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Letter to the Editor

God wants us to be generous

Editor:

In the July-August issue you included the second half of an article by Karen Giermek. Without in the least way detracting from anything she said (so beautifully), I would like to add a comment relating to her last paragraph, which reads, "The Church does not teach that we need to have as many babies as is humanly possible.

"With serious reason to postpone a pregnancy, a married couple can use the natural rhythms of the body to do so." In one sense, this is a regrettable conclusion to her article because of the question it begs and does not answer, i.e., what does the Church want?

The Church has, of course, never proposed that we have as many children as is humanly possible, although this libel has been around for a long time. What the Church does propose is paradoxically much more difficult. It proposes to us that we should be generous.

It tells us that married people have a true vocation to marriage from God Himself and, within the bounds of charity and prudence and trust in Divine Providence, they should therefore dispose their education, spousal choice, living conditions, employment, and all the circumstances of their lives to the completion of the ends of married life. .

They are to find their mutual joy in the good things offered by marriage: a common life, permanence, fidelity and their greatest reward--children.

This is offered for our consideration not under the pain of sin, but under the burden of love, just as the whole Christian life is presented to us. Generosity is what effected our salvation. Generosity can be our only worthy response.

God loves generous family life. "How many?" is the wrong starting point in a prayerful discussion with God about a family's size.

God loves children. The Western World, the historical center of what was supposed to be "Catholic" life, will soon enough discover the result of ignoring its Christian family heritage, and of embracing the "culture of death." Demographically, it is going out of business, as anyone knows who has checked the population trends of Europe and North America.

Life is about LIFE.

Bernard M. Collins Frederick, Md.