In the first part of this article, we were looking into the nature of the person, including his subjective and objective experience of reality and his ability to interact with others. This idea of the person naturally leads to understanding his role in community. In this second part, we shall understand how the person is capable of what Wojtyła defines as the “I—thou relationship”, with marriage being the most fundamental kind of that relationship. We shall then show how marriage is the foundation of family, the communio personarum.
Of the I—thou relationship, Wojtyła writes, “The human being—both I and thou—is not only an existing subject but also an acting subject, and in this acting the thou becomes at every step an object for the I.” In other words, through the person’s action and relationship, the thou becomes an object for the I, and not just an object, but a unique person deserving love, and the opposite relationship is true as well. In this way, the connection between the I and the thou is what Wojtyła calls “lived experience of relations”. Both persons are discovering how to relate to each other in the reality of experience. Thus, through common action, the I and the thou enter into relationship with each other. In this near-poetic language concerning the reciprocal nature of the I—thou relationship, we cannot help but think of marriage, which, as Wojtyła says, best exemplifies I and thou:
[The I—thou relationship becomes reciprocal] When a thou that for me becomes a specific other, and thus ‘another human being,’ simultaneously makes me its thou; when two people mutually become an I and a thou for each other and experience their relationship in this manner. Only then, it seems to me, do we observe the full character of the community proper to an interpersonal I—thou relationship.
With these words in mind, we can see that marriage, as a reciprocal, mutual self-giving, is the perfect example of the I—thou relationship.
Indeed, marriage is the foundation of the communio personarum called the family. In describing the connection of the I—thou relationship to the communion of persons, Wojtyła writes:
By ‘community,’ I understand ‘that which unites.’ In the I—thou relationship, an authentic interpersonal community develops (regardless of its form or variety) if the I and the thou abide in a mutual affirmation of the transcendent value of the person (a value that may also be called dignity) and confirm this by their acts. Only such a relationship seems to deserve the name communio personarum
Because the I and the thou live in a relationship that is marked by a confirmation of the dignity and value of the other person, the two are capable of forming a communion. It is here that we come to the “community” aspect of Wojtyła’s thought, although we will turn to another essay from his pre-papal philosophy, entitled, “The Family as a Community of Persons,” written after the Second Vatican Council. Wojtyła writes: “The human being as a person is capable of community with others in the sense of rational community as communio.” Therefore, because of his rational nature, the human person is capable of forming communion, and as such, only the human person is capable of coming together with another person to form communio personarum, a communion of persons. Through marriage and the gift exchanged between the husband and wife, the I—thou relationship becomes a family.
Thus, the person is the fundamental “unity” of the family; without the initial response of persons coming together in love, there would be no family. As Wojtyła writes, “The family is the place in which each human being appears in his or her own uniqueness and unrepeatability” and, “Every human being takes his or her beginning from the family—and precisely as a ‘creature…that God will for itself,’” referencing the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et spes 24:3.
Therefore, through the family, each human person comes into existence and, in a certain respect, discovers his meaning. Each person has a family and finds himself in a family.
Through the self-gift of the husband and wife, a new child comes into existence in the family, thus developing and growing the communio personarum. Indeed, Wojtyła writes that the I—thou relationship of the husband and wife is enriched by the we relationship of children; their love is not diminished but only grows through the addition of children. We see these same themes scattered throughout John Paul II’s thought as Supreme Pontiff, for as he wrote in his 1996 Letter to Families: “‘Communion’ has to do with the personal relationship between the ‘I’ and the ‘thou.’ ‘Community,’ on the other hand, transcends this framework and moves towards a ‘society,’ a ‘we’” (7). This we becomes the communion and community of the family, for it is the fruit of the love between the union of the husband and wife. Furthermore, this communio personarum, John Paul II continues, is a shining example of Trinitarian love: “The primordial model for the family [communio personarum] is to be sought in God himself, in the Trinitarian mystery of his life” (6, emphasis in original).
Given this understanding of the relationship of the person to the family, we cannot deny the utter importance of protecting both the family and the person. If we ignore the uniqueness of each person, we shall surely ignore the similar uniqueness of the family. Similarly, if we do not protect the family from attack, then the person will also suffer abuse. As Catholics, we cannot shy away from defending both the person and the family, for both are inseparably bound in the reality that God has given to mankind. And, since “the family is a society, the smallest social unit,” as Wojtyła writes, we cannot grow slack in defending it in these difficult times in our Church and world. Nevertheless, true examples of what it means to be communio personarum are necessary for regaining a right understanding of family in today’s culture. Without these radiant examples and defenders of the person and family (such as Karol Wojtyła) coming from heart of the Church, we cannot hope to regain a proper respect for the family in the world today.
Veronica Arntz graduated from Wyoming Catholic College with a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts, which included courses in humanities, philosophy, theology, and Latin, among others using the Great Books of Western thought. The title of her senior thesis was, “Communio Personarum Meets Communionis Sacramentum: The Cosmological Connection of Family and Liturgy.” She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Theology from the Augustine Institute.
