God gives each of us the burden of co-responsibility

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Prv 31:10-13, 16-18, 20, 26, 28-31
Second Reading: 1 Thes 5:1-6
Gospel Reading: Mt 25:14-30 

God created the world “good,” but “it did not spring forth complete” from his hands, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church; he created it “in a state of journeying toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained.”

“God is the sovereign master of his plan” for the world, but he made humans his co-operators, entrusting us “with the responsibility of subduing the earth and having dominion over it.” He gave us the freedom and the intelligence we need “to complete the work of creation” and “to perfect its harmony,” for our own good and that of our neighbours, like the “capable wife” of the First Reading.

Thus God lays a burden on us, a burden we may be tempted to refuse like the man with the one talent in the Gospel Reading.

We sometimes wish that we could make an irrevocable decision to follow Christ, once and for all, and then leave everything to God, acting under orders like a soldier, relieved of all responsibility. In the absence of such orders, we are tempted to turn to horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, tarot cards, mediums, omens, clairvoyants, lots, and even the flip of a coin – all forbidden by the First Commandment.

The desire to avoid responsibility can even masquerade as trust in God, especially in human procreation. For example, one couple, asked about their next child, said, “We’re leaving it to God.” A woman wrote, “We have left it up to the Lord in regard to more children. Whew! What a load that is off my mind! He’s in charge – not me, not my husband, but God!”

But no, “God the Creator invites the spouses to be not passive operators, but rather co-operators or almost interpreters of his plan,” said Pope St. John Paul II. “Unfortunately, Catholic thought is often misunderstood on this point, as if the Church supported an ideology of fertility at all costs … One need only study the pronouncements of the magisterium to know that this is not so.”

In his landmark encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope St. Paul VI said that conjugal love “is first of all fully human”: not “a simple transport of instinct and sentiment,” but “also, and principally, an act of the free will,” requiring husband and wife to be aware of “their mission of responsible parenthood.”

Accordingly, spouses must have a knowledge of and a respect for human biological processes so that “reason and will” can exercise “dominion” over “the tendencies of instinct or passion.”

The knowledge spouses need to manage their fertility in a truly human way is the exact time of ovulation. As early as 1951, Pope Pius XII expressed the hope “that science will succeed in providing this lawful method [of regulating births] with a sufficiently secure base.”

Thanks to Drs. John and Evelyn Billings, that hope was fulfilled. An honest appraisal of their findings “should dispel certain prejudices that are still widely held,” said Pope John Paul, “and should convince married couples, as well as health-care and social workers, of the importance of proper training in this area.”

Responsible parenthood demands the regulation of births. Contraception and natural family planning both have this purpose, but contraception is evil because it interferes with the total self-giving of the marriage act. Similarly, bulimic purging and dieting both have the purpose of regulating weight, but bulimic purging is unhealthy because it interferes with the natural purpose of eating.

God has given husbands and wives the intelligence and the knowledge they need to say, “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit, and ours too, that we conceive, or do not conceive, a child right now.”

By closing their eyes to the awareness of their fertility, they decline the full dignity of God’s co-workers and the sublime experience of coming together with the knowledge and the will that, under him, they are about to procreate a new human being.