MARRIAGE AND FAMILY A TOWER OF STRENGTH, A GIFT AND A VALUE.

MARFAM has been promoting the cause of family life for more than 10 years. Your financial support helps us to operate, produce the publications, including this monthly enewsletter and maintain our website. Advertise your company or project on the website, enewsletter or various publications or send a donation to P.O. Box 2881, Randburg 2125. South Africa. Every Rand, Dollar or Euro helps to strengthen families somewhere, somehow.

At the end of a year of focusing on marriage, educating, promoting enrichment and counselling, praying with and for widowed people and the divorced too I ask myself how much of an impact has been made? How many couples feel renewed, how many priests and educators feel challenged to do more to support this foundation sacrament of the Church as Family, which is the guiding image for the Church in Africa? How many of our youth have even vaguely considered that marriage can and should be an exciting and fulfilling way of life?
The Church knows and believes in the value but is also aware of the hardships and difficulties of married life. In their recent Pastoral Letter the bishops expressed concern over those who do not marry and those, who although they are married, live separate lives.
Is marriage really a value, something one chooses freely and commits to? Our December family life theme is “Marriage is a gift.” In what ways is this true? Marriage is a gift from God, our Creator, who not only made man and woman co-creators with him but also built this institution of marriage on the knowledge that it is not good for man to be alone, and so a suitable help-mate, or call it soul-mate, was created. Marriage is a gift of the spouses to one another, ideally a total gift of self, body and soul; the value being unconditional love and intimacy. Coming to understand this is the task of a lifetime and the phases of life together, accepting the permanence of the commitment. That is essentially what Pope Benedict XVI expressed in his encyclical DEUS CARITAS EST, (God is love). In exploring and relating the love of eros and agape, often regarded as human versus spiritual love, he writes that “the more the two in their different aspects find a proper unity in the one reality of love the more the true nature of love in general is realized.” This growing in unity is the gift of marriage.
On Christmas eve 1965 the gift Chris and I exchanged was a commitment to a life together. We were married in 1967 and would be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary next January. Our marriage, like everyone else’s had its ups and downs, its growth times and stagnant times but we were coming to an understanding of giftedness and unity. Through his death we have now been separated for more than 6 years. I still believe marriage is a gift and our marriage continues to enrich my relationship with God.
However, I wonder how divorced this view is from the reality of life in 2006. I feel uncomfortable and uneasy about our world, an increasingly secular place where God is excluded from many places. People with influence in the workplace, the school, sport, leisure and homes too appear to ignore or reject spiritual values. There are some people who do value a deep relationship with Jesus Christ, the foundation of our Christian faith, many do not. Social ills while not purely caused by a lack of God are compounded by the selfishness and individualism that result from a lack of God in any form. Crime, corruption, poverty, HIV/AIDS are social dilemmas but to each there is the human relationship dimension influenced by our relationship with God, who is also the source of our values. When we look and listen to the news and world events are there not grounds for feeling despondent?
At this time South Africa are once again in the mode of preparing for Christmas. I was invited to the annual Christmas play at some of my grandchildren’s school last week and went along as a dutiful gran, while feeling quite anti-Christmas carols right now, with Christmas still a month away. But a small miracle occurred. First of all I was moved by the way the well-known story was presented by these little 10year olds. They knew the whole story well and recited it beautifully. However it was the special touches that brought me a ray of hope. In their dramatization there was a lonely old shoemaker, who kept wondering whether Jesus was coming this year. The moment of truth came when he finally realized that Jesus had come to him, in the poor, the lonely and needy who had passed by his door and whom he had helped. This was a ray of hope for him too. We as South Africans have had a bad year. The media has exposed us to so much scandal; the greed, selfishness, rape and murder that have taken place. We are now in the midst of a 16 day campaign against violence to women and children. On 1st December we face with a whole hype around World Aids Day.
The Government is enlisting the help of the churches in promoting moral regeneration. In that context I find it fitting that at the end of this year, I needed to be reminded that “a little child will lead them” echoed in the words of the well-known carol. “A ray of hope settles all around, you’ve got the feel you’re on solid ground. All across the land, dawns a brand new morn. This comes to pass when a child is born.”
We conclude the focus on Marriage and Family, a Tower of Strength, this month with the theme, “Marriage is a gift.” The gift of marriage is enhanced by the gift of children. Children are the family focus for 2007. Love gives life. May marriage be experienced as a gift of love, from God to the world. May all families give their children the love that gives life in 2007 and may the Christ-child be the first of many a ray of hope that miraculously brings life to the world.
Toni Rowland

Although the year is fast drawing to a busy close my two offices are both still flat out, preparing for workshops and developing the children’s theme for 2007.
THEMES FOR 2007: CHILDREN, GIVEN THEM LOVE!

An overview of the themes will be published on the website www.marfam.org.za A drive is under way to get this project moving through diocesan level to parish level. Pastoral Councils should have a portfolio for family life to coordinate the ministry to families which can include this awareness project too, but everyone else, and in particular educators and youth departments and those working in development, are also active roleplayers. Activities from simply including the monthly topic in the weekly bidding prayers or in various prayer groups, to organizing a retreat or seminar or building the current theme into a Lenten programme and lessons for children can help to focus on the needs of children and possibly in collaboration with other agencies these can be addressed.

World AIDS Day. The theme is STOP AIDS! KEEP THE PROMISE! No better promises than the Church’s traditional teaching, an exchange of marriage vows and faithfulness to them, a promise of abstinence until marriage. Next best?

CIVIL UNIONS BILL
In our last month’s newsletter we reflected on the subject of who or what is our highest authority at some length. In spite of vigorous objections by some of the religious groups and various other bodies and an overwhelming rejection in the various public hearings the SA Parliament and other legislative bodies have passed a Civil Unions bill parallel to the existing Marriage Act. It was signed into law just before 1st Dec ember deadline, and will give same-sex couples the choice of marriage or a civil partnership. The main grounds for the bill having to be pushed through parliament at this pace was that the Marriage Act was judged by the Constitutional Court to be discriminatory and an amendment was demanded by 1st December. One news item described this as having been done because of our “belief in democracy in the true sense of the word.” But how can this be? Is this whole situation not rather making a mockery of democracy? A sad, sad reason and a sad day indeed. Will this be the end of the line or will a call for an amendment to the Constitution be the next step?

From Press Release: Human Life International humanlife.int@iafrica.com www.hli.co.za
15 November 2006 CIVIL UNIONS BILL
Human Life International deeply regrets the passage of the Civil Unions Bill yesterday, which effectively legalises same-sex “marriage” in South Africa. Despite vehement opposition to the Civil Unions Bill, during public hearings around the country, the views of ordinary South Africans have been ignored. The large amount of time, effort and resources expended by the Department of Home Affairs on conducting public hearings have been largely wasted.
We not only oppose this legislation itself, but we also deplore the undemocratic way in which it was passed. In the name of granting constitutional rights, the ruling party has ignored the constitutional rights of their own MP’s to exercise their freedom of conscience and belief, by forcing them, on pain of penalty, to vote in favour of this bill. Despite much opposition from within the party, MP’s toed the party line and voted in favour of the bill.
The Freedom Charter of 1955 proclaims, ‘No government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people’. This piece of legislation expressly contravenes the will of most South Africans, as well as the overwhelming majority of Churches, and the House of Traditional Leaders.
Homosexual persons have the same rights and privileges as all South Africans. Certainly we do not support unjust discrimination against those with a homosexual orientation, and believe that all of us are entitled to the same respect and dignity that is due to us as human persons. However, we believe that this law grants homosexual persons ‘special rights’ to which they are not entitled.
Marriage is an institution that predates the notion of the nation state, and certainly the Constitution of our Republic. This institution is something that exists in it’s own truth. It is the union of a man and a woman, a lifelong partnership, ordered towards the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. The law of any parliament cannot alter this reality. It is a truth, which exists, willed by God and unchangeable. It is simply not possible to have a marriage between two persons of the same sex.

RADIO VERITAS will be bringing listeners the “Good News for a Change” right through the month of December, broadcasting on channel 71 on DSTV and streaming on the www. Why not give the family a gift of DSTV this Christmas? In addition to all the TV possibilities, on Radio Veritas in addition to the local programmes EWTN also features quite prominently at times. The programme FAMILY MATTERS hosted by me brings the Good News of Family life and is broadcast on Wednesdays 10-11 and Saturday 11-12. I was delighted to have contact with 2 listeners who enquired more about the widowed ministry being highlighted during November.

For more on Media and radio in particular visit HTTP://WWW.MEDIAFRICA.NET.
From TRRAACE Electronic Newsletter N° 49 - 21/11/2006 * 2006-11-09 - RESOURCE
SOuth Africa: Radio, TV And Print Have Positive Impact On Aids - Study
http://allafrica.com/stories/200611080682.html
A new survey in South Africa has proved the positive effect of media campaigns in raising HIV/AIDS awareness.
The study by four organisations, including the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Centre for Communication Programmes, covered more than 8,000 people across the country and examined how exposure to more than 20 media initiatives had shaped their behaviour.
"It [the survey] shows for the first time that interventions through radio, TV and print have had a profound effect on increased condom use and HIV testing," Dr Warren Parker, executive director of the youth drama series Tsha Tsha, told IRIN/PlusNews.
Parker was confident that at least half the people tested nationwide for HIV over the past year had been influenced by the campaigns.
According to the findings of the survey, Tsha Tsha - with an audience of 14 million - has shown a significant impact on condom use and HIV discussion and testing, while another popular youth programme, Soul City, which reaches 70 percent of the nation's 45 million people, has had a marked influence on stigma reduction.
However, Parker warned that gaps remained in terms of the lack of a common message shared by both the government and civil society organisations in the fight against the pandemic……………

WEEKEND RETREAT FOR WIDOWED PEOPLE IN FEBRUARY AT GOEDGEDACHT
Ministry to widowed people is something close to my heart. It is a form of peer ministry where we, as facilitators rather than retreat directors, provide an opportunity in a structured manner for the widowed, men and women, to reflect, share if they choose, but be a support for one another through their common experience. Sometimes the widowed feel uneasy to join a group, even afraid, but I highly recommend this weekend at Goedgedacht in the beautiful setting of the Cape. It promises to be a deeply comforting and healing experience.
There will be a priest for part of the weekend and to end with Mass on Sunday afternoon.
See the advert for details.

MORAL REGENERATION is again on the national agenda in response to crime, violence, and corruption across government and civil society. The 2010 Soccer World Cup to be hosted here is an added incentive to address these problems. The Family Life Desk participated in the Social Development Department Family Life sub-directorate strategy planning workshop on Moral Regeneration. The President too is consulting with churches and faith communities on this.
“No maternity leave for pregnant school girls” according to the Minister of Education. She stated that the education department’s role is to teach and that of learners is to learn. However acts of serious violence happening in schools are a great concern to all. Everyone agrees, a plan alone is not enough, implementation is vital. We all need to play our part, do whatever we can but not pass the buck or blame one another.

MORE ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS RESOURCES
See www.4catholicEducators.com for ideas and activities.

FROM CORRESPONDENT Greg Libera:
The attached document is a most excellent exemplary work of the mutual thought and collaboration between Catholics and Evangelical Protestants. It deals with the most critical appraisal of the most fundamental of issues in this modern world viz. The Culture of Life vs. a culture of death.
Also, in our South African context, this document without saying so, by inference, appraises the most unfortunate thinking currently envisaged by our own ANC led/inspired government. The weight of the arguments and sound reasoning in this document applies equally to our "new" inexperienced
democracy as it does to the mature and tested democracy of the USA.
My special petition is that you spend a moment by reading this document carefully. Think about it in the image and likeness of God by which you were created: consider whether you fit in or not.
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0608/articles/ectstatement.html

From a www.smartmarriages.com report
“WANT TO LIVE TO A HEALTHY 85? STAY TRIM (And, married......)
LINDSEY TANNER Associated Press
CHICAGO - One of the largest, longest studies of aging (conducted over 40 years in Hawai on over 5000 Japanese-American men) found one more reason to stay trim and active: It could greatly raise your odds of living to at least age 85.
.. Chances of being healthy in old age are better than even for people who at mid-life have normal blood pressure, good grip strength and several other physical characteristics associated with being fit and active. Other habits long linked with good health and well-being - avoiding smoking and excess alcohol, AND BEING MARRIED - also improved chances of surviving well into the 80s.”
There must be a clue to a Christmas gift in there somewhere.
Happy shopping one and all!

From www.catholicjokes.net Why not pick on the guys for a change?
Some Reasons Eve Was Created
10. God was worried that Adam would frequently become lost in the garden because he would not ask for directions.
9. God knew that one day Adam would require someone to locate and hand him the remote.
8. God knew Adam would never go out and buy himself a new fig leaf when his wore out and would therefore need Eve to buy one for him.
7. God knew Adam would never be able to make a doctor's, dentist, or haircut appointment for himself.
6. God knew Adam would never remember which night to put the garbage on the curb.
5. God knew if the world was to be populated, men would never be able to handle the pain and discomfort of childbearing.
4. As the Keeper of the Garden, Adam would never remember where he left his tools.
3. Apparently, Adam needed someone to blame his troubles on when God caught him hiding in the garden.
2. As the Bible says, It is not good for man to be alone!
And finally, the Number 1 reason why God created Eve . .
1. When God finished the creation of Adam, He stepped back, scratched his head, and said, "I can do better than that."

Contact Marfam

Tel: +27 11 789 5449
Fax: +27 11 789 5449
Email: info@marfam.org.za
Web:
www.marfam.org.za

Contact Marfam

Tel: +27 11 789 5449
Fax: +27 11 789 5449
Email: info@marfam.org.za
Web:
www.marfam.org.za