts are deadly. Healthy conflicts can be the saving grace by which God’s healing power can work.

Repressed and Unresolved conflicts in marriages as well as relationships can manifest itself in all types of physical problems and emotional difficulties, such as anxiety, depression, cold silence, sexual distancing, and passive-aggressive behaviour, to mention only a few. The relationship goes flat, it’s without passion and intimacy, while spiritually it lacks meaning and inspiration.

Many people decide prematurely that their marital relationship is over. They separate or to seek out other side attractions-like having an affair, or becoming immersed in outside activities or interests. Or they may maintain a tolerant relationship without dealing with underlying tensions. Many people want to divorce prematurely before giving themselves a chance to address underlying issues in their relationship. In so doing, they never allow themselves the opportunity to genuinely encounter each other.

Sometimes the unresolved, buried hurts and anger that exist in a relationship eventually emerge in disastrous explosions or other forms of emotional overreaction. This type of conflict is destructive. People say vicious things to one another that they don’t necessarily mean, and much unnecessary hurt is the result. The parties are out of control. After an explosion, they are regretful and ashamed of their behaviour, but they once again bury their hurt and anger until the next build-up takes place and the next explosion occurs. This cyclical pattern of destructive conflict can be changed only when the partners are involved in learning how to deal with their hurts, angers, and disappointments openly and promptly on a regular basis. However, if the partners fear conflict, they tend to avoid these necessary disagreements, thus setting themselves up for unhealthy periodic explosions.[4]

When we allow people to treat us miserably or abusively without being assertive because we fear conflict, we eventually lose respect for ourselves. Those who mistreat us have no respect for us because we take such abuse and they will continue to treat us harshly.

Ways of handling conficts

1. One way to overcome conflicts that gives room for harsh words, violence, blaming, emotional and physical abuse, someone having to be right or wrong; power struggle is by joining an anger management training group/program, seek to better oneself by a constant self mastery.
2. Seek to promote openness and honesty in relationships where people are open and honest with one another, where each party will be able to accept each other with openness to disagreements, differences, and painful revelations that would be a source of growth. In seeking honest relationships conflict is a real possibility.
3. We must know that conflict is a challenge and that it happens inevitably when people live together, and in all close relationships. Conflict surfaces new information and indicates that something needs to be addressed or resolved.
4. In conflict we gather abundance of information that we have not known about the other person; unanswered needs and unrecognized feelings, misperceptions and disagreements can be clarified and brought into the open. We begin to realize that change, adjustments, and compromises need to be made. We become more sensitive to one another. At times, we will be shocked and overwhelmed by the revelations that conflict surfaces. But differences in people are not bad-they are normal. Conflict will bring them to light.
5. Conflict helps us maintain our identity so we don’t become swallowed up or controlled by another person. We also recognize ad establish boundaries with each other. Control and submission are destructive of a healthy relationship. It is in the area of differences that a marriage either grows, stagnates, or dies.
6. Healthy conflicts teaches us to negotiate with one another. This is based on the theory that roles, whether in an intimate relationship or a working relationship, emerge from a process. People need to talk-out the issues and listen to one another as they share their thoughts and feelings, their opinions and viewpoints, without becoming defensive with each other. This will also help dispel tensions, confusion and misinterpretations.
7. Conflict also helps us overcome rigidity and become more flexible with one another. That’s why when one spouse always gives in to the other for the sake of peace, that spouse is not only relinquishing his or her own identity and self-respect, but enabling the other person to become more rigid and more controlling. This is a deleterious pattern found in some marriages. When we have a gut feeling that something is not right in a relationship-anxieties are building, resentments  mounting, or we are beginning to become irritated over insignificant issues-we need to ask what is bothering us and then begin to communicate with the other about it.

 

1. Children ought to be taught what marriage is all about and to have a presumed idea of marriage:

Dear friends, if we want to ever overcome this crisis and save the marriage before it starts, we must revisit our understanding of what marriage and family life entails. Marriage is both a gift of God and a gift to the individual persons involved. It is a gift that calls each to be open to and respond to love unreservedly. Marriage is a call to “fidelity” and “commitment.” It demands “unity”, “indissolubility” and “faithfulness” in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to “fertility” (CCC. 1643). It is by its nature ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory. (CCC 1652). The fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual and supernatural life that parents hand on to their children by education. Parents are the principal and first educators of their children. In this sense the fundamental task of marriage and family is to be at the service of life. (CCC 1653).  

Dear friends, marriage is not a child’s play it is a serious business and care must be taken in its pursuit. We can’t rush into marriage and expect things to begin to work out as we consider. It demands a conscious and deliberate decision followed both by spiritual and physical as well as psychological preparations. It does not end in the matrimonial celebration rather Marriage is a life-long journey and entails been at the school of love- experiencing the unique beauty of your spouse/partner. If we gamble into marriage, we gamble out. It requires nurturing and preparation. It also requires a proper care in the choice of a partner (cf. Genesis 24.) because the spouse or bride that comes into a home must be able to carry on the God centered values and legacies already existing in the family he/she is about to come into and must endeavour to continue it.

In his response to the many challenging questions that couples brought forward to him in his meeting with them, Pope Francis stated the fact that many couples are afraid of making a definitive choice in life, contributing to a mentality that brings couples to “stay together until this love lasts.” He said, “love is more than just a feeling or a psychological state, but a relationship that grows like the construction of a house. Just as the love of God is stable and forever, so we would want the love that is the foundation of the family to be stable and forever. We cannot let ourselves be overcome by the ‘throwaway culture of our times.’” He continued that the “fear of forever” is cured day by day through a life of prayer. Recalling the Lord’s Prayer, the Pope prayed that God may ask Christ to multiply their love.

The Holy Father also highlighted the fact that to live together is an art that can be summarized in three words: (1.) Excuse me, (2.) Thank you, and (3.) I’m sorry.

“Excuse me” is the gentle request to enter into someone’s life with “respect” and “attention”, he said, adding that to ask permission means to know how to enter into other’s lives with courtesy.

“Courtesy,” he stressed, “conserves love. And in our families, in our world, where there is much violence and arrogance, there is a greater need for courtesy towards the other person.”

The pontiff also stressed that “thank you” is not just a polite manner of speaking but a sign of gratitude. “I am sorry,” he said allows us to learn from and recognize our mistakes and faults.

Dear friends we all know that there idea of a perfect family doesn’t exist, nor does the perfect husband, or the perfect wife, he said. We won’t even talk about the perfect mother-in-law, what we are called to do is to focus on the essentials of marriage and family life which is “love, practice of forgiveness and never to allow each day to end without returning peace to the house, to our family.”

As with everything else in life, effective marriage and family life begins with and ends in God. From the dawn of creation, God’s design has been for us to raise up offspring to populate the earth. Producing and parenting children are a big part of the original mandate humanity received from our creator:

“Then God said, let us make man in our image, in our likeness;…” so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creatures that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:26-28).

God’s first recorded statement to man established the principle of parenting: “be fruitful and increase in number.” Man was commanded to reproduce after his own kind and God created “man,” both male and female, to make human beings increase through sexual union within the context of marriage. In other words, God created Adam and Eve and then told them to have children. And just as God created Adam and eve in his own image, their children would in turn bear the image of their parents. Genesis 5 verifies that Adam and Eve fulfilled this mandate faithfully.[5]

God created man (male and female) in his own image and likeness. The general term “man” includes both male and female; men and women together make up the race that is known as “man” or “mankind.” And together they in turn produced children that take up their genes and chromosomes. The word image and likeness not only refer to external qualities but also relate to internal qualities.

I pray that the lord may help us awaken our interests once again to the vocation to married and family life with openness and sincerity as well as singularity of purpose. God bless us all as we have taken this time to listen to this talk. Amen.