Marriage: A Christian Vocation

by Josemaria Escriva

For a Christian marriage is not just a social institution, much less a mere remedy for human weakness. It is a real supernatural calling. A great sacrament, in Christ and in the Church, says St Paul. At the same time, it is a permanent contract between a man and a woman. Whether we like it or not, the sacrament of matrimony, instituted by Christ, cannot be dissolved. It is a permanent contract that sanctifies in cooperation with Jesus Christ. He fills the souls of husband and wife and invites them to follow him. He transforms their whole married life into an occasion for God's presence on earth.

Husband and wife are called to sanctify their married life and to sanctify themselves in it. It would be a serious mistake if they were to exclude family life from their spiritual development. The marriage union, the care and education of children, the effort to provide for the needs of the family as well as for its security and development, the relationships with other persons who make up the community, all these are among the ordinary human situations that christian couples are called upon to sanctify.

They will achieve this aim by exercising the virtues of faith and hope, facing serenely all the great and small problems which confront any family, and persevering in the love and enthusiasm with which they fulfil their duties. In this way they practice the virtue of charity in all things. They learn to smile and forget about themselves in order to pay attention to others. Husband and wife will listen to each other and to their children, showing them that they are really loved and understood. They will forget about the unimportant little frictions that selfishness could magnify out of proportion. They will do lovingly all the small acts of service that make up their daily life together.

The aim is this: to sanctify family life, while creating at the same time a true family atmosphere. Many christian virtues are necessary in order to sanctify each day of one's life. First, the theological virtues, and then all the others: prudence, loyalty, sincerity, humility, industriousness, cheerfulness.... But when we talk about marriage and married life, we must begin by speaking clearly about the mutual love of husband and wife.

Their pure and noble love is a sacred thing. As a priest, I bless it with all my heart. Christian tradition has often seen in Christ's presence at the wedding feast in Cana a proof of the value God places on marriage. "Our Saviour went to the wedding feast," writes St Cyril of Alexandria, "to make holy the origins of human life."

Marriage is a sacrament that makes one flesh of two bodies. Theology expresses this fact in a striking way when it teaches us that the matter of the sacrament is the bodies of husband and wife. Our Lord sanctifies and blesses the mutual love of husband and wife. He foresees, not only a union of souls, but a union of bodies as well. No Christian, whether or not he is called to the married state, has a right to underestimate the value of marriage.

We have been created by God and endowed with an intelligence which is like a spark of the divine intellect. Together with our free will, another gift of God, it allows us to know and to love. And God has also placed in our body the power to generate, which is a participation in his own creative power. He has wanted to use love to bring new human beings into the world and to increase the body of the Church. Thus, sex is not a shameful thing; it is a divine gift, ordained to life, to love, to fruitfulness.

This is the context in which we must see the christian doctrine on sex. Our faith does not ignore anything on this earth that is beautiful, noble and authentically human. It simply teaches us that the rule of our life should not be the selfish pursuit of pleasure, because only sacrifice and self-denial lead to true love. God already loves us; and now he invites us to love him and others with the truthfulness and authenticity with which he loves. It is the paradox expressed in St Matthew's Gospel: "He who seeks to keep his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it."

People who are constantly concerned with themselves, who act above all for their own satisfaction, endanger their eternal salvation and cannot avoid being unhappy even in this life. Only if a person forgets himself and gives himself to God and to others, in marriage as well as in any other aspect of life, can he be happy on this earth, with a happiness that is a preparation for, and a foretaste of, the joy of heaven.

As long as we walk on this earth, suffering will always be the touchstone of love. If we were to describe what occurs in the married state, we could say that there are two sides to the coin. On the one hand, there is the joy of knowing that one is loved, the desire and enthusiasm involved in starting a family and taking care of it, the love of husband and wife, the happiness of seeing the children grow up. On the other hand, there are also sorrows and difficulties — the passing of time that consumes the body and threatens the character with the temptation to bitterness, the seemingly monotonous succession of days that are apparently always the same.

We would have a poor idea of marriage and of human affection if we were to think that love and joy come to an end when faced with such difficulties. It is precisely then that our true sentiments come to the surface. Then the tenderness of a person's gift of himself takes root and shows itself in a true and profound affection that is stronger than death.

FROM: Christ Is Passing By

Please Clarify

An older couple, who were both widowed, had been going out with each other for a long time. Urged on by their friends, they decided it was finally time to get married.

 

Before the wedding, they went out to dinner and had a long conversation regarding how their marriage might work. They discussed finances, living arrangements and so on.

 

Finally, the old gentleman decided it was time to broach the subject of their physical relationship.

"How do you feel about sex?" he asked, rather tentatively.

"I would like it infrequently," she replied.

The old gentleman sat quietly for a moment, adjusted his glasses, leaned over towards her and whispered -

"Is that one word or two?"

NOTE: Thanks to Dan Ciria Cruz for sending this story via email.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

by D.H. Lawrence

So she sauntered slowly back, listening. As she came near, the cottage
looked just the same. A dog barked, and she knocked at the door, her
heart beating in spite of herself.

She heard the man coming lightly downstairs. He opened the door
quickly, and startled her. He looked uneasy himself, but instantly a
laugh came on his face.

'Lady Chatterley!' he said. 'Will you come in?'

His manner was so perfectly easy and good, she stepped over the
threshold into the rather dreary little room.

'I only called with a message from Sir Clifford,' she said in her soft,
rather breathless voice.

The man was looking at her with those blue, all-seeing eyes of his,
which made her turn her face aside a little. He thought her comely,
almost beautiful, in her shyness, and he took command of the situation
himself at once.

'Would you care to sit down?' he asked, presuming she would not. The
door stood open.

'No thanks! Sir Clifford wondered if you would and she delivered her
message, looking unconsciously into his eyes again. And now his eyes
looked warm and kind, particularly to a woman, wonderfully warm, and
kind, and at ease.

'Very good, your Ladyship. I will see to it at once.'

Taking an order, his whole self had changed, glazed over with a sort of
hardness and distance. Connie hesitated, she ought to go. But she
looked round the clean, tidy, rather dreary little sitting-room with
something like dismay.

'Do you live here quite alone?' she asked.

'Quite alone, your Ladyship.'

'But your mother...?'

'She lives in her own cottage in the village.'

'With the child?' asked Connie.

'With the child!'

And his plain, rather worn face took on an indefinable look of
derision. It was a face that changed all the time, baffling.

'No,' he said, seeing Connie stand at a loss, 'my mother comes and
cleans up for me on Saturdays; I do the rest myself.'

Again Connie looked at him. His eyes were smiling again, a little
mockingly, but warm and blue, and somehow kind. She wondered at him. He
was in trousers and flannel shirt and a grey tie, his hair soft and
damp, his face rather pale and worn-looking. When the eyes ceased to
laugh they looked as if they had suffered a great deal, still without
losing their warmth. But a pallor of isolation came over him, she was
not really there for him.

She wanted to say so many things, and she said nothing. Only she looked
up at him again, and remarked:

'I hope I didn't disturb you?'

The faint smile of mockery narrowed his eyes.

'Only combing my hair, if you don't mind. I'm sorry I hadn't a coat on,
but then I had no idea who was knocking. Nobody knocks here, and the
unexpected sounds ominous.'

He went in front of her down the garden path to hold the gate. In his
shirt, without the clumsy velveteen coat, she saw again how slender he
was, thin, stooping a little. Yet, as she passed him, there was
something young and bright in his fair hair, and his quick eyes. He
would be a man about thirty-seven or eight.

She plodded on into the wood, knowing he was looking after her; he
upset her so much, in spite of herself.

FROM:Chapter 6 Project Guttenberg

Goodnight And Thank You

by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

     CHO

     Goodnight and thank you whoever

     She's in every magazine, been photographed, seen

     She is known

     We don't like to rush but your case has been packed

     If she's missed anything

     You could give us a ring

     But we don't always answer the phone

     EVA

     Oh but its sad when a love affair dies

     But we have pretended enough.

     It's best that we both stop fooling ourselves.

     CHO

     Which means-(hand gesture)

     CHO and EVA

     There is no-one, no-one at all

     Never has been and never will be a lover

     Male or female

     Who hasn't an eye on

     In fact they rely on

     Tricks they can try on

     Their partner

     They're hoping their lover will help them or keep them

     Support them, promote them

     Don't blame them

     You're the same

     CHO (To EMILIO)

     Goodnight and thank you Emilio

     You've completed your task, what more could we ask

     Of you now?

     Please sign the book on your way out the door

     That will be all

     If she needs you we'll call

     But I don't think that's likely somehow

     EVA

     Oh but it's sad when a love affair dies

     But when we were hot we were hot

     I know you'll look back on the good times we've shared

     CHO

     Which means..(hand gesture)

     CHO, EVA, EVA's FIRST LOVER

     There is no-one, no-one at all

     Never has been and never will be a lover

     Male or female

     Who hasn't an eye on

     In fact they rely on

     Tricks they can try on

     Their partner

     They're hoping their lover will help them or keep them

     Support them, promote them

     Don't blame her, you're the same

     GENERIC SINGERS

     There is no soap, no soap like ZAZ,

     No detergent, lotion or oil with such power,

     In the shower.

     It's the mother and father of luxury lava,

     The talk of the bath, the great ointment

     One little frolic with new ZAZ carbolic

     You scent it, you'll be sent.

     CHO (To EVA's SECOND LOVER)

     Goodnight and thank you whoever

     We are grateful you found her a spot on the sound radio

     We'll think of you every time she's on the air

     We'd love you to stay

     But you'd be in the way

     So do up your trousers and go

     EVA

     Oh but it's sad when a love affair dies

     The decline into silence and doubt

     Our passion was just too intense to survive

     CHO

     Which means.. (hand gesture)

     (By now a fairly long line of EVA's rejected LOVERS

     has formed)

     FORMER LOVERS

     This is a club I should never have joined

     Someone has made us look fools

     Argentine men call the sexual shots

     Someone has altered the rules

     EVA

     Fame on the wireless as far as it goes

     Is all very well, but every girl knows

     CHO

     She needs a man she can monopolize

     With fingers in dozens of different pies-

     LOVERS

     Oh but it's sad when a love affair dies

From the script of  the musicale "Evita" (Act I Scene 6)

Capulet's Orchard

by William Shakespeare

JULIET
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

ROMEO
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

JULIET
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.


FROM: ACT II Scene II Romeo and Julliet

The Sacrament of Matrimony

What is the plan of God regarding man and woman?
God who is love and who created man and woman for love has called them to love. By creating man and woman he called them to an intimate communion of life and of love in marriage: “So that they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matthew 19:6). God said to them in blessing “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).

For what ends has God instituted Matrimony?
The marital union of man and woman, which is founded and endowed with its own proper laws by the Creator, is by its very nature ordered to the communion and good of the couple and to the generation and education of children. According to the original divine plan this conjugal union is indissoluble, as Jesus Christ affirmed: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mark 10:9).

How is the sacrament of Matrimony celebrated?
Since Matrimony establishes spouses in a public state of life in the Church, its liturgical celebration is public, taking place in the presence of a priest (or of a witness authorized by the Church) and other witnesses.

What is matrimonial consent?
Matrimonial consent is given when a man and a woman manifest the will to give themselves to each other irrevocably in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love. Since consent constitutes Matrimony, it is indispensable and irreplaceable. For a valid marriage the consent must have as its object true Matrimony, and be a human act which is conscious and free and not determined by duress or coercion.

What are the effects of the sacrament of Matrimony?
The sacrament of Matrimony establishes a perpetual and exclusive bond between the spouses. God himself seals the consent of the spouses. Therefore, a marriage which is ratified and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved. Furthermore, this sacrament bestows upon the spouses the grace necessary to attain holiness in their married life and to accept responsibly the gift of children and provide for their education.

What sins are gravely opposed to the sacrament of Matrimony?
Adultery and polygamy are opposed to the sacrament of matrimony because they contradict the equal dignity of man and woman and the unity and exclusivity of married love. Other sins include the deliberate refusal of one’s procreative potential which deprives conjugal love of the gift of children and divorce which goes against the indissolubility of marriage.

FROM: Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Fidelity of Conjugal Love

By its very nature conjugal love requires the inviolable fidelity of the spouses. This is the consequence of the gift of themselves which they make to each other. Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement "until further notice." the "intimate union of marriage, as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between them."

The deepest reason is found in the fidelity of God to his covenant, in that of Christ to his Church. Through the sacrament of Matrimony the spouses are enabled to represent this fidelity and witness to it. Through the sacrament, the indissolubility of marriage receives a new and deeper meaning.

It can seem difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself for life to another human being. This makes it all the more important to proclaim the Good News that God loves us with a definitive and irrevocable love, that married couples share in this love, that it supports and sustains them, and that by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God's faithful love. Spouses who with God's grace give this witness, often in very difficult conditions, deserve the gratitude and support of the ecclesial community.

FROM: Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Goods and Requirements of Conjugal Love

"Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values."

The love of the spouses requires, of its very nature, the unity and indissolubility of the spouses' community of persons, which embraces their entire life: "so they are no longer two, but one flesh."   They "are called to grow continually in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving."  This human communion is confirmed, purified, and completed by communion in Jesus Christ, given through the sacrament of Matrimony. It is deepened by lives of the common faith and by the Eucharist received together.

"The unity of marriage, distinctly recognized by our Lord, is made clear in the equal personal dignity which must be accorded to man and wife in mutual and unreserved affection."  Polygamy is contrary to conjugal love which is undivided and exclusive.

FROM: Catechism of the Catholic Church