Your Marriage – The Meaning of Life (Part Two)

by Rev. John L. Thomas, S.J., 1955, Beginning Your Marriage

Part One is here.

We Attach Meanings To Things

Because we are rational beings, we interpret and read “meanings” into things. In a sense, nothing that intimately affects us is viewed “neutrally” or with cold objectivity. We attach meanings to things, and this changes the way we look at them.

For example, male and female differences, together with the various expressions of the sexual drive, are never viewed indifferently by us as they apparently are among animals. Rather, we attach significance to them, and they will be regulated and controlled according to the meaning which they have for us.

Our ability to read meanings into things and thus to change our relationship to them merits attention because it shows how and to what extent we can regulate our sexual impulses.

Many modern writers imply that sexual control is unnatural or unhealthy. This is utter nonsense. People have always exercised control over sex, but the nature and extent of this regulation and control has depended upon the meaning which they gave to the function of sex itself.

Since Catholics maintain that the primary purpose of the generative faculties is reproduction, they have always prohibited the deliberate exercise of this drive outside of marriage. Twenty centuries of experience demonstrate that this form of control is possible, “natural,” and healthy.

It is primarily because many moderns look upon man as merely a highly developed animal that they can consider this control to be impossible or “unnatural.” In other words, they give a different meaning to sex than we do.

We Are Social Beings

Another characteristic of our nature is its social quality. We are social beings by nature. This means that our capacity for love, sympathy, understanding, the communication of ideas, and so on, can be developed and used in a satisfactory manner only through cooperation with others.

In short, we are so constituted that we need society and association with others in order to lead a full life. Further, as rational creatures, we are capable of love and of communicating goodness to others.

It should be obvious how perfectly this social aspect of your nature will find expression in marriage. Here your capacity for love, sympathy, understanding, and communication, together with your mutual reproductive incompleteness, will find fulfillment in a .unique union which makes you “two in one flesh.”

We Are Elevated By Grace

Finally, our nature is capable of being elevated to a supernatural state. When God created man, He endowed human nature with a higher kind of life, a supernature. This was a sharing of God’s own life. Through it, man was destined to union with God throughout eternity.

Although this sanctifying grace, this sharing in God’s life, was something distinct from human nature, it permeated and elevated it in a supernatural manner. However, because it was added as a special gift, distinct from human nature, it could be lost.

This happened at the Fall when our first parents disobeyed God in the Garden. Since the Fall, we are born without the gift of sanctifying grace, but our nature is still capable of receiving this gift.

As the Church teaches, the Sacrament of Baptism restores sanctifying grace to us, and this grace can be lost only by committing mortal sin. Hence, the noblest aspect of our nature is its capacity to be elevated by grace, to share in God’s own life. Once we have received the life of grace through Baptism, it is our supreme privilege and duty to protect, foster, and develop this spiritual life within us by avoiding evil and doing good.

Through the Sacrament of Marriage you will receive the special spiritual helps and graces which you need to reach perfection as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.

Our Goal Is Heaven Our Destiny

We have considered where we came from and what we are; now we want to know where we are supposed to be going.

Briefly, we are created for eventual union with God in heaven. The purpose of our earthly life is to love, honor, and serve God in this world so as to be happy forever with Him in the next.

How do we serve God? By fulfilling our role or vocation in life to the best of our ability and in accordance with the divine plan made known to us through the teaching Church.

In his encyclical on Christian Marriage, Pius XI clearly summarized the purpose and manner of Christian life. “For all men, of every condition and in whatever honorable walk of life they may be, can and ought to imitate that most perfect example of holiness, placed before man by God, namely Christ our Lord, and by God’s grace to arrive at the summit of perfection, as is proved by the example of many saints.”

Summary

What, then, are the essential points of our “philosophy of life”?

First, we see ourselves as dependent upon God for our origin and continued existence in life.

Second, we understand that we are a unity composed of body and soul. We are neither pure spirits nor pure animals. As rational creatures, we possess an intellect and will, memory and imagination, and bodily senses which place us in contact with the world about us.

Through our intellect, we can distinguish good from evil. Through our will, we can choose to perform good actions or bad. We clearly recognize that we are responsible for our conscious activities.

As men and women, we possess different generative systems. Since these are reproductive faculties through which we are privileged to cooperate with God in the production of life, we know that they are not intended primarily for our selfish pleasure. We must use them according to the purpose for which they were created by God.

Because we are capable of love, sympathy, understanding, and the communication of good, we need the cooperation of others for our full self-development and perfection. Thus, we look upon marriage as one of the normal means for the expression of this sociability and for the fulfillment of our sexual complementarity.

Further, we believe that we have been redeemed by Christ and now possess sanctifying grace, the grace which permeates and elevates our nature, making us children of God and heirs of heaven.

We know that this supernatural life can be lost only by mortal sin, which is the deliberate, conscious violation of God’s law in a serious matter. Because sanctifying grace unites us with God, it is the most precious possession that we have. As long as we are in our right senses, we would never perform an act which would deprive us of our share in the divine life.

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his immortal soul?”

Third, we see our destiny as eternal union with God. The purpose of life, therefore, is to achieve this union. All other life purposes are secondary. God has made us for Himself. He has placed a desire within us which can be satisfied only by Himself.

The enduring happiness which we all seek can be found only in Him. It follows that we look upon this present life as a preparation, a way leading to eternal fulfillment and happiness in heaven. This view enables us to put order in our lives. It gives us a yardstick by which to measure the temporal, passing things of this world.

One thing is necessary – to strive for perfection. One way is open – to imitate Christ in every condition and walk of life. We are called to the same destiny. To all of us is given the help needed to achieve this purpose.

Conclusion

Yes, these are sobering thoughts. They present the long range, over-all view of life. They offer the frame-work within which you must view your love and happiness in marriage.

Marriage is a life partnership. Your love must be such that it fits into the meaning of life or it cannot last. Marriage is a life companionship. The happiness which you seek from your togetherness can be satisfying and enduring only to the extent that you are really “good” for each other, that is, only to the extent that you support and help each other in attaining that happiness for which you were created.

It is easy in your new-found love to separate marriage from the purpose of life. But marriage is only a way of life. As a way, it has meaning only in terms of its destination. Either it will offer you an opportunity for the growth and development of yourselves as followers of Christ, or it will prove an empty, frustrating experience.

There are many types of “love” and “happiness” between the sexes. Some are shallow, some are counterfeit, and some are little more than thinly disguised selfishness.

True love and happiness are rooted in life. They are developmental. They are aids to personal perfection, not distractions or positive hindrances.

We are called to be great Apostles of Love in our ordinary, daily life. We are Christ’s Hands and Feet as we wipe noses, feed hungry little ones and change diapers with an attitude of service and love. When we are cheerful to those we rub shoulders with each day, when we kindly open our door to those who enter into our home, we are taking part in Christ’s Apostolic Work. “Jesus was an Apostle in the stable of Bethlehem, in the shop of St. Joseph, in His anguish in Gethsemane and on Calvary no less than when He was going through Palestine, teaching the multitudes or disputing with the doctors of the law.” – Divine Intimacy, Painting by Morgan Weistling http://amzn.to/2p0dxg8 (afflink)

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To the modern mind, the concept of poverty is often confused with destitution. But destitution emphatically is not the Gospel ideal. A love-filled sharing frugality is the message, and Happy Are You Poor explains the meaning of this beatitude lived and taught by Jesus himself. But isn’t simplicity in lifestyle meant only for nuns and priests? Are not all of us to enjoy the goodness and beauties of our magnificent creation? Are parents to be frugal with the children they love so much?

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Your Marriage – The Meaning of Life (Part One)

by Rev. John L. Thomas, S.J., 1955, Beginning Your Marriage

Part Two is here.

The Meaning of Life

Marriage is a way of life. It is not your final purpose in life, nor the only way to achieve this final purpose. Although it is a way of life followed by most people, marriage is only one way.

When you enter marriage, then, you freely choose the way of life you wish to follow in attaining your final purpose. Hence, to get the right view of marriage, to understand its place in your lives, you must first understand the purpose of life itself. A way of life has meaning only if it leads somewhere.

Marriage is a good way to the extent that it helps you fulfill the purpose for which you were made. It follows that to understand the meaning of marriage; we must first consider the meaning of life.

Where do I come from? What am I? Where am I supposed to be going? The answers to these questions make up what we call a “philosophy of life.”

In childhood, we were given fairly clear ideas about the meaning of life. As mature adults, let us review briefly what the Church teaches on this point.

To see the full picture, we must consider our origin, our nature, and our destiny. In the light of this knowledge, we will then be able to discuss the meaning of marriage as intelligent people.

We Come From God Our Origin

We are not our own makers. We have not come into existence through some accident of evolution.

In the beginning, God created man. Although we do not know how He did this, we are certain of the fact. We know also that at the time of conception in our mother’s womb, God created our immortal souls. We come from God.

Further, we depend on Him for our existence at every moment. Our dependence is so complete that if God did not constantly sustain us, we would simply cease to exist. It is easy to forget our dependence on God in this modern, man-made world. Yet experience tells us that whenever we come face to face with the stark realities of suffering, sorrow, and death, we quickly realize our helplessness and our weakness.

We are all in the hands of God. He has breathed an immortal soul into each of us. He has fashioned our human nature according to His divine plan. Even if we try, we cannot undo this basic dependence upon Him.

Further, the God who created us is infinitely wise and infinitely good. He must have made us for a purpose. This purpose is our happiness with Him. Because He has fashioned our hearts with a desire for infinite happiness, we can find fulfillment and peace only in Him. All other things which give us happiness are reflections of His goodness and beauty. They are meant to lead us to Him.

Our human loves, wonderful as they may seem, are short-lived and shallow unless they are rooted in Him.

We Have A Body And Soul

We are composed of body and soul.

Our body is a marvelously durable, yet delicately constructed physical system capable of life and a definite cycle of growth. Our soul is immaterial or spiritual. This means that it is intrinsically independent of matter although it is united to the body to form a unity. Hence we possess both material and spiritual elements in our being.

When we act, however, we act as a unity. This is to say, we never act as a mere animal or as a pure spirit. In our conscious activity, we always act as a human person, that is, as a being composed of body and soul. Thus, it is not our mind that thinks, it is we who think. It is not our body that feels, it is we who feel.

This fact must be emphasized b-cause there are many confused people who seem to believe that some human activities such as reprodu-tion involve merely “animal” or “carnal” acts.

We have an intellect. This means we are conscious of our ability to understand, to form judgments, and to draw conclusions. As a unity of body and soul, we are in contact with the world about us through the sense organs of touch, sight, taste, smell, and hearing.

At the same time, we can communicate with others through language. In short, we know from experience that we have the power to gain knowledge, to form ideas, to make judgments about reality, and to see the connection between cause and effect, and between means and goals.

We have free will. This means that we are conscious of our ability to make free choices in our acts. For example, we can choose to act or not to act. If we choose to act, we can select different purposes and different means to achieve them.

Free will does not imply that we act without motive. It does not imply that all our acts are free. Since we are creatures of habit and impulse, there may be few acts which are fully free in our routine, daily lives. Nevertheless, we have the ability to make free choices.

Because we have an intellect and free will, we differ essentially from the highest form of brute life in the animal world. We are animals, but we are rational animals. Mere animals cannot think or will.

We are Responsible for Our Acts

Several important conclusions follow from the fact that we are composed of body and soul.

First, we are affected by what takes place in our body as well as in our soul. Both body and soul have powerful impulses and drives which affect each other and constantly seek to be satisfied. We must learn to control and direct these forces so that they serve our best interests. In themselves, these impulses and drives are not evil. They become the occasion of evil when we fail to control and regulate them.

Second, we are capable of knowing what is right and wrong. Independent of all human law, certain human acts are of their very nature good and worthy of praise, others are bad and deserving of blame. By considering our purpose in life and our nature, we can know what these actions are. At the same time, God has given us an authoritative teaching Church which infallibly defines right and wrong in the moral order.

Third, we are responsible for our actions. Because we have an intellect by which we can know what is right and a free will by which we can choose, we are accountable for our actions. Although we cannot directly suppress our basic impulses and drives, we can learn to control and regulate them.

For example, we cannot directly suppress the urge to eat steak on Friday, but we can refuse to act on this impulse. Furthermore, through experience we acquire a knowledge of what stimulates our various drives, and frequently we can avoid the stimulus.

For instance, a couple may discover that some actions or displays of affection during courtship arouse feelings and desires which are difficult to control. They can do very little about these directly, but common sense tells them that they can avoid the actions which arouse them.

We Are Men and Women

The human nature which we have just described is manifested in two sexes – male and female. We differ as men and women because we possess different, though complementary, generative systems. It follows that each has a different function in regard to the conception, birth, and rearing of children. This is the real meaning of the much abused term sex.

In other words, sex stands for the sum total of organic and functional differences which distinguish men from women. From the viewpoint of the individual, sex appears as a need for someone else, for someone else alike, that is, having the same nature, yet different, because endowed with this complementary property of the “opposite” sex.

Further, since we are a composite of body and soul, this property of sex affects our entire physical, psychic, and spiritual make-up.

In marriage, men and women are complementary, that is, they complete each other at all these levels of human activity. For this reason, marriage is unlike all other partnerships.

As men and women, you differ in many ways, but it is precisely because you are different that you will have so many opportunities to assist and complete each other. Since you are in love, you wish to be together and to offer gifts to each other.

In the lifelong companionship of marriage, you will be daily giving of your manliness and your womanliness–gifts which only you can give and receive.

We Are Equal But Different

According to the divine plan, as men and women you are absolutely equal in your personal dignity as children of God. You are absolutely equal in relation to the final purpose of life, which is everlasting union with God in the happiness of heaven.

However, you do differ in your relationship to reproduction and to all that is associated with this process. To be specific, how does this affect you as men and women?

Woman is made for motherhood. Her development is centered around this function from the moment of conception in her mother’s womb. Every organ of her body bears the stamp of her distinctive reproductive purpose. She differs from the man in the tempo of her growth and the rhythm of her life cycle.

Because she is composed of body and soul, her emotional, intellectual, and spiritual activities tend to be distinctive of her sex.

The man is made for fatherhood. He likewise develops according to his separate pattern on the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual levels. This development is related to the function he is to fulfill in the procreation and education of children.

He develops differently from the woman, therefore, because his reproductive role is different. It follows that although you are equal as persons, you are not identical.

Much of the modern confusion concerning the “equality” of the sexes could be avoided if this distinction were kept in mind. Further, the development of sex according to the distinctive pattern of maleness or femaleness goes on in the life cycle of each of us whether we choose to use our reproductive faculties or not.

At the same time, the sex drive will manifest itself in some form in all normal individuals. Finally, all normal adults are capable of reacting to appropriate sexual stimulation in some degree.

Let him know you appreciate all the little things he does. It is easy to just expect things from him, with nary a thanks or a smile. This is not the way to nurture a relationship. Go the extra mile….always be grateful…..and let him know that you are! 😊

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In With God in Russia, Ciszek reflects on his daily life as a prisoner, the labor he endured while working in the mines and on construction gangs, his unwavering faith in God, and his firm devotion to his vows and vocation. Enduring brutal conditions, Ciszek risked his life to offer spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners who could easily have exposed him for their own gains. He chronicles these experiences with grace, humility, and candor, from his secret work leading mass and hearing confessions within the prison grounds, to his participation in a major gulag uprising, to his own “resurrection”—his eventual release in a prisoner exchange in October 1963 which astonished all who had feared he was dead.

Powerful and inspirational, With God in Russia captures the heroic patience, endurance, and religious conviction of a man whose life embodied the Christian ideals that sustained him…..

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a “Vatican spy,” Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God’s will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer–a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the “arrogance of evil” that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experience, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God–even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, “What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?”

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Single, Though Two – Christ in the Home

by Father Raoul Plus, S.J., Christ in the Home

Anna da Noailles, a French poetess, summed up her unhappy married life in the words, “I am alone with someone.”

It is an expressive but sinister remark.

People marry in order to be two, but two in one, not to continue to be alone, alone although with someone.

Opposition of Characters

Generally it does not appear in the first years of married life. Everything is marvelous then, sunshine and moonlight. Though there may be exceptions, they are rare.

But there comes a time when tension creeps in, more or less restrained, then hidden resentment, finally opposition if not with weapons at least by tongue lashings, sullen silences, disagreeable attitudes.

There is in every man, even a married man the stuff of an old bachelor; in every woman, even a married woman, something of . . . well, a person shouldn’t really use that word to speak of unmarried women.

When husbands and wives notice their rising irritability, they should take hold of their hearts with both hands so to speak and refrain from words they will regret soon after.

If they have the courage, let them have an understanding with each other as soon as possible.

They should learn not to notice every little thing; to forget with untiring patience all the little pricks; to remember only the joys they lived through together; to make a bouquet of them, not a faded bouquet like dried out artificial flowers that are kept in a drawer, but alive and fresh, beautiful enough to be put in full view on the mantlepiece.

Everything that is typical of the single life is taboo. They are united. They are to remain united. Two in one. In one: It is not always easy; it is always necessary.

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A must-read for the married and those considering marriage! This guidebook to finding a happy marriage, keeping a happy marriage, and raising happy children has been out of print for over 50 years…until now! From the master of the spiritual life, Raoul Plus, S.J., it contains loads of practical and spiritual advice on family life. Have you been looking for a handbook on marriage and raising children that is based on truth? You’ve found it!

The saints assure us that simplicity is the virtue most likely to draw us closer to God and make us more like Him.

No wonder Jesus praised the little children and the pure of heart! In them, He recognized the goodness that arises from an untroubled simplicity of life, a simplicity which in the saints is completely focused on its true center, God.

That’s easy to know, simple to say, but hard to achieve.

For our lives are complicated and our personalities too. (We even make our prayers and devotions more complicated than they need be!)

In these pages, Fr. Raoul Plus provides a remedy for the even the most tangled lives.

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They’re Married! – Fr. Daniel A. Lord

Devin & Theresa 2011

by Father Daniel A. Lord, 1950’s

They’re Married!

Everyone has heard, I am sure, the story of the elderly lady who, when the newly engaged girl came dashing in radiantly happy to announce her engagement, kissed her gently on the cheek and said, with a slow shake of her head, “My dear, you are very brave.”

That particular lady belonged, it is true, to another generation; her attitude was nevertheless distinctly modern. For to be in the fashion one must be more or less despairful about marriage.

All our best writers are. Our best-selling novelist writes his yarn about the fiasco his hero and heroine made of what everyone knew to be a love match.

Our widely discussed dramatist makes the slavery of wives and the restless bondage of husbands his favorite theme. Our syndicated writers ask themselves the question, “Is marriage a failure?” and answer with an unequivocal yes.

In fact, while in times past every good story ended with the stereotyped phrase, “They married and lived happy forever after,” nowadays ever so many popular novels begin with “They married and lived unhappy forever after.”

And where our writers leave off, our judges in the divorce courts or on the juvenile bench begin, burying marriage under an avalanche of disapproval. All of which goes to show that the most astonishing disbelief in marriage has crept into modern life.

People continue to marry as gaily and as lightheartedly as ever, but one widely read author explains that simply enough. Nature, he says, with cruel and purposeful guile tricks unsuspecting young people, through moonlight and the perfume of June roses, dreamy music and bewitching eyes, soft flesh and the transient glory of blond hair, into an unnatural and horrible state that no two persons in their right minds could be driven with lashes to embrace.

That is, of course, only an expansion of the advice of that cynic, Punch, to those about to get married—”Don’t!”

Who Believes in Marriage?

“Does anyone nowadays believe in marriage as an institution?” youth naturally asks. Is the beautiful thing called love only a trick to lure victims into a rocky path that leads to the divorce courts? Has no one a good word to say for marriage or love?

That sane and considerate mother of the human race, the Catholic Church, after almost twenty centuries of experience with marriage as an institution, still cherishes it as one of Christ’s special Sacraments, a sacred and beautiful thing. Around marriage the Church throws all the beauty of exquisite ritual and ceremony.

The gates of the Communion rail are opened; the bride, dressed in the white of a virgin, is granted the privilege of entering into the very sanctuary; the priest, in his most beautiful vestments, leads the bride and the groom to the foot of God’s altar; Mass is said for them; the Christ who honored the wedding feast of Cana is brought down from heaven to bless them; the Benediction which God poured out upon the holy couples of the Old Law is invoked upon them; and they go forth from the church with special sacramental grace in their souls to make their new lives holy, happy, rich in God’s favor and in hope for the future.

The Church, which begins the life of a priest with the Mass of his ordination and receives the vows of its nuns before the altar, gives to the bridal couple as they start their married life the same high privileges.

Marriage is so sacred that it can properly begin only at the altar. It is so beautiful that Christ can be invited to be the first guest at every Catholic wedding.

The Church believes so intensely in the importance of marriage for the human race that the contract is signed and sealed with the sacramental blood of Jesus our Savior.

St. Paul Speaks

For the Church remembers that St. Paul, who is often quoted for one phrase, “It is better to marry than to burn,” paid to marriage the final compliment when he compared the union of a husband and wife to the union of Christ and His Church.

“Husbands,” he writes to the Ephesians, “love your wives as Christ also loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it .. . He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hateth his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the Church . .. This is a great Sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church.” (Eph es. V, 22-23.)

No higher compliment can be paid to ma-riage. It is a sacred union comparable to the union of Christ with His Church. The love that binds a husband and wife should have a tenderness like that of Christ, who died so willingly for the Church He had established.

The unbreakable character of marriage is the same as that of the union which binds Christ to His Church all days even to the end of the world.

The Christians whom St. Paul was addressing had heard from the lips of those who had walked with the merciful Christ through the highways of Judea of the astounding love that Christ had shown for the Church in His miracles, sacraments, promises, and death.

So they must have looked on marriage with a reverent awe when they heard the stern Apostle compare the love of husband and wife to the love of Christ for His Church.

So to Catholics marriage is a Sacrament, symbolizing beautifully in the love of husband and wife the tenderness with which Christ regarded His spouse, the Church.

While to others marriage may become a mere civil contract as prosaic as the making of a will or the taking of a partner into one’s grocery business, to Catholics it is a holy thing, a contract that Christ has transformed into a channel of untold grace for mankind, the Catholic Church believes firmly in the possibilities of so sacred an institution.

And never far from the mind of the Church is the remembrance of the Madonna holding against her heart her infant Son; or that other memory of the Holy Family, the “blessed trinity” of earth, Joseph, Mary, and the child Jesus, setting the world the pattern of happiness in the home.

In every bride the Church sees a potential Madonna who will mother God’s little ones against her heart. In every bridegroom it sees another Joseph. And when together the young couple build their little home, the Church prays that it will become another Holy House of Nazareth.

“The desired wife has developed her personality before marriage and continues that development during marriage. By personality here I mean beauty of soul and all those qualities and accomplishments which go to make a person interesting and sought after. Personality will carry a girl a great deal further in life than physical beauty. In fact, without personality, beauty often tires one in married life. Some girls are born with physical beauty. None are born with personality. They must develop and cultivate it all the days of their lives.” – Fr. Leo Kinsella, The Wife Desired, 1950’s

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A very valuable book for the guys plucked out of the past and reprinted. It was written in 1894 by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly and the words on the pages will stir the hearts of the men to rise to virtue and chivalry…. Beautifully and eloquently written!

A very beautiful book, worthy of our attention. In it, you will find many pearls of wisdom for a woman striving to be the heart of the home, an inspiration to all who cross her path. You will be inspired to reconsider the importance of your role of wife and mother! Written by Rev. Bernard O’Reilly in 1894, the treasures found within its pages ring true and remain timeless…

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The All-Important Question of Divorce – The Catholic Ideal

by the Rev. Thomas Gerrard, 1911

This brings us to the all-important question of divorce. If both the natural and divine laws maintain the unity and perpetuity of the marriage bond, then no power on earth, not even the Church, has power to grant a divorce. “What, therefore, God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” Here, on the threshold of the question it is necessary to make a clear distinction of terms.

When it is said that no power on earth can grant a divorce, divorce must be understood in a particular and strict sense of the word. Let us distinguish then between three kinds of separation.

First, there is a separation which implies that the husband and wife are allowed to live apart. It is called in juridical language a judicial separation.

It is called in theological language separatio a mensa et thoro, or separation from bed and board.

Its meaning is that, although the parties are separated from each other, yet they are not free to marry again. If they were allowed to marry again the separation would be said to be a vinculo, or separation from the bond. The actual contract or tie would be broken.

Now the first kind of separation is allowed by the Church whenever there is a grave reason, such, for instance, as the misconduct of one of the parties. But the second kind the Church allows never. The bond which has been made by God may not be broken by man.

One of the parties may forfeit certain rights of marriage through infidelity to the partner, but can never thereby acquire the freedom to marry again.

And further, the Church makes no distinction in this respect between the innocent party and the guilty. A bond is a bond, the contract is a two-sided one, and, therefore, as long as the bond or contract remains it must bind both the parties.

However unfair it may seem to the innocent party, yet it is God’s law and God will see to it that those who observe His law, will, in the final balancing, receive their just reward.

Then there is another kind of separation which is frequently believed to be a divorce and which is a source of much perplexity to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. It is called a declaration of nullity.

It means that that which has appeared to be a marriage is declared never to have been a marriage from the beginning. The parties have gone through the ceremony, but there has been some obstruction in the way which has prevented the knot from being tied and so the supposed marriage must be declared null and void.

Let us take an instance. A Jew married to a baptized Christian wife seeks for a divorce in the law courts. He is successful in his suit. Then he becomes a Catholic, falls in love with a Catholic girl, and wishes to be married to her In the Catholic Church. There is no difficulty, the Church approves of the marriage. What has happened?

The undiscerning public thinks that the Church has approved of divorce and of the remarriage of a divorced person. And if the man happens to have been a wealthy Jew the undiscerning public is not slow to attribute unworthy motives to the Church. But again, what has really happened?

The Jew’s first marriage was really no marriage at all in the sight of the Church. Baptism is the first Sacrament and the door of the other Sacrament. The Jew had not received the Sacrament of Baptism and so was incapable of receiving the Sacrament of Marriage. And being unbaptized he was furthermore incapable of making the contract of marriage, for the Sacrament is the contract.

Therefore, the marriage which, by the law of the land, was declared to be dissolved was by the law of the Church declared never to have existed, to have been null and void from the beginning. Consequently, when the Jew became a Catholic and received the Sacrament of baptism he was quite free and capable of uniting himself with the partner of his choice.

There are three exceptions to the law of indissolubility. The first two concern marriages ratified but not consummated. Such may be dissolved either by papal dispensation for some grave reason, or by the solemn, religious profession of one of the parties.

The third is known as the Pauline privilege. It may happen only in a marriage between unbelievers, and this even when consummated. If one of the parties is converted to the Christian faith, and the other refuses to live peaceably, or shows contempt for God and religion, or tries to pervert the faithful partner, then the faithful one has a right to a real divorce (I Cor. vll, 15).

Within these limitations the Church is absolutely inexorable against any attempt at separation from the bond. She has suffered the loss of whole nations from the faith rather than sacrifice one jot or tittle of her principle.

The care of the Sacrament has been committed to her keeping, and to have condoned a denial of the Sacramental nature of the matrimonial bond, even in one case, would have been to renounce the divine charge given to her.

For the English-speaking world the Pope’s firmness, in refusing to grant a divorce to Henry VIII, must ever be a monument of the fidelity of the Church to the sanctity of the marriage state. And the famous Encyclical of the late Sovereign Pontiff, Leo XIII, must ever remain the character of woman’s dignity and safety as to her marriage right.

“The great evils,” wrote the Pontiff, “of which divorce is the spring, can hardly be enumerated. When the conjugal bond loses its immutability we may expect to see benevolence and affection destroyed between husband and wife; an encouragement given to infidelity; the protection and education of children rendered more difficult; the germs of discord sown between families; woman’s dignity disowned; the danger for her of seeing herself forsaken, after having served as the instrument of man’s passions.

And as nothing ruins families and destroys the most powerful kingdoms like the corruption of manners, it is easy to see that divorce, which is only begotten of the depraved manners of a people, is the worst enemy of families and of States, and that it opens the door, as experience attests, to the most vicious habits, both in private and in public life.”

Views subversive of the Catholic ideal are now very prevalent, and are becoming day by day more prevalent. In the matter of the sanctity of marriage, as in many other things, it is the Catholics who are the salt of the earth. Whilst other religious bodies are prepared to give way under any specious pretext which may arise, the See of Peter proclaims the principle of no compromise.

And when the Churches which ought to guard the sanctity of marriage show themselves weak and accommodating to the lower pleasures of man, we must not be surprised if non-religious bodies speak openly in favor of divorce and, all unashamed, make profession of free love. This, indeed, has come to pass.

High time is it, then, for Catholics to make their voice heard In protest. Nay, absolutely imperative is it that Catholics should rally themselves anew with even greater loyalty around the Holy Father who watches the marriage Sacrament so anxiously and sees its dangers so clearly.

Legislation is made which may be irksome; but the irksomeness thereby suffered is trifling compared with the irksomeness thereby avoided. Let us admit boldly that the marriage state is fraught with difficulties, that love is liable to grow cold, that child-bearing is a burden, that the education of many children is a tax on the family’s resources, that a drunken husband is an almost intolerable nuisance, that a gossiping wife is a plague of a life; let us admit all this, but at the same time insist that the Sacrament of Marriage has power either to prevent or mitigate the evils. It restrains the passions.

But let the idea of divorce once get established and there is an end of restraint. The passions are let loose and fall victim to every little counter-attraction to family life. The half-hearted partner who realizes that there is an easy escape from the burden of married life makes no serious attempt to bear it.

Then comes the sad spectacle of a mother left alone with a house full of children and no father to provide for them; or what is perhaps even more sad, a father with a house full of children and no mother to take care of them.

The Church’s laws may be hard to bear at times. They are, however, as the yoke of Christ, sweet and easy to bear, if only we spread them out over the short run of life.

The choice of a name for the child is important to a mother’s heart. It may be hers or the father’s, one of the godparent’s, or any other, as long as it is the name of a saint whose life she knows, and has a great devotion. She waits for “the little newcomer” asking for the namesake’s loving and powerful protection. The moment will come when she will tell her son or daughter the beautiful story of the life of their patron and the great love and care that they have for him and how he/she watches all their steps . A mulher forte

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When God Is Silent shows you how to trust God even when He seems unresponsive and remote – even when, as in the famous incident in the Gospels, He seems to sleep while you are buffeted by the storms of life.

Reverend Irala here addresses ways to promote mental and emotional well-being to help increase one’s health, efficiency and happiness. He speaks on topics such as how to rest, think, use the will, control feelings, train the sexual instinct, be happy, and choose an ideal. Included are also many practical instructions on dealing with mental struggles of all kinds. This book is most useful in our present times of worldly confusion.

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Combat Your Jealousy/In-Laws – Fr. Lovasik

Art by Veronica Algaba

Combat your jealousy

Jealousy makes you eager to have all the affection and attention of your spouse. It may also be an enemy of honesty and sincerity, and consequently of love and harmony.

A jealous husband is one who feels uncertain about his wife’s love – usually because he knows he is guilty of faults that make him undeserving of it – and who foolishly thinks that he can hold her loyalty to him only by preventing her from being friendly with anyone else. He deprives her of every kind of social life that he can forbid or prevent.

He is suspicious of every innocent friendly contact his wife makes with others. He tries to keep her separated completely from her own family. This jealous possessiveness transforms any feelings of love the wife once had for her husband into feelings of hate.

It makes a wife’s duty of fidelity to her husband much more difficult than it should be.

An unreasonably jealous wife is usually in some degree responsible for the wandering of her husband’s love. It is natural that after several years of married life, some degree of taking one another for granted sets in. It would be better if the courtesy, consideration, and thoughtfulness that marked your courtship and the first years of marriage could survive through the years.

Your husband may strain to appear his best before other women and show his worst side to you, not because he no longer loves you, but because he considers your love safely in his possession. This conduct is no reason for jealousy.

If you are a jealous wife, put yourself back into competition not only for your husband’s love but also for his kindly attention. It is your job to win and hold, by giving proofs of your own love, the love you may think is turning away from you.

Jealousy is not a constant passion. Even if you have never felt the sting of jealousy, you may, under certain circumstances, experience a blind surge of it. Be resolved to avoid with utmost care those things which might awaken the passion of jealousy in your spouse.

Be patient and understanding toward your in-laws

One of the most common sources of jealousy is in-law trouble, which can pull a couple apart more rapidly than many of the other disintegrating factors, if this is the chief reason for argument.

Marriage does not release a husband and wife from the duty of honoring and loving their mother and father. But it does make duties to their spouse supersede duties to their parents. That is what God said clearly of Adam, the first husband: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

Some husbands and wives never quite leave their mothers and fathers. They permit them to have more to say over their actions and plans than their spouses do.

In-law trouble is very seldom caused solely by unreasonable jealousy on one side alone. If your spouse dislikes your relatives, look into yourself for whatever grounds you may have given for that aversion.

A wife who was spoiled and pampered by her family will sometimes seek an escape from new responsibility by running to those who will continue to baby her. At the first sign of disagreement, she will seek solace in the overindulgence of her parents. This will react unfavorably on her husband, who will gradually feel himself to be second in her affections when she has promised to hold him first.

Thus, antagonism for the parents-in-law will grow with every incident. If you are the husband of such a person, you will not awaken her to a sense of duty to you by violently asserting your rights or by using harsh language.

Never look upon in-laws as rivals for your partner’s affection. Filial love differs vastly from conjugal love, so there is room for both in the heart of every spouse.

As in courtship, you won your wife from possible rivals by making yourself appear so kind and noble that she could not resist your appeal, so after marriage you have to prove yourself superior to her parents and relatives in devotion to her.

You must back up your “rights” by continuous human expressions of love and interest. In this way, the competition between you and her relatives will soon end.

On the other hand, a husband who shows more than usual attachment to his parents almost always has trouble with jealousy on the part of his wife. He does not care what happens to his wife and children. His mother comes first.

He takes her side against his wife. He lets his wife suffer rather than deal sternly with his mother. This is especially the case if he feels that even after marriage he must donate a large part of his income to his parents, even though they are not in great need.

Getting along with in-laws calls for tact and diplomacy. You must make allowance for the tendency of parents to think of their married son or daughter as their little child whom they wish to mother still.

Try to keep the in-law relationships on an even keel by being patient and understanding, and you will have peace. If you think your husband is acting imprudently in giving help to his family, present your arguments to him in a kind way. You may even ask him to discuss the problem with a third and neutral person. Show goodwill by proposing a compromise.

Do not adopt a bitter, resentful attitude toward your husband, or say anything unkind about his relatives to him or to anyone else. Whether you win or lose your point, conquer and hide your feelings of bitterness. Showing them would be risking the peace and unity of your home.

Security for the future is bought at too great a price if it means that you are to be divided in spirit by a deeply rooted grudge. Many a home has been wrecked by such resentment, and there is little comfort in the wreckage even if you maintain you were right.

Give preference to your spouse

It is wise to establish distance from in-laws, if that is possible. It is true that there are many cases in which charity demands that an exception to this rule be made; nevertheless, there are other cases in which charity would be better served all around if some arrangement were made other than having an in-law in the same home.

After marriage, a wife’s first duty is to her husband, not to her mother. If her mother remains with her, it should be only on the condition that she will say and do nothing that would in any way mar the relationship between husband and wife.

If a mother who lives with her married daughter arouses suspicions in her daughter’s mind, if she interferes with her right to run her own home, if she nags and complains and makes unreasonable demands, the best thing to do is to rent an apartment for her and let her live alone.

Mothers-in-law should not be permitted to destroy family harmony. When you can do nothing except offer your home to an in-law, at the very outset try to come to an understanding and agreement with all the parties concerned as to the conditions under which you will live in peace together.

Let your in-law know that you are glad to be able to offer your home, but let it be made clear that the home remains yours, and that it is not to be spoiled by interference and meddling.

If there is no present way out of the difficulty, there may be room for an honest examination of conscience as to whether a wife is letting things get on her nerves that should be neutralized by a spirit of patience and charity.

Small annoyances, unavoidable with two women in the same household, can be blown up into major irritations. God will give sufficient grace to bear these annoyances and to better the situation by prudent firmness and willing charity. The advice of a wise priestly confessor will help.

A mother-in-law cannot be such a bad woman if she is the mother of the one you love very dearly. It is most important that you show that you prefer your husband or wife to everyone else in the world. You refuse this sign of preference when you insist on living with a parent, or taking a parent into your home when there is no urgent reason of necessity or charity to do so.

You are failing in your love if you pay more attention to what your parent wants than to what your spouse wants; if you are more concerned about your parent’s welfare and happiness; if you let a parent rule the household; or if you take your parent’s side in disputes.

This is like going back on the promise you made in marriage and acting contrary to God’s revealed plan for marriage.

“Never forget that it is God’s will that the parents should be the ones to teach the child to pray, as Mary and Joseph helped the boy Jesus to advance in wisdom and grace.” -A Dominican Nun, 1954

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I have prepared this Lenten journal to help you to keep on track. It is to assist you in keeping focused on making Lent a special time for your family. We do not have to do great things to influence those little people. No, we must do the small things in a great way…with love and consistency…

Timeless words from the pen of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen inspire the heart and imagination as readers embark on a Lenten journey toward a better understanding of their spiritual selves. Covering the traditional themes of Lent–sin and salvation, death and Resurrection, sorrow and hope, ashes and lilies–these 50 passages and accompanying mini-prayers offer readers a practical spiritual program as a retreat from the cares and concerns of a secular world view.
If you enjoyed learning about holiday traditions in The Christmas Book, you are sure to love its sequel, The Easter Book.  Father Weiser has here applied his winning formula to an explanation of the fasts and feasts of the Lenten and Easter seasons with equally fascinating results.

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Your Marriage; Be Ready to Forgive and Compromise – Father Lovasik

Painting by William Henry Gore

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Father Lovasik

Be ready to compromise and to forgive

There will be many disagreements in your married life. Marriage has many difficulties and trials that are inevitable when two human beings live together in a life-long union of the greatest intimacy, with all the changes in mood and temperament that the varying conditions of life occasion.

Self-sacrifice is one of the standards of measurement for true love. Self-sacrifice is opposed to selfishness. Selfishness means wanting your own way always. It makes you a dictator.

Self-sacrifice must take the form of compromise. This compromise does not surrender in matters of moral or spiritual principle, but does surrender in disputes over the use of money, leisure time, or material things.

If you always insist on having your way, on doing what you want, on buying what you want, on going where you choose, without considering the desires of your partner, there is selfishness in place of love. Such selfishness is the basis of all impatience, and anger is the fruit of impatience.

A happy marriage depends so much on cooperation, self-sacrifice, sacrifice, and understanding that whatever is gained by insisting on rights will be lost in peace and good will.

So never talk about what you have a right to do against the wishes of your partner. It is difficult, if not impossible, to bring peace into a home where either the husband or the wife is stubbornly insisting on some right against the judgment or wishes of the partner.

You cannot force a person to be a good companion. That must come from the person’s own desire and from his freedom from external tasks and worries. Rather than just laying down the law, you would do far better to show an interest in each other’s work and to make some effort, even with all your own responsibilities, to help each other with it.

The partnership of marriage requires give and take. There are still husbands who feel that only men are entitled to freedom of movement and outside-the-house contacts and associations.

Either they are very jealous men, who unreasonably fear that they might lose their wives’ affection if they permit them to mingle with people outside the home, or they are simply the dictator type, who feel that women should be subject to men and to their duties as wives and mothers, and that they should ask for nothing in the way of relaxation and recreation.

This is not normal, but it is something wives should accept patiently. They can use any reasonable means to correct the condition. Anger, resentment, and bitterness will not accomplish anything; rather they will serve only to harden some husbands in their unjust attitude.

If your husband has a kind of tyrannical temperament – if he thinks he knows it all as far as you are concerned – you will not change his opinion of his superior wisdom merely by butting your head against his will.

You must have a full measure of respect for the judgment and wishes of your spouse. Use spiritual motives to accept with peace the tyranny you cannot avoid without war.

If your husband insists on making all the decisions, no matter how intimately you may be involved, then only by the grace of God, combined with a constant effort to cultivate patience, prudence, and tact will you be able to solve your problem.

Furthermore, you accepted him “for better or for worse,” and when “the worse” comes out in him, remember your promise at God’s altar. Be thankful that you have a good Catholic husband, if that be the case, who does not, with all his faults, make it difficult for you to live up to your Faith and to save your soul.

Be forgiving

Self-sacrifice must take the form of forgiveness. Forgiveness means the sacrifice of anger, bitterness, resentment, and revenge against your partner. There is no marriage in which forgiveness is not sometimes required, because there are no perfect human beings on earth.

It is inevitable when you live with another person day after day that at times your feelings will be hurt, and you will think that your rights are abused. So do not be too sensitive, and do not feel sorry for yourself.

A nagging wife never wholeheartedly forgives, because she never lets her husband forget his faults and defects of character. A husband who bears grudges against his wife and enters into moody silences for long periods of time is too selfish to forgive from his heart.

The causes for disagreements are usually very trivial. If you have misunderstandings, do everything possible to straighten out these domestic problems as soon as possible, and try to keep harmony.

Balance your accounts every day: if you quarrel in the morning, try to be at peace by nightfall. If you have failed, admit the mistake, and your spouse should forgive and forget.

You need a technique for handling the differences that so often lead to explosions of temper in marriage. Try to discuss your differences with calmness and understanding and settle them through reason tempered with good will and love. Without these elements, no disagreement can be solved.

With the help of God and your good will, love, and understanding, a solution can be found for every difficulty.

Accept each other’s faults

The state of being in love is not a sufficient guide to the new life of marriage, as a pagan, secular world would have us believe. The implications of the vows of Matrimony become clear only gradually.

When you were married, each of you had to choose first the interests of the other. This choice could not be accomplished in a matter of days. When you began to live as one, you discovered in yourselves faults of temper and character of which previously you may not have been aware. Even to this day you will find these faults your stumbling blocks.

Your chance of happiness depends on your sincere determination and your capacity for self-sacrifice to get them out of your way. Learn to accept each other’s faults with patient love. Do not brood over them. If you do, you will pile one thing upon another and make mountains out of molehills.

Forgiveness is especially a necessary part of your relationship. If you see a fault in your spouse that you consider serious, and which makes you unhappy, be patient and bring it up to your partner in a kind, prudent way.

Be ready to accept correction for your own faults and failings. If you have complaints about your spouse, begin the process of correction by examining and correcting yourself. A case cannot be settled on the basis of one spouse’s complaints alone. The principal fault may be found on one side only, but you should not take it for granted without self-examination and humble self-improvement.

You must dare to put aside your petty personal pattern, your peeves and fears, and in humble trust and prayer beg the help of God, offered to you in the sacrament of Matrimony.

Make unpleasant experiences fewer. There will be numerous occasions when even loving personalities verge on hatred. There will be spells of boredom and dreariness that even real love does not dispel. There will be days and nights of weariness, discouragement, unhappiness, and almost despair.

Remember that you have enough help to assure you of improvement. Both of you are working for the ideal marriage, and both of you are eager to find ways of making your life happier.

If only you cooperate, God will give you innumerable graces -those particularly conferred by the sacrament of Matrimony – actual grace and sanctifying grace. This means a real lift to progress at the very moment you need it most.

Punctuality exacts self-discipline and detachment; it often asks us to interrupt some interesting, pleasant work in order to give ourselves to another kind, perhaps less attractive or less important.
However, it would be a great mistake to esteem our duties and to dedicate ourselves to them according to the attraction we have for them or according to their more or less apparent importance.
All is important and beautiful when it is the expression of the will of God, and the soul who wishes to live in this hole he will every minute of the day, will never omit the slightest act prescribed by its rule of life. -Divine Intimacy

“Did you ever bewail losses and mistakes in an exaggerated way, out of all proportion to their magnitude? We have all done so….” Fr. John Carr, C.SS.R., Helps to Happiness

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Review: Catholic Mother Goose, Volume Two, is a ‘one of a kind’ treasure for young and old alike! Little minds will be captivated by the beautifully colored and illustrated pages. Throughout the nursery rhymes, children will learn the lessons of kindness, unselfishness, the efficacy of suffering and the value of prayer! They will become more familiar with the lives of the Saints, St. Therese, St. Francis, etc. and their great love for Jesus and Mary. These beautifully written poems will plant the seed for good literature and a love for reading for years to come. This is how we make our Catholic faith and culture come alive for our children! This book is a must!

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Originally written as a religious sister’s guide for daily adoration, 100 Holy Hours for Women contains a plethora of profound spiritual insight into the mystery of the Eucharist. 100 Holy Hours encourages Christian women, of every calling and stage of life, to enter into quiet, loving conversation with Jesus. This book enables all to comprehend the love of Christ, who gave us his Body and Blood that we might come closer to him. Only in the Eucharist can we find the perfect example of total humility, self-sacrificial love, and holy submission. Only through the Eucharist can we hope to attain happiness in this world and the next.

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A Director’s Counsels – Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J.

In his book “La jeune Mariee,” Leon de la Briere quotes the advice given by a spiritual director to his penitent in the 14th century:

“You ought to be attentive and devoted to the person of your husband. Take care of him lovingly, keep his linens clean and orderly because that is your affair.

Men should take care of the outside business; husbands must be busy going and coming, running here and there in rain, wind, storm, and sleet; they must keep going dry days or rainy days; one day freezing, another day sweltering, badly fed, badly lodged in poorly heated houses and forced to rest in uncomfortable beds.

But they do not mind any of this because they are comforted by the hope that they will enjoy the care their wife will give them on their return.

How pleasant the thought of taking off his shoes before a cheerful fire, of bathing, putting on clean clothes, fresh shoes and stockings; eating well prepared meals that are properly served; of being sheltered from the inclemencies of the weather; of retiring to sleep between fresh sheets and under warm bed coverings; good furs.

Remember the country proverb which says that there are three things which drive a man from his house: “a house without a roof, a chimney that smokes, and an argumentative wife.”

Therefore, my daughter, I urge you to be gentle, agreeable and good-natured in order to keep in the good graces and the love of your husband.

Then all the while he is busy, he will have his mind and his heart directed toward you and your loving service. He will abandon every other house, every other woman, every other service.

It will all be as so much mud compared to you.”

Some very definite virtues are needed to follow out such program:

–a very high degree of pure intention to accomplish in a supernatural spirit the thousand little attentions required by human love; a deep seated charity that becomes more active and more vital by the tender affections of the heart for the beloved; a habit of order which has a place for everything and everything in its place;

–skill in home-making, that essential feminine talent of making a house a home, cheerful and agreeable, a warm and pleasant nest, and the desire on the part of the wife to make as many things as she can herself.

At the beginning of married life love alone without any special attraction toward renunciation makes such a harmony of virtues a possible achievement.

However, there comes a time in many homes when the spirit of renunciation must come to the rescue of love.

Not that husband and wife no longer hold any attraction for each other, but they know each other too well to be under any delusions regarding their insufficiencies and they have to be able to pass over many imperfections.

It is helpful for them under such circumstances to recall that marriage is a sacrament whose particular grace is to help the wedded couple live their life together.

Honest observers of Christian marriage recognize this:

Catholicism has worked a great wonder, “it has succeeded in steadying the vagabond and insatiable sexual urge, it makes long cohabitation possible, it makes characters more supple and tempers dispositions; through constant effort and the joy of duty accomplished, it increases the moral worth of the individual giving meaning thereby to life and to death; it gives to society the most solid support upon which it can stand.”

Questions to Ponder:

Is it not often true in a home that “the strength of the man is many times in the woman.“ How does Father Plus explain this?

Father Plus stresses the power of a smile…cheerfulness. Why is this important in a family?

“Granted that woman is more soul than man, and he more body than woman, more alive to the physical”… Being out in the world, and keeping in mind what Fr. Plus says, what kind of helps does a man need from his wife? What must he do for himself?

“However, there comes a time in many homes when the spirit of renunciation must come to the rescue of love.” Explain.

“He wants an Eve who is an honest-to-goodness woman, and if possible, one of unusual character;” What are your thoughts about this?

What does Fr. Plus mean by “praiseworthy vanity”?

When your husband knows he is married to his most trusted confidant, your influence soars. -Matthew L. Jacobson https://amzn.to/2MtbcTT (afflink)

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This is a unique book of Catholic devotions for young children. There is nothing routine and formal about these stories. They are interesting, full of warmth and dipped right out of life. These anecdotes will help children know about God, as each one unfolds a truth about the saints, the Church, the virtues, etc. These are short faith-filled stories, with a few questions and a prayer following each one, enabling the moral of each story to sink into the minds of your little ones. The stories are only a page long so tired mothers, who still want to give that “tucking in” time a special touch, or pause a brief moment during their busy day to gather her children around her, can feel good about bringing the realities of our faith to the minds of her children in a childlike, (though not childish), way. There is a small poem and a picture at the end of each story. Your children will be straining their necks to see the sweet pictures! Through these small stories, parents will sow seeds of our Holy Catholic Faith that will enrich their families all the years to come!

This revised 1922 classic offers gentle guidance for preteen and teenage girls on how to become a godly woman. Full of charm and sentiment, it will help mother and daughter establish a comfortable rapport for discussions about building character, friendships, obedience, high ideals, a cheerful spirit, modest dress, a pure heart, and a consecrated life.

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The Palace of Chance

Our daughter and son-in-law 🙂

From Christ in the Home by Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J.

A modern writer describes marriage as “having an appointment with happiness in the palace of chance.”

Two persons are complete strangers to each other. One day they meet. They think they appreciate each other, understand each other. They encounter no serious obstacles; their social position is just about the same; their financial status similar; their health seems sufficient; their parents offer no objections; they become engaged. They exchange loving commonplaces wherein nothing of the depths of their souls is revealed. The days pass; the time comes–it is their wedding day.

They are married. In the beginning of their acquaintance, they did not know each other at all. They do not know each other much better now, or at least, they do not know each other intimately. They are bound together; possible mishaps matter little to them; they are going to make happiness for themselves together. It is a risk they decided to run.

That this procedure is the method followed by many can scarcely be denied.

Let us hope that we personally proceed with more prudence.

Upon the essential phases of life together, the engaged couple should hold loyal and sincere discussion. And in these discussions and exchange of ideas, each one should reveal himself as he really is, and let us hope that this revelation is one of true richness of soul.

To make a lover of a young man or young woman is not such a difficult achievement. But to discover in a young man before marriage the possibility, or better still, the assurance of a good husband who will become a father of the highest type, and in a young woman, the certain promise of the most desirable type of wife who has in her the makings of a real mother and a worthy educator–that is a masterpiece of achievement!

“To love each other before marriage! Gracious, that is simple,” exclaims a character in a play, “they do not know each other! The test will be to love each other when they really do get acquainted.” And he is not wrong.

In keeping with his thought is the witty answer given by a young married man to an old friend who came to visit him.

“I am an old friend of the family,” explained the visitor. “I knew your wife before you married her.”

“And I, unfortunately, did not know her until after I married her!”

But even when a man and woman do know each other deeply and truly before marriage, how many occasions they will still have for mutual forbearance. It is necessary for them to have daily association with each other in order to understand each other; for the woman, to understand what the masculine temperament is; for the man to understand what the feminine temperament is.

That may seem like a trifling thing; yet it goes a long way toward a happy marriage. To understand each other not only as being on his part a man and on her part a woman, but as being just such a man or just such a woman, that is to say, persons who in addition to the general characteristics of their species possess particular virtues and particular faults as a result of their individual temperaments- -that requires rare penetration!

A home is not drawn by lot, blindly. A palace of chance! No, indeed. If we want to turn it into a palace of happiness as far as that is possible here below, we must above all things refuse to have anything to do with chance. We must know what we are doing and where we are going.

Another daughter and son-in-law 🙂

Never weary in cheering your family with your smile. It is not enough to avoid depressing them; you must brighten them up and let their spirits expand. Be especially vigilant when the little ones are around. Give them the alms of a smile, hard though it be at times. What a pity when children have to say, “I don’t like it at home.” – Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J. http://amzn.to/2rHXstq (afflink)

Painting by Alfredo Rodriguez

 

October – Month of the Holy Rosary

Pentecost

“All who accepted Peter’s words were baptized.”

On Pentecost, the Church’s birthday, 3000 candles were lit – 3000 souls enlightened with the grace of faith.

From the simple eloquence of the Apostle Peter went forth the power of God, and men who had that morning been citizens of a dozen nations, and strangers to one another, were now “one in Christ.”

A stupendous miracle of God’s grace, their sudden, spontaneous confession that a crucified Nazarene was God and Savior. But a testimonial as well to man’s inviolable free will.

The grace of Pentecost was offered to many, but it bore fruit only in those who opened their hearts to it.

My salvation – my “success story“-will be all God’s work, but not only God’s work. I must work hand-in-hand with God’s ever-present grace.

Make a statement with these lovely and graceful handcrafted aprons….fully lined….made with care. Aprons tell a beautiful story…..a story of love and sacrifice….of baking bread and mopping floors, of planting seeds and household chores. Sadly, many women have tossed the aprons aside and donned their business attire. Wear your apron with joy….it is a symbol of Femininity….”Finer” Femininity! 🌺 💗 Will fit most sizes…

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Here is a marriage blueprint that every woman can follow. Happy marriages do not just happen, they are made. It takes three parties to make a good marriage; the husband, the wife, and the Lord. This book is concerned with helping the woman to become the wife desired and therefore loved that every man worth having wishes to find and keep.<P> This book sold over a quarter of a million copies shortly after its publication in 1951, and it was read by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. It is a practical manual. It should be read by every woman considering entering the matrimonial state and also by those women who are already married. It can also be read by men who may wish to see what a real challenge it is for a woman to live up to their expectations and how grateful they should be if they are blessed to find the woman of their desires…

Armed with Barbeau s wisdom, you’ll grow closer to your wife and to your children, while deepening your love for God. You’ll be able to lead your family to holiness amidst the troubles and temptations that threaten even the best of families today: infidelity, divorce, materialism, loneliness, and despair.

The Father of the Family makes good fathers and good fathers are the secret to happy homes….

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Life Together is Difficult – Christ in the Home

Beautiful and important insight from Fr. Plus….

From Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J., 1950’s

Marriage is not an easy vocation. It requires great virtue of husbands and wives.

Personal experience reveals how true that is; those who cannot claim this personal experience can, in any case, accept the statement of psychologists who observe, “Marriage is the most difficult of all human relations, because it is the most intimate and the most constant. To live so close to another person–who in spite of everything remains another person–to be thus drawn together, to associate so intimately with another personality without a wound or without any shock to one’s feelings is a difficult thing.”

According to an old saying, “There are two moments in life when a man discovers that his wife is his dearest possession in the world–when he carries her across the threshold of his home, and when he accompanies her body to the cemetery.”

But in the interval between these two moments, they must live together, dwell together, persevere together. “To die for the woman one loves is easier than to live with her” claim those who ought to know. And how many women could claim similarly, “To die for the man one loves is easier than to live with him.”

They must bear with each other.

A French journalist while visiting Canada stopped for a time at Quebec. “You have no law permitting a divorce in the case of husbands and wives who do not understand each other?” he questioned.

“No.”

“But what do those married persons do whose discontent is continual and whose characters are in no way compatible?”

“They endure each other.”

How expressive an answer! How rich in meaning! How expressive of virtue which is perhaps heroic! They endure each other.

This is not an attempt to deny the delights of married life, but to show that more than a little generosity is required to bear its difficulties.

In “The New Jerusalem” by Chesterton, a young girl is sought in marriage. She opposes the proposal in view of differences in temperament between herself and the young man. The marriage would certainly be a risk; it would be imprudent.

Michel, the suitor, retorted to this objection in his own style: “Imprudent! Do you mean to tell me that there are any prudent marriages? You might just as well speak of prudent suicides . . . A young girl never knows her husband before marrying him.

Unhappy? Of course, you will be unhappy. Who are you anyway to escape being unhappy, just as well as the mother who brought you into the world! Deceived? Of course you shall be deceived!”

Who proves too much, proves very little. We can, however, through the exaggeration find the strain of truth. “Michel” is a little too pessimistic. He makes a good counterpart to those who enter into marriage as if in a dream.

“Marriage,” wisely wrote Paul Claudel–and he gives the true idea–“is not pleasure; it is the sacrifice of pleasure; it is the study of two souls who throughout their future, for an end outside of themselves, shall have to be satisfied with each other always.”

LOVING EACH OTHER IN GOD

We have already seen that it is essential to advance as quickly as possible from a purely natural love to a supernatural love, from a passionate love to a virtuous love.

That is clear. No matter how perfect the partners in marriage may be, each has limitations; we can foresee immediately that at the point where the limitations of the one contact the limitations of the other, sparks will easily fly; misunderstandings, oppositions, and disagreements will arise.

No matter how much effort one puts forth to manifest only virtues, one does not have only virtues. And when one lives in constant contact with another, his faults appear quickly; “No man is great to his valet,” says the proverb.

Sometimes it is the very virtue of an individual which seems to annoy another. One would have liked more discretion; one is, as it were, eclipsed. Two find their self-love irritated, in conflict.

Or perhaps virtues no longer appear as virtues by reason of being so constantly manifested. Others become accustomed to seeing them and look upon them as merely natural traits.

“There is nothing more than that missing for him or her to be different.” It is like the sun or the light; people no longer notice them. Bread by reason of its being daily bread loses its character of “good bread.”

Daily intercourse which was a joy in the beginning no longer seems such a special delight; it becomes monotonous.

Husband and wife remain together by habit, common interests, honor, even a certain attachment of will, but do they continue to be bound together by love in the deepest sense of the word?

If things go on in this way, they will soon cease to be much concerned about each other; they may preserve a mutual dry esteem which habit will render still drier. Where formerly there existed a mutual ardor, nothing more remains than proper form; where formerly there was never anything more than a delicate remonstrance, there now exists depressing wrangling or a still more depressing coldness.

Married persons must come to the help of weak human nature and try to understand what supernatural love is in order to infuse it into their lives as soon as possible.

Is not the doctrine of the Church on marriage too often forgotten? How many ever reread the epistle of the Nuptial Mass? Meditate on it?

In any case, how many husbands and wives read it together? Meditate on it together? That would forearm them against the invasion of worrisome misunderstandings.

Why not have recourse to the well-springs of wisdom? There are not only the epistles. There is the whole gospel.

The example of Joseph and Mary at Nazareth is enlightening.

What obedience and cordial simplicity in Mary! What deference and exquisite charity in Saint Joseph! And between the two what openness of heart, what elevated dealings! Jesus was the bond between Mary, the Mother, and Joseph, the foster-father.

In Christian marriage, Jesus is still the unbreakable bond–prayer together, Holy Mass and Holy Communion together.

Not only should there be prayer with each other, beside each other, but prayer for each other.

 

“Enjoy the man he is. Don’t compare him to anyone else. There is little more destructive than hoping he’ll become like someone he isn’t – whether said aloud or thought silently in your heart. Instead, make the most of his own unique qualities.” – Lisa Jacobson, 100 Ways to Love Your Husband http://amzn.to/2sk0lEa (afflink)

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“We live in an age characterized by agitation and lack of peace. This tendency manifests itself in our spiritual as well as our secular life. In our search for God and holiness, in our service to our neighbor, a kind of restlessness and anxiety take the place of the confidence and peace which ought to be ours. What must we do to overcome the moments of fear and distress which assail us? How can we learn to place all our confidence in God and abandon ourselves into his loving care? This is what is taught in this simple, yet profound little treatise on peace of head. Taking concrete examples from our everyday life, the author invites us to respond in a Gospel fashion to the upsetting situations we must all confront. Since peace of heart is a pure gift of God, it is something we should seek, pursue and ask him for without cease. This book is here to help us in that pursuit.”

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