CHRIST IN THE HOME 


BY RAOUL PLUS, S.J. 
a Translation from the French 

FREDERICK PUSTET CO., INC. Publishers NEW YORK AND 
CINCINNATI

Nihil Obstat:
JOHN M. A. FEARNS, S.T.D., Censor Librorum

Imprimatur:
+FRANCIS CARDINAL SPELLMAN, 
Archbishop of New York

New York, June 19, 1951

The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that 
a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No 
implication is contained therein that those who have granted 
the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur agree with the contents, 
opinions or statements expressed.

COPYRIGHT, 1951, IN UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 
BY FREDERICIC BUSTET CO., INC. Third Printing Printed in 
U.S.A. Biblical Quotations have been checked with the 
Confraternity Edition of the New Testament and the Douay 
Version of the Old Testament. 


TO JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH 
THE HOLY FAMILY 
THAT THEY MAY OBTAIN 
FOR THE WORLD 
THE GRACE OF MANY FAMILIES 
WHO KEEP
CHRIST IN THE HOME



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 

    INTRODUCTORY READINGS

The Saint of Modern Times 
Sanctity of the Laity 
Fantasy or Sacred Duty 
My Personal Vocation 
What Kind of Soul Am I?

    MARRIAGE 

Before Embarking (1) 
Before Embarking (2) 
Requisites for a Happy Marriage 
A Proposal 
The End of Love? 
One Only Being 
Love 
The Palace of Chance 
Infinity Promised 
The Nuptial Liturgy 
The Wedding Day 
Total Union
The Four Bonds of Conjugal Union
Life Together Is Difficult 
Loving Each Other In God 
Supernatural Love 
United Striving for Sanctity 
Ideals for Marriage 
One Heart, One Soul 
Marriage and the Bible (1) 
Man Born of Slime 
Some Feminine Traits 
Marriage and the Bible (2) 
Conjugal Duty 
Motherhood 
Is Birth-Control Permissible? 
Why Have a Large Family? 
The Bell of Life
The Impossibility of Having Children?
The Only Child 
Christ and Marriage 
Marriage and Baptism
Respect in Love 
Marriage and the Mystical Body 
Mutual Devotedness 
Woman's Superiority 
The Boss in the House 
Marriage and the Eucharist (1) 
Marriage and the Eucharist (2) 
Strange Profanation
Marriage and the Eucharist (3)
Marriage and Sacrifice
A Mystic Moral Bond
A Father's Answer to His Daughter
Transported Together 
Single Though Two
Marriage and the Priesthood (1) 
Marriage and the Priesthood (2)
Masculine Treason
Marriage and the Counsels (1)
Marriage and the Counsels (2)
Marriage and Vows
The Social Ideal

    THE HOME

Great Adventurers
The Psalm of Young Mothers 
Up to Date
Paternal Solicitude
The Family 
Heredity 
Parental Responsibility 
The Family Spirit 
"The Whole Sea" 
Homelife
The Family Table 
Strange Profanation
A Christian Setting
Judicious Economy
The Providential Role of Insecurity
The Snuffbox
Estranged Parents
The Womanly Ideal
Her Husband's Helper
Good Sense
Women and Education
Endurance
Unbearable Husbands
Unbearable Wives
The Counsels of Madame Elizabeth
Woman, The Strength of Man
Is Genius Celibate?
The Power of a Smile
A Devastating Disposition
Man's Virtues versus Woman's Virtues
Man's Fidelity
A Wife with Character
Praiseworthy Vanity
A Director's Counsels
Friendly Argument
Feminine Faults
The Psychology of a Mother 
Courageous Mothers
Courageous Fathers
A Mother's Zeal
Domestic Help
Love Out of Bounds
The Folly of Love Out of Bounds
The Prayer of the Married
Prayer Together
Prayer for Each Other
Marriage and a Life of Prayer
Choice Graces

    TRAINING 

The First Years
Love for Children
From Three to Five
The Art of Giving Children Faults
The Untimely Laugh
Love versus Maternal Instinct
Training in Obedience
Children Who Command
Training in Docility
Intelligence and Firmness in a Mother 
Picture Study
Impartiality
Difficulties of Christian Education
Supernatural Mothers
Education to the Supernatural (1)
Education to the Supernatural (2)
Education to the Supernatural (3)
Jesus and the Child
The Father Who Doesn't Pray
Table Prayers
Children and Christmas
Eucharistic Education (1)
Eucharistic Education (2)
Eucharistic Education (3)
Eucharistic Education (4)
Eucharistic Education (5)
Training to Purity (1)
Training to Purity (2)
Training to Purity (3)
Training to Purity (4)
Reading
Training of the Emotions
The Child and Laziness
Lazy Children
Training in Sincerity (1)
Training in Sincerity (2)
Training in Sincerity (3)
Honesty and Tact
Is Self-Accusation Obligatory?
Training to Confidence
All My Faith
Formation of Character (1)
Formation of Character (2)
Formation of Character (3)
Education in Reverse
Important Nevers
Training the Adolescent
Girls versus Boys (1)
Girls versus Boys (2)
A Father's Letter
Misunderstood Children
A Defaulting Father
A Mother to Her Son
Tick Tock
Training in Generosity
Mothers and Vocations
Priests in the Family
The Mother of a Saint
Parents of Saints
Training in Charity
Training in Social Responsibility (1) 
Training in Social Responsibility (2)
Training in Social Responsibility (3)
Training in Social Responsibility (4)
The Family and the School
The Secularism of Christians
Family Affections
The Hierarchy of Duties



PREFACE

A HOME ruled by the spirit of Christ is a happy home. It is 
also a school of virtue directed to spiritual transformation in 
Christ.

But Christ does not force His entry into a home. He enters 
only by invitation. He remains only when evidently welcome.

It is the wise bride and groom who let Him know by their 
spiritual preparation for marriage that they want Him to 
accompany them from the altar of their vows into the home 
they are about to establish. It is the wise husband and wife 
who let Him know they want Him always present by striving 
to put on His mind and to establish their family according to 
His principles.

In such a home, husband and wife and children will enjoy 
gladness of heart, happiness in the fulfillment of duty, and 
intense union of souls.

The strength and honor of the family come above all from 
within, from union with Christ which gives power to manifest 
in daily living the beautiful family virtues of patience, 
energy, generosity, forbearance, cheerfulness, and mutual 
reverence with their consequent effect of peace and 
contentment.

This book is an invitation to the married or those about to 
marry, to spend the interior effort required to unite them 
solidly in Christ and to make them worthy transmitters of the 
Christ-life to their family. It is an invitation to fulfill the high 
purpose of their marriage which is to help each other to 
sanctity and to rear saints for heaven; to possess Christ 
themselves as completely as possible and to give Christ to 
their children.

Now sanctity is the result of personal cooperation with grace. 
It is no passive attainment. Equally true is it that spiritual 
truths and principles merely known but not realized are of 
little force in stimulating spiritual energy and effort. 
Consequently this book of spiritual readings makes no 
attempt to present fully developed meditations. It is not to be 
a substitute for personal reflection and prayer. Its various 
topics are presented as points of departure into deeper 
realms of thought and prayer; by the personal following 
through of the ideas offered, conviction and realization will 
be achieved and lives transformed. A stronger bond of 
communication will be established between the soul and God 
resulting in real prayer and not prayers said. The affections 
made will be the outpouring of the individual's response to 
God and not someone else's pre-planned expression of what 
that response ought to be.

The essential thing is to talk over the subjects with God. It is 
important then to enter into His Presence before each reading 
by a reverent act of recollection; to beg His light to see the 
truth and His strength to act on conviction and realization. It 
is important to see; it is more important to will.

The points offered for prayerful consideration are not meant 
to carry the reader into the clouds of elevated speculation 
and theory but rather to direct the soul to study prayerfully 
the daily, common, routine elements of his life in order to lift 
them out of possible monotony and deadening repetition into 
the challenging and absorbing adventure of making them 
divine.

This book in no way presumes to replace what should be for 
all Christians the two essential meditation books--the Gospels 
and the Missal. In fact, it presupposes that its readers are 
Christians accustomed to live in the spirit of Our Lord's life 
according to the rhythm of the liturgy. It endeavors to 
provide variety and to bring into practical application some 
of the lessons hidden in the Gospels or the Missal.

Of vital importance is it, no matter what the meditation book, 
to draw from the little that one reads a maximum of 
nourishment for the soul. That is not impossible. All one need 
do is to beg God for His grace and to co-operate with the 
grace that He gives.

Such a manifestation of good will is a sincere invitation to 
Christ and a convincing proof that He is welcome in your life.

CHRIST WILL ENTER YOUR HOME 
HE WILL REMAIN TO DWELL WITH YOU



INTRODUCTORY READINGS


THE SAINT OF MODERN TIMES

FORMERLY when people dreamed of sanctity or even of the 
interior life, they aspired to one thing only--to get away from 
the world, to go off to the desert, or at least to the priesthood 
or the religious state. To become a saint in the world, to 
acquire a true and profound union with God in the world, to 
exercise oneself in the practice of complete abnegation, and 
to pursue perfection in the world seemed scarcely possible.

People are beginning to realize better that there is such a 
thing as sanctity in the world.

We honor those who follow a priestly vocation or a 
consecrated life in religion. They have chosen the better part 
which will not be taken from them.

But are we to conclude therefore that the laity, because they 
live in the world, because they have entered the married 
state, must be content with a cheaper view of perfection? 
Must assume that the practice of the highest virtues is not for 
them? That they may not aspire to divine union and the 
secret joys of a valiant fidelity inspired by love?

Fortunately there are many who realize the falsity of such a 
conclusion. Saint Francis de Sales challenged the laity to 
strive for high sanctity.

"The world of today longs to contemplate the saint of modern 
times who will take his place beside the ancient and 
venerable figures of our history," observes Rademacher, the 
author of "Religion and Life." "It demands the saintly man of 
the world who unites harmoniously in his personality all the 
aspects of a noble humanism established on correct values, 
entirely impregnated with a living faith, a strong love of God, 
and a supple, joyous participation in the life of the Church.... 
There ought to be even now on this earth a type of saintly 
employee, saintly merchant, saintly industrialist, saintly 
peasant, saintly wife, saintly woman of Christian culture and 
refinement. The saint's role in the world today is to be the 
pioneer of the new family, of the new State, of the new 
Society, of the new humanity, of the Kingdom of God which is 
always new."

No profession is of itself an obstacle to holiness. No state of 
life is an obstacle; and marriage, if rightly understood, not 
only demands holiness but leads those who fulfill all its 
requirements to true sanctity.

In trying to picture what the saint of the next centuries 
should be, Foerster, a Protestant author, did not hesitate to 
write: "Just as in former times the saint was characterized by 
his courage to confess his faith and die a martyr, since he 
held faith to be his highest ideal for which he must be willing 
to suffer; just as the saint of the Middle Ages and even of our 
own day, has been characterized by virginity, since then and 
now, and especially in our times, it requires a struggle to 
conquer many temptations to preserve personal purity; so 
perhaps the saint of the centuries to come will be the perfect 
wife or husband, since the vital ideal for which we should 
willingly suffer today is the sacredness of marriage."

There is much truth in these words. It may be though that the 
age of martyrs is not so far distant as the author would have 
us believe. And consecrated virginity, thank God, continues 
to hold a strong appeal for many souls. But is Foerster not 
pathetically correct in stating that saints in married life, in 
conjugal fidelity, are a crying need of our age to counteract 
the attacks on the family and notably the attacks on the 
indissolubility of marriage?

What thirst consumes me as I begin this book of spiritual 
readings? Is it the thirst for sanctity? How far am I willing to 
go?

Let me gauge the measure of my desire, of my sincerity.


SANCTITY OF THE LAITY

THE author of the so-called "Precepts of Contemporary 
Philosophy" may have been trying to be witty when some 
years before the war broke out in 1939 he wrote the following 
comment on sanctity:

"Sanctity: An idolistic word no longer having any more than 
historical interest. Civil and military society has preserved its 
heroes; religious society has lost its saints or, if any more of 
them remain, we no longer hear them mentioned.... The age 
of great Christian fervor has indeed passed away.... Without 
wanting to appear sacrilegious, I believe that the Catholic 
faith would have difficulty finding martyrs thoroughly 
convinced of their faith and ready to sacrifice themselves for 
it even to death."

True, heroic virtue is rare and where it does exist, it makes so 
little noise! How much real sanctity there is! Sanctity which 
may never be officially canonized but real just the same: the 
sanctity of a doctor who spends himself for the love of God 
and for the suffering members of Christ without counting the 
cost; the sanctity of a servant who lives her life of obedience 
and continual renunciation humbly and in a supernatural 
spirit--multiple types of sanctity, hidden and unknown but 
effective and a delight to the Heart of God. We should of 
course like to see sanctity more widespread, but we must not 
deny what already exists.

Furthermore, opportunities for martyrdom are not of general 
occurrence, and sanctity adorned by the martyr's palm is not 
the only kind of sanctity. As Rene Bazin so truly wrote: "Men 
do not seem to recognize the sacrifice of life unless it is 
made all at once." Martyrdom by the little fires of hidden 
fidelities constantly adhered to, of tormenting temptations 
courageously and perseveringly repulsed, of the exact and 
loving fulfillment of duties toward God and neighbor, of 
prayer faithfully practiced despite disgust, aridity and the 
pressure of work--is it not a martyrdom? Who can estimate 
the value of its countless offerings which are not publicized 
but which cost . . . and which count!

The amount of sanctity in the world today is not the essential 
problem; the important question is how much there ought to 
be, what the needs of the world demand, what the glory of 
God and Christianity well understood require.

Speaking one day with a group of cardinals, the Holy Father 
Pius X put this question to them:

"In your opinion, what is the most vital need for the salvation 
of society?"

"To build schools," answered one cardinal.

"No."

"To build more churches," suggested another.

"No again."

"To increase the number of priests," said a third.

"No, no," replied Pius X. "All those things are important, but 
what is most necessary at present is to have in every parish a 
group of lay people who are very virtuous, very determined, 
enlightened in their faith and who are true apostles."

Let us consider now just the two words "virtuous" and 
"determined."

The Holy Father said "virtuous"--"very virtuous" and he was 
speaking of lay people.

Do I belong to that number of virtuous lay people?

"What luck not to be a saint!" Doctor Vittoz of Lausanne used 
to say, "For then I can exert myself to become one!"

Pius X had good reason to add the word "determined" to the 
word "virtuous." Is my resolution to reach high sanctity 
resolute, determined?


FANTASY OR SACRED DUTY

IN his interesting book, "Man the Unknown," Alexis Carrel 
makes this statement:

"Each individual is set by the conditions of his development 
upon the road which will lead him either to the solitary 
mountains or to the mud of the swamps where humanity 
contents itself."

If not rightly understood, this statement might imply that, by 
a sort of pre-established harmony over which we have no 
control, we are inevitably directed in spite of ourselves either 
toward the heights or toward the lowlands.

It could be that because of inherited tendencies, family 
traditions, examples we may have witnessed, or the training 
we have received, we are more strongly drawn either to 
laziness or to generosity. However, everyone has the duty on 
his own responsibility to make himself what he ought to be. 
The problem of salvation and the degree of sanctity to be 
attained is essentially an individual problem. We save 
ourselves or we damn ourselves; we conquer ourselves or we 
let ourselves be conquered--these are all personal verbs.

"Everyone has the duty," that is the reality. It is not a matter 
of satisfying a fantasy, a more or less poetic taste for the 
heights. So much the better if the heights tempt me! So much 
the worse for me if I am the prey of a positive spirit of low 
ideals. I do not have to strive for the Christian ideal simply 
because of a certain forceful subjective attraction. No, I have 
an obligation to strive for it and this obligation springs from 
the Gospel command, a command given to all, Be ye perfect 
as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Am I perhaps too much in the habit of seeing in the Gospel 
only the restrictions it imposes upon me? Of viewing religion 
from the negative side? I must accustom myself to consider 
the Gospel from the positive aspect--the call to sanctity. The 
capital problem for the Christian who wants to be a real 
Christian is not the problem of sin but the problem of 
perfection.

Not to fall back!

Much more and much better--to rise.

In the "Journal of Salavin" by George Duhamel, Salavin 
laments in self-disgust, "How can one resign himself to being 
only what one is and how try to be other than what one is." 
Then he declares:

"After some indefinite time, I am going to go away."

"And where are you going?"

"Nowhere."

Evading--when it should be a matter of ascending.

For me as a Christian, the road is known. I know where to go. 
And the instructions are clear. Someone expressed them in 
three points:

1. To commit this year the least number of sins possible.
2. To acquire this year the most virtues possible.
3. To do to others the most good possible.

Here is a program that will not only avoid the abyss but lead 
to the heights.


MY PERSONAL VOCATION

NOTHING is more interesting and at the same time more 
stirring than to study my particular role in the eternal 
destinies of the world . . . what God from all eternity has 
planned for me . . . what kind of saint He wants me to be . . . 
by what combination and sequence of circumstances He 
established me where I am . . . all He has given me--a 
Christian country, a Christian family, a Christian education, 
numberless graces exterior as well as interior, the 
Sacraments, interior inspirations, invitations to mount 
spiritually--and then to discover in what degree He intends to 
use me to lead other souls to salvation and perfection.

Religion in spirit and in truth--what is it? It consists in 
participating in the very sanctity of God Himself in my own 
personal life, and in cooperating with God to bring grace into 
the lives of others and to help keep them to grow in the 
divine life.

There is no question then of eternity forcing its way into my 
existence without my opening the door to it; it permeates me 
from within in keeping with the freedom I give it.

Nor must I be aiming only at my own sanctification. I have 
the responsibility of souls, not only the souls of my own but 
of multitudes who are in some way connected with my soul. 
The salvation of the world depends in part on the saint that I 
become.

One author puts this thought very well. "Each being in the 
universe must act with the consciousness of having been 
chosen for a task that he alone can accomplish. As soon as he 
discovers what this task is and he begins to dedicate himself 
to it, he can be sure that God is with him and that He watches 
over him. Let him be full of confidence and joy! He is 
associated with the work of creation." And we might add "with 
the work of redemption." This ought to be a continual marvel 
to him that weak and sinful though he knows himself to be he 
is nonetheless called, unquestionably called, to an action of 
unique value, to the exaltation of the divine in himself and 
the propagation and the extension of the divine in humanity!

I ought to try to realize ever more deeply the tremendous 
significance of my personal vocation; to consider the degree 
and the kind of sanctity to which I am called; to measure the 
extent of the field where my zeal for souls is to labor--the 
family, the parish, the city....

Everything in my life should be referred to God. As Saint 
Augustine said, "Totum exigit te qui fecit te, He from whom 
you received all things demands all." I must therefore make 
the gifts He bestowed on me serve for His glory alone. I 
should not deny these gifts, nor store them away; on the 
contrary, I should exploit them, but for Him. To quote Saint 
Augustine again, "Let everything useful that I learned as a 
child be consecrated to Your service, O my God. Let it be for 
Your service that I speak, that I read, that I write, that I 
count!" He did not renounce the use of his mind, the exercise 
of his intelligence, the application of his profane sciences 
but he subordinated all to spreading the glory of God and 
extending his apostolate for souls.

I can be inspired to a like rule of life. I can use human gifts as 
well as divine gifts to attain the highest peak of my vocation. 
I am not what my neighbor is and my neighbor is not what I 
am. I have a role to fill and no one else but me can fill it.

I must know my capital and prudently determine my 
investments.


WHAT KIND OF SOUL AM I?

SOMEONE has said, "All beings receive the same light but all 
accept it unequally. Some are like white surfaces and they 
shed the light all about them; these souls have the most 
innocence. Others are like black surfaces and they enfold the 
light in their own darkness; these souls are like closed 
coffers. Then again some divide the light keeping part for 
themselves and reflecting the rest as do surfaces of 
variegated colors and, like these same colored surfaces, 
change the intensity of light and shadows according to the 
time of day; these are the most sensitive souls. There are 
others who like transparent surfaces let all the light pass 
through them retaining nothing of it; these souls are nearest 
to God. Some might be compared to mirrors in which all 
nature and the people who look at them never cease to see 
themselves and to reflect themselves; these souls are nearest 
us and their presence alone suffices to judge us. Some make 
us thing of prisms in which the white light is spread out into 
the rainbow colors of the spectrum...."

In which class do I belong?

I need not indulge in morbid or vain introspection but try 
merely to get a clear view of God's intentions concerning me. 
I know the Parable of the Talents. I must not envy the riches 
of another but determine exactly the capital that God asks me 
to exploit for His greater glory, for my own sanctification, for 
the good of all souls with whom my sanctification is bound 
up, from those nearest to me even to the most distant at the 
other end of the world. Tu quis es? "Who are you?" the judges 
asked Our Lord, Et quid dicis de teipso, "and what do you say 
of yourself?"

Who am I? The mystery of each personality! It is a mystery 
which even the most perfect and most intimate union with 
another personality cannot completely pierce, as for example 
in marriage. There is a limitless diversity in personalities, 
since God made all souls originally without ever copying any 
previous model. How delightful this variety is: rose, 
anemone, violet; an extraordinary medley, gradations without 
limit of cut or of color....

Who am I? What are my resources? What are my good points? 
What are my faults? What is the color of my desires, the force 
of my will, the intensity of my religious need, my thirst for an 
integrated life, my Christian fervor, the value of my fidelity?

Who am I? That is a different question from what I say I am or 
what I give to understand that I am. No, I am not a hypocrite; I 
do not seek to deceive for the sake of deceiving. But I am like 
everybody else and, without wanting to, without directly 
saying it, I fix up the pages of my country's history--I try to let 
myself be seen only under the most glorious aspects. People 
believe me to be better than I am. In any case they have a 
different opinion of me from what I really am.

Who am I? And what difference is there between what I am 
actually and what I let others discover of my person and my 
intimate self?

Saint Augustine prayed, "Lord, let me know myself, let me 
know Thee." He desired nothing else. I want to make that my 
prayer too.



MARRIAGE


BEFORE EMBARKING (1)

WHOEVER desires to marry ought to prepare himself for that 
great step:

    --First of all, by preserving chastity.
    --Then, by praying much for his future home and family.

By preserving chastity: Whoever cannot see the need for this 
will not be likely to understand the need for anything. But 
one must be able to see the need for more than this, to desire 
more.

The practice of purity in its entirety involves not only the 
avoidance of serious wrongdoing harmful to the integrity of 
the body but also whatever sullies imagination, thought or 
desire. Consequently questionable companions, flirtations, 
and imprudent reading are out of the question. Custody of 
the eyes is essential. Death enters in through the windows of 
the body. Eve and David both sinned through their eyes.

For certain temperaments, such vigilance demands great 
generosity. No one can deny it.

"The good is more difficult than the evil," wrote Paul Claudel 
in response to Jacques Riviere who had explained that to 
remain pure was difficult. "But there is a return. The good 
opens up before us incomparable horizons because it alone is 
in keeping with our reality, our nature, our life and our 
vocation. This is particularly true where love is concerned. 
How ridiculous the romantic fever of a purely fleshly love 
seems to me!"

Sensing the old classic objection in his correspondent, 
Claudel took the offensive:

"As for the emotional cramping Christianity imposes upon 
you, I can scarcely understand what you mean. When you 
speak of sins, I suppose you refer to sins of the flesh, 
because I cannot imagine that you have any tendency to 
drunkenness, avarice, acts of violence or similar things.

"The first answer to your difficulty is that when we become 
Christians, it is not for our pleasure or personal comfort, and 
further, if God does us the honor of asking sacrifice of us, 
there is nothing to do but consent with joy.

"The second answer is that these sacrifices amount to very 
little or practically nothing. We are still living in the old 
romantic idea that the supreme happiness, the greatest 
interest, the only delight of existence consists in our 
relations with women and in the sensual satisfactions we get 
from them. But we forget one fact, the fact that the soul, the 
spirit, are realities just as strong, just as demanding as the 
flesh--even more so; we forget that if we accord to the flesh 
everything it demands, we shall do so with the consequent 
loss of other joys, other regions of delight which will be 
eternally closed for us. We shall be draining a glass of bad 
wine in a hovel or in a drawing room and be unmindful of 
that virginal sea which stretches out before others under the 
rising sun."

How splendidly Shakespeare has expressed the same 
thoughts:

    What win I, if I gain the thing I seek? 
    A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. 
    Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week? 
    Or sees eternity to get a toy? 
    For one sweet grape who will the wine destroy?
        Or, what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
        Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down? 
                    (Rape of Lucrece, Stanza 31)

This is also what Saint Augustine has written in his own 
epigrammatic style: momentaneum quod delectat, aeternum 
quod cruciat. One instant of pleasure, an eternity of 
suffering....

Let me examine my own soul. Have I come to marriage 
entirely chaste? Chaste in body? Chaste in thought? Chaste in 
heart?

If my answer is Yes, then I must thank God. It is a choice 
grace.

If my answer is No, then what can I do to make reparation, to 
obtain from God the grace of entire fidelity to my duty, from 
now on?


BEFORE EMBARKING (2)

IN addition to the preservation of chastity, the person 
aspiring to marriage has a second great duty--to pray much.

An old proverb wisely states, "Before embarking on the sea, 
pray once. Before leaving for war, pray twice. Before 
marrying, pray three times."

And this necessity of praying more before marriage than 
before a voyage or a battle is evident for several reasons. 
Consider the risk of associating oneself closely with a 
creature who has many limitations; with a creature about 
whom one knows very little particularly in the matter of 
shortcomings, since during the period of courtship and 
betrothal one unconsciously does everything not to reveal 
himself; with a creature whom one loves with all one's heart 
but who possesses not only lovable traits, but also faults 
which can cause suffering; with a creature who can bestow 
the greatest joy, but who can also unfortunately inflict the 
deepest pain.

Furthermore, in order to bear joys as well as possible trials, 
do we not need much help from God? And to obtain this help, 
must we not pray much?

Another reason for the necessity of such prayer when one 
desires to establish a home is that from a union once 
sanctioned by the Church and consummated there is no 
possible withdrawal. It is a choice which is definitely 
established. For two changeable human beings to dare to bind 
themselves to each other forever in a relationship so intimate 
as the realities of marriage, is not God's sustaining help a 
prime requisite? And to obtain this help is it not necessary to 
pray much?

Has my life before marriage been one of sanctification and of 
prayer in preparation for my marriage? Or have I confided 
solely in the human merits existing on both sides and 
neglected to place under God's protection the union I was 
about to contract?

If I have been neglectful, I must make up for it now. There is 
still time.

If, on the contrary, I prayed much before my marriage, I may 
not leave off earnest prayer now that I am married. The 
greater the place God holds in my life, the greater can be my 
assurance that my home shall be supernaturally happy and, 
without a doubt, humanly happy as well.

"To you, O Mary, my good Mother, I confide my marriage and 
my home. It seems that marriage is the means of 
sanctification destined for me by God as it is for the chosen 
soul whom you have given me.

"Together we shall do our best to glorify God--this is our firm 
resolution. Bless us, help us, strengthen us. Sailors call you 
Stella Maris. Be for us, too, the Star of the Sea and keep us 
safe throughout our crossing; we put under your care our 
vessel and its crew. You shall be the Queen on board ship."


REQUISITES FOR A HAPPY MARRIAGE

FOR a happy marriage, it is necessary, of course, that the 
engaged couple find each other congenial and enjoy each 
other's company.

They must agree to share loyally the joys and the sorrows of 
wedded union and fulfill its obligations.

Each one must be bent on procuring for the other as much 
happiness as possible and oblige himself beforehand to a 
mode of life which will disturb his partner as little as 
possible.

The husband must love his profession, and his wife should 
share this love or at least neglect nothing in order to respect 
and facilitate it.

They should be able to make their decisions together, not 
certainly without sometimes having recourse to the counsels 
of competent authorities, but with a beautiful and joyful 
independence of any member of the family who may be too 
prone at times to attempt to domineer over the young couple. 
There should, of course, be no presumption, no narrow 
aloofness, but a serene and supple liberty of spirit; serene 
and supple humility.

In order to be able to practice the sanctity of their state in all 
the details of their life, they must understand their duty of 
leaning upon God. It will not be sufficient to link together 
their two wills; they must be determined to pray to obtain 
help from on High.

They must likewise have a certain concern, a legitimate 
concern, for physical charm, without, however, losing sight of 
the fact that beauty of soul is superior to beauty of body; so 
that if some day the physical attraction should diminish, they 
will not be less eager to remain together, but each will strive 
to find in the other the quality upon which profound union is 
established.

Both of them must love children. They must develop in 
themselves to the best of their ability the virtues necessary 
for parenthood, the courage to accept as many children as 
God wants them to have and the wisdom to rear them well--
difficult virtues requiring strong souls.

Each must be possessed of a rich power of cordiality for the 
members of the other's family. Both must resolve to take their 
in-laws and their household as they find them, and adopt as a 
principle for their contacts with them, It was not to share 
hates but to share love that I entered into your family. 
Consequently, they must refuse to be drawn into family 
quarrels, seeking rather in all their actions to promote 
charity, union, and peace.

Even before their marriage, the young couple should decide 
to keep their expenses at a minimum, according to their 
situation, not with avarice or niggardliness, but with the 
desire to live in the gospel spirit of detachment from the 
goods of earth. Such judicious economy, which should of 
course be devoid of even the appearance of stinginess, will 
enable them to set aside something useful and necessary for 
their children. It will also enable them to relieve the misery 
around them.

It is to be assumed that both individuals contemplating 
marriage have the requisite health, since marriage has been 
created not only for mutual support but also to transmit life.

It is further to be assumed that each of the two has kept 
nothing of his past life hidden from the other, and that in 
view of this entire loyalty which is so desirable a trait in 
married couples, each has kept himself pure and refrained 
from dangerous experiences.


A PROPOSAL

LOUIS PASTEUR came from a family of modest means. When 
he was twenty-six years old, his astonishing discovery in 
regard to crystals drew upon him the attention of scientists.

In 1849, he was named assistant professor in the University 
of Strasbourg. The rector of the university, Mr. Laurent, had 
three daughters. Fifteen days after Pasteur's first visit, he 
asked for Marie in marriage. The young scientist felt that this 
young woman understood life as he did and wanted the same 
kind of life he sought--a life of simplicity, of work, and of 
goodness. He sent this letter to Mr. Laurent:

"Sir, a request of great significance for me and for your 
family will be addressed to you in a few days and I believe it 
my duty to give you the following information which can help 
to determine your acceptance or your refusal.

"My father is a tanner at Arbois, a little city in the Jura region. 
My sisters keep house for my father since we had the sorrow 
of losing our mother last May. My family is in comfortable 
circumstances, but not wealthy. I do not evaluate what we 
own at more than ten thousand dollars. As for me, I decided 
long ago to leave my whole share to my sisters. I, then, have 
no fortune. All I possess is good health, a kind heart, and my 
position in the university.

"Two years ago I was graduated from l'Ecole Normale with the 
degree of agrege in the physical sciences. Eighteen months 
ago I received my doctorate, and I have presented some of my 
works to the Academy of Science where they were very well 
received, especially my last one. I have the pleasure of 
forwarding to you with this letter a very favorable report 
about this particular work of mine.

"That describes my present status. As for the future, all I can 
say is that unless I should undergo a complete change in my 
tastes, I shall devote myself to chemical research. It is my 
ambition to return to Paris when I have acquired a reputation 
through my work. Monsieur Biot has spoken to me several 
times to persuade me seriously to consider the Institute. In 
ten or fifteen years I shall perhaps be able to consider it 
seriously if I work assiduously. This dream is but wasted 
trouble; it is not that at all which makes me love science as 
science."

Could a more modest, more completely sincere letter ever be 
sent by a young man in love?

And when he addressed himself to Marie he assured her with 
touching clumsiness that he was sure he could hardly be 
attractive for a young girl, but just let her have a little 
patience and she would learn his great love for her and he 
believed she would love him too, for "my memories tell me 
that when I have been very well known by persons, they have 
loved me."

But great as was his love for Marie, his heart was divided: 
Louis Pasteur loved science, he loved his crystals. He began 
to scruple about it, and finally wrote to his fiancee, asking 
her "not to be jealous if science took precedence over her in 
his life."

She was not jealous. Madame Pasteur married not only the 
man but also his passion for science. Her love had that rare 
quality of knowing how to efface itself, and to manifest itself 
precisely by not manifesting itself at all at times. She was a 
worthy companion of this great man, of this great scientist, of 
this great heart.


THE END OF LOVE?

A CERTAIN essayist makes this appalling statement: "What a 
sad age this is in which one makes his First Holy Communion 
to be through with religion, receives his bachelor's degree to 
be through with studying, and marries to be through with 
love."

Let us omit the first two statements from this consideration 
and take up the third.

Is it true that for some, marriage is the end of love?

That statement can be taken in different ways.

Some think that before marriage one can play at love. Then 
when the senses have been dulled, one shall try to find a 
companion for himself. "Youth must pass," people say 
condescendingly on observing the looseness of young men. 
There are even certain pseudo-moralists who advise young 
girls not to marry before "deliberately having their fling as 
well as the boys"--advice which unfortunately some of them 
do not fail to follow.

This is an odious concept of love and marriage or of 
preparation for it. I certainly want none of it.

Again there are those who think that love is all well and good 
before marriage. As for marriage itself, it is first and foremost 
an investment. The problem is not so much to marry someone 
for whom one experiences a strong attraction, but rather to 
realize a good business deal. It is not the person one seeks, 
but the name, the status, the fortune. There is nothing of love 
in this. No, indeed, it is all a matter of interest: a concept 
equally as odious as the first, equally repellent.

What the author of the statement probably meant is that 
before marriage, the young man and woman are all fire and 
flame, and perhaps for a short time after marriage. Soon, or at 
least comparatively soon after marriage, they no longer speak 
of love. They have become two under the yoke--two bearing 
the necessary restraints of their united existences. Gone is 
the enchantment of betrothal days or of the early days of 
married life. There is nothing left but the grayish prose of 
humdrum existence with an individual of whom one has 
made a god or a goddess--a person who is after all only a poor 
creature.

--A man, "a poor man who eats, drinks, wears shirts and 
drawers, and who loses his buttons," as someone jokingly 
described him. "A man who will never be able to find 
anything in a dresser or clothes closet; who will never 
appreciate the cooking or the menu; who at night throws his 
clothes in a heap on a chair and the next morning complains 
that the creases in his trousers are not pressed in well 
enough; a man who formerly seemed like a knight, a 
magician, a prince charming, and whose bold gestures so 
commanding yet so delicate thrilled the heart and stirred 
one's whole being, causing one's imagination to crown him 
with the aureola of perfection," and who now . . .

--A woman, a poor creature indeed, perpetually thirsting for 
caresses even at the most inappropriate times; a woman who 
has foolish notions, headaches, fits of humor; who manifests 
a flare for spending which can never resist the appeal of any 
show window, particularly if there is an interesting clearance 
sale on; a woman who wants a wardrobe capable of ruining 
the most industrious man, the wealthiest husband--a poor 
sort of woman, indeed!

Is it not because of all these things, at least partially because 
of them, that Our Lord wanted to make marriage a rite giving 
divine graces--a sacrament?

Perhaps we have exaggerated the poetry of conjugal life; let 
us not now exaggerate the prose of life together.

As a preparation for this prose, which is always possible and 
often very real even in the most successful marriages, I shall 
aim to sanctify myself in the practice of charity and patience.


ONE ONLY BEING

"LOVE seeks to escape through a single being from the 
mediocrity of all others." This is the definition one author 
gives of love.

It is not a matter of reviewing all human beings with whom 
one comes into contact as if they were on parade, so that with 
methodical, rational, and cold discernment one might pick 
out the chosen man or woman. It is not a selection; the object 
of one's desire attracts at once; it is just he or she; all the rest 
do not exist. As one writer put it, "Love is monotheistic." There 
is no need at all of overthrowing idols; one pedestal alone 
stands, bearing the holy representation that the eyes feast 
upon and toward which the heart turns with an irresistible 
impulse.

Oh, the incomprehensible power of the heart in love promptly 
to divinize the poor reality it has chosen! Nothing else exists 
for it any longer! In the play "Asmodee," by Mauriac, the 
heroine Emmanuelle, who had thought of religious life until 
she met Harry with whom she fell deeply in love at first sight, 
goes so far as to declare:

"You know when I used to hear a person say of someone, "He 
is everything for me," I did not know what that meant. I know 
now. Our pastor tells me that husbands and wives love each 
other in God. I can't understand that. It seems to me that if 
Harry were some day to be everything for me, then there 
would no longer be any room in my heart or in my life for 
anyone, not even for God."

Aside from this particular example of Emmanuelle, there is 
some truth in those words; they emphasize a well-known fact.

How many young girls during their engagement period, how 
many young wives in the months following upon their 
marriage, neglect the spiritual, overwhelmed as they are with 
human happiness! Previous to that time, all their love, all the 
need they felt for giving themselves was directed to divine 
realities. Their capacity for tenderness was showered upon 
Jesus and Mary; it was fed in Holy Communion.

Now another object engages all their concern. They must be 
vigilant that their piety does not diminish. Their needs have 
increased; it is not the time to decrease their cultivation of 
holiness. Doubtless, and above all in the case of a married 
woman, some spiritual exercises will not be possible; for 
example, daily Holy Mass and Holy Communion in certain 
cases will have to be sacrificed through fidelity to duty in 
their new state. But piety itself must not diminish as it so 
often does in a period of human happiness.

It is essential in the midst of marital joys, and above all in the 
joys preceding marriage or following immediately upon it, to 
strive to preserve a sense of balance and of true values. Love 
of God does not operate exactly as the attraction of creatures. 
In the one case, it is a question of an invisible reality; in the 
other, of a sensible reality. This last, even though closer and 
more accessible, never eclipses the first. Esteem as divine 
what is divine, and do not knowingly divinize or, more 
correctly speaking, transfigure to excess a creature, no matter 
how rich its gifts.

Remain if possible always in truth. Realize that God alone is 
God, and that every created being has its limitations. Strive to 
make your limitations and your mediocrity as little felt as 
possible and generously pardon the limitations and 
mediocrity of your companion for life.

The earth shall never be anything but the earth; it is untimely 
to try to make it heaven.


LOVE

Why does a woman desire a man? Why does a man desire a 
woman? What is the explanation of that mysterious attraction 
which draws the two sexes toward each other?

Will anyone ever be able to explain it? Will anyone be able to 
exhaust the subject?

One fact is certain: Even aside from the physiological aspect 
of the problem, the effeminate man does not attract a woman; 
she makes fun of him, finds him ridiculous. So too the 
masculine woman weakens her power of attraction for a man, 
and ends by losing it entirely.

The age-old spell which each sex casts upon the other is 
closely allied to the fidelity with which each exactly fulfills 
its role. If woman copies man and man copies woman, there 
can be comradeship but love does not develop. In reality, 
they are nothing more than two caricatures, the woman being 
degraded to the rank of a man and a second-rate man at that, 
and the man to the rank of a manikin in woman's disguise. 
The more feminine a woman's soul and bearing, the more 
pleasing she is to a man; the more masculine a man's soul 
and bearing, the more pleasing he is to a woman.

We do not mean to say that between two poor specimens of 
either sex there will never be any casual or even lasting 
sexual appeal and experience. But we can hardly, if ever, call 
it love. If men and woman are no more than two varieties of 
the same sex, a sort of neuter sex, the force which creates 
love disappears. Normally, as we say in electrical theory, 
opposite charges must exist before any sparks will shoot 
forth. Bring into contact two identical charges and there will 
be no effect; electricity of opposite polarities must be used; 
then and then only will there be reaction.

In the realm of love, the general rule is the same. In fact, man 
and woman are two different worlds. And that is as it should 
be, so that the eternal secret which each of them encloses 
may become the object of the other's desire and stimulate 
thirst for a captivating exploration.

That is love's strange power. It brings two secrets face to 
face, two closed worlds, two mysteries. And just because it 
involves a mystery, it gives rise to limitless fantasies of the 
imagination, to embellishments in advance of the reality. So 
that

    One finally loves all toward which one rows.

Whether that toward which one rows is an enchanted island or 
one merely believes it is, what ecstasy!

Comes the meeting, the consecration of the union by 
marriage; each brings to the other what the other does not 
possess. In the one, delicate modesty and appealing reserve; 
in the other, conquering bravery. A couple has been born. 
Love has accomplished its prodigy.

Yet, how true it is, that having said all this, we have said 
nothing. The reality of love is unfathomable.

Could it be perhaps because it is the most beautiful 
masterpiece of God?


THE PALACE OF CHANCE

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.


INFINITY PROMISED

"ONE of the duties of husband and wife is to pardon each 
other mutually for not giving infinity after practically 
promising it.

How much each of them expects from the other, from this 
union hoped for, guessed, discovered, known and loved!

"Is it true, then, that the mystery of infinity is written upon 
this little forehead, which is all mine," sighs the man with the 
Hindu poet Tagore. "You are half woman and half dream."

And what a seraphim, what a dream prince and legendary 
hero she believes to be marrying, she whose imagination is 
livelier and more powerful in evoking imagery?

Ah, the sweetness of loving, the sweetness of being 
    two to know
The ineffable depths of the heart and its burning love's glow,
. . . To know all that a soul holds of power to feel, 
To understand the eyes' great force magnetic, fair, 
To sob softly--my forehead pressed against your hair 
Because I feel so small before Love which passes.

But even in the very moment of the embrace, how difficult--
impossible even--to arrive at perfect unity; physical union 
can be achieved, but how delicate an attainment is union of 
souls! As an English novelist expresses it:

"The anguish of those who love is caused by their 
powerlessness to surmount the barrier of their individuality. 
Even in love we cannot escape from the eternal solitude of 
ourselves. We embrace without being able to be fused into 
one . . . We yearn to be but one and we are always two . . . We 
are frustrated as two birds would be who sought to be united 
through a pane of glass."

Thus it is even when the two understand each other. In vain 
do they try to transfigure poor reality, seek to keep their idol 
more clearly before their vision, by closing their eyes, and by 
renewing marks of affection compensate for the infirmity of 
nature present in their very efforts at mutual tenderness; it 
still remains true that they always desire more than they 
possess; of what import is it that their substances intermingle 
if their consciences remain separated?

And what about those who only half understand each other or 
do not understand each other at all? Not only is their 
intimacy no mutual exchange, but their very cohabitation 
accentuates their isolation all the more. The poet, Anna de 
Noailles, who was unhappy in her married life, expressed this 
idea when she said, "I am alone with someone."

It is a suffering for two who do not love each other to be 
together; it is a suffering to be together if they do love each 
other, because they never know if they embrace all they 
really believe they embrace. Berdyaev, the author of "The 
Destiny of Man," expresses this suffering of love when he 
says, "If unreciprocated love is tragic, reciprocated love is 
perhaps even more so."

How incorrect to think that there is no matter for 
renunciation in marriage!


The Nuptial Liturgy

ORDINARILY there is very little recollection manifested at a 
wedding ceremony. It is just as if the congregation had no 
idea of the sanctity of the place or the grandeur of the event.

Yet, all is holy.

The priest begins "In the Name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost," and prays that God may bless the two 
about to be married so that all may redound to the glory of 
His Name.

Then follows the exchange of consent accompanied by the 
rite of joining hands.

"The Lord be with you," says the priest before blessing the 
ring. . .

And later, "Be unto them, O Lord, a tower of strength." Can 
anything less than this Almighty protection suffice for the 
work of sanctification in their life together?

The Gradual of the Nuptial Mass invokes the blessing of 
fecundity upon the marriage. "Thy wife shall be as a fruitful 
vine on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants 
about thy table."

Marriage is not a union founded on chance or pure caprice; 
reason must control the glow of passion, and the union 
effected by marriage must be of such a nature that death 
alone can break it. The Gospel of Saint Matthew gives us Our 
Savior's own words on this subject. In answer to the question, 
"Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause," 
Christ answered very definitely, No, and quoted the Scripture 
text, "They shall be two in one flesh." Then He made it more 
emphatic by adding, "What therefore God hath joined 
together, let no man put asunder."

At the Pater Noster of the Nuptial Mass, the priest does 
something he never does in any other Mass. He interrupts the 
Sacrifice, permits the Body and Blood of Christ to lie upon the 
altar, and turning, calls down a new benediction of God upon 
the bride and the groom. He recalls how the Most High God 
has watched over the sacred institution of marriage from the 
beginning of the world, to keep it intact in spite of the frailty 
of humanity. The rest of the prayer besides referring to the 
examples of faithful wives of the Old Testament--Rachel, 
Rebecca, Sarah--implores rich graces for the bride.

"O God, by whom woman is joined to man, and that fellowship 
which
Thou didst ordain from the beginning is endowed with a 
    blessing which alone was not taken away either by the 
    punishment for the first sin or by the sentence of the 
    flood; look in Thy mercy upon this Thy handmaid;
True and chaste let her wed in Christ . . .
Let the father of sin work none of his evil deeds within her... 
Let her be true to one wedlock and preserve inviolable 
    fidelity; 
Let her fortify her weakness by strong discipline;
Let her be grave in demeanor and honored for her modesty. 
Let her be well taught in heavenly love;
Let her be fruitful in offspring."

The priest continues the Mass and receives Holy Communion. 
The bride and groom should also receive the Body and Blood 
of Christ during this Nuptial Mass. The rubrics of the missal 
call for it expressly. The ideal then is to communicate not at 
an earlier Mass but during the Nuptial Mass itself, which 
nothing, not even the early hour of the day, can prevent from 
being solemn.

Before the Last Blessing, the priest speaks once more to the 
newly married couple as if he could not tire of blessing them 
before their great departure:

"May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of 
Jacob be with you, and may He fulfill His blessing in you: 
that you may see your children's children even to the third 
and fourth generation, and afterwards may you have life 
everlasting, by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ: who with 
the Father and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth forever."


THE WEDDING DAY

WHAT a marvel of grandeur and of poetry is the nuptial 
liturgy! The Church, full of solicitude for the two daring 
young souls ready to launch out on the voyage of life, is 
eager to prepare them as seriously and as solidly as possible, 
to put before them essential principles, and to petition God to 
take this holy couple under His especial care, and conduct it 
to the great eternal family after their life of reciprocal love 
and confiding generosity.

Is it any wonder that such a noble and meaningful ceremony 
should bring to mind the First Mass of a newly-ordained 
priest?

Unfortunately, the worldly trappings that often accompany 
the marriage celebration detract considerably from the 
sacred atmosphere of the event. Particularly true is this of the 
banquet which is generally a part of the celebration.

The Church has nothing against wholesome joys, particularly 
family feasts to commemorate an outstanding occasion in 
life; but she certainly does not approve of the carousings for 
which wedding banquets are so frequently the excuse, or the 
tone of certain parties held in connection with weddings. 
Could anyone imagine an ordination to the priesthood 
celebrated in such a fashion?

After the Nuptial Mass, the world takes over, there are the 
congratulations, the general stir to get into the line of march 
in order to see and be seen; there is not a minute for prayer, 
for recollection, for thanksgiving. The world, even during the 
Mass as well as after it, assumes control of the couple and 
their family. Events following the marriage ceremony do 
nothing to correct these concessions to the world. Does it not 
seem reasonable that when the fundamental interests of the 
family are impeded by the worldly spirit, the family should 
do everything in its power to escape from it?

There are those who understand this: Sodalists, the Jocists, 
members of Catholic Action groups or similar organizations, 
even previous to the war, wanted to break away from these 
pagan practices. It is not a matter of seeing in the holy place 
only the Church vestibule or the Church lobby. No, no, the 
church is the house of God. Let everything there be holy and 
all that is done there be done holily, the founding of the 
family more than anything else!

Those groups who recognize the sanctity of the marriage 
ceremony have set the example of communicating at their 
Nuptial Mass; they have suppressed boisterous and giddy 
celebrations. In the same spirit they decided to delay their 
departure for their honeymoon and postpone the distractions 
it entails; so beneficial is it to remain in prolonged 
recollection during their first days together. They remember 
to make their union of souls predominate. Therefore, together 
they restrain themselves and by mutual accord embrace 
sacrifice.

Saint Paulinus, a renowned lawyer of Bordeaux, who 
renounced a worldly life when he was at the height of 
success, and with his wife retired into the city of Nola in 
Campania, wrote these significant lines:

    Concordes animae casto sociantur amore; 
    Virgo puer Christi, virgo puella Dei.

which mean: "Let these souls who are one heart and soul be 
united in a chaste love; he, a virgin, a son of God; she, a 
virgin, a daughter of God."

Why not secure for these two splendid baptized souls, these 
two virgin souls, whom marriage has united forever, a 
departure worthy of them?


TOTAL UNION

IN "Les Vergers humains," Louis Lefebvre has this charming 
verse in which the poet addresses his wife:

    I speak to God most often in my verse; 
    I speak to my own destiny;
    I speak to my own son; 
    With every living being, I converse 
    But I speak not to you; you are myself; we are but one.

There are other exquisite examples of such perfect union 
between husband and wife realized not only in poetry but in 
the prose of everyday life.

See this husband and wife seated before the fireplace 
watching the play of the flames.

"What are you thinking about?" queries the wife.

"And you?"

"The same thing you're thinking of."

Idyllic, some will say. And why not, just as truly, an exact 
description?

Then there is the example of another couple so completely in 
accord at all times that the husband one day playfully 
petitioned his wife, "Contradict me sometimes, so that we can 
be two." These two fulfilled to the very letter the statement of 
the Bible, "They shall be two in one flesh." They were one, not 
only in their flesh, but one in a communion of thought and 
opinion. They had become so thoroughly one that they forget 
to be two.

This could be an evil if it meant the weakening of one of the 
two personalities to the point of absorption by the other. 
Some women when first married are in such adoration before 
their husbands or the husbands are so infatuated with their 
wives that unity is effected, but it is a unity through 
suppression and narrowness. God grant, however, that such a 
unanimity never be replaced by the less happy state wherein 
each one clings tenaciously to self-assertion. What should be 
sought is unity through mutual enrichment in mutual 
understanding.

In some marriages this unity becomes so complete that not 
even death can break it. Such, for example, was the union 
between Queen Astrid and King Leopold III, or between 
Mireille Dupouey and her husband, a naval officer killed in 
1915. During the seventeen years Mireille Dupouey lived 
after her husband's death, she continued to write letters to 
him as if he were still living, and to set a place at table 
between herself and her son for her dear departed who was 
forever present to her, forever one with her.

In contrast to these families where union is complete, how 
many there are in which dispute rages permanently; or, if not 
dispute, at least misunderstanding, constant bitterness.

It has been said and truly said that it is not easy for a man 
and woman, two poor human beings, finite, limited, and 
possessed of individual faults, to spend cloudless days 
together. "A woman must take much upon herself, to live with 
a man, whoever he may be," writes a moralist. "A man must 
take much upon himself to live with a woman even though 
she be most loving. How many perplexities between them, 
how many veiled enmities even in their most evident 
caresses! How many half-consented-to abdications on both 
sides!"

But live together they must. How can they achieve as perfect 
a harmony as possible?

Day after day they must seek it, study, meditate, resolve and 
act!


THE FOUR BONDS OF CONJUGAL UNION

THE four bonds of conjugal union are the bond of 
consciences, the bond of intellects, the bond of souls, and 
the bond of hearts.

The bond of consciences: This means that husband and wife 
must have the same norms for judging between right and 
wrong. Is it not only too clear that if they do not have an 
identical point of view in their appreciation of God's law, a 
fundamental disunity will be introduced into the very 
foundation of their unity? If one, for example, holds to the 
principle of free love while the other advocates the principle 
of unity in marriage, can there be complete communion? Or if 
one is determined to abide by the demands of the moral law 
in the difficult duty of procreation while the other has no 
intention of abstaining from the latest practices of birth 
control or from onanism, will there not be constant struggle 
in their home, and that in regard to their most intimate 
relations? If both are not in agreement on the question of 
their children's education, one will insist on secular 
education, the other on Catholic education, and again conflict 
will ensue.

The bond of intellect: This bond is not so essential as the first-
-it is in the realm not of strict requirement, but of the 
desirable. There is much to be gained from shared reading 
experiences, from a mutual exchange of artistic impressions 
and psychological observations.

For this, it is not necessary that the wife share her husband's 
work. It is enough if she is able to be interested in his 
profession. Nor is it necessary that they have the same tastes, 
the same outlook; a certain diversity in mentality, on the 
contrary, is desirable on condition that there are possibilities 
for mutual exchange of ideas which will lead to mutual 
enrichment. 

That evidently supposes great simplicity in both husband 
and wife, a loving liberty in their communication of ideas, a 
very humble recognition of any superior quality in each 
other, an entire good faith which makes each one willing to 
yield to the ideas of the other when they are better.

The bond of souls: It is not sufficient to enjoy an exchange of 
ideas in profane matters only. It is very desirable that there 
be harmony of action in the domain of the spiritual, the 
supernatural. . .prayer together. . .meditation in common . . . 
reception of Holy Communion together.

Father Doncoeur and several others go so far as to advise 
making the examination of conscience together with mutual 
admonition and mutual resolves. This would surely call for 
extreme delicacy and could not be so generally recommended 
as the suggestions given previously. But how beautiful it is 
when husband and wife are as an open book to each other!

Is it good to tell each other the graces received from God, the 
aspirations of the soul to become holy, to become a saint? 
Yes, certainly, on condition that all be done with simplicity, 
with mutual spontaneity, with nothing of constraint, 
exaggeration or artificiality. Why should one hide perpetually 
from one's life companion the best of oneself? Some 
individuals remain much too reticent and it is a hindrance to 
great depths of intimacy.

The bond of hearts: How many in marriage love each other 
selfishly, show themselves demanding, moody, eager to 
receive, but never generous in giving. There is so much 
selfishness in certain families even when they are very 
closely united.

The remedy is to supernaturalize the affections; to pass as 
quickly as possible from passionate love to virtuous love and 
to make conjugal love a permanent exercise of the theological 
virtue of charity.


LIFE TOGETHER IS DIFFICULT

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.


SUPERNATURAL LOVE

SOME persons imagine that the endeavor to transform their 
natural love into supernatural love will make them awkward, 
make them lose their spontaneity, their naturalness.

Indeed, nothing is farther from the truth, if supernatural love 
is rightly understood.

What does it really require?

First of all, does it not require us to fulfill the perfections of 
natural love? Supernatural love, far from suppressing natural 
love, makes it more tender, more attentive, more generous; it 
intensifies the sentiments of affection, esteem, admiration, 
gratitude, respect, and devotion which constitute the essence 
of true love.

Supernatural love takes away one thing only from natural and 
spontaneous love--selfishness, the arch-enemy of love. It 
demands that everything, from the greatest obligation to the 
simplest, be done as perfectly as possible. Then by elevating 
simple human love to the level of true charity, it ennobles the 
greatest powers of that love. It suppresses nothing. It 
enriches everything. Better still, it provides in advance 
against the danger of a diminution in human love. It pardons 
weaknesses, deficiencies, faults. Not that it is blind to them, 
but it does not become agitated by them. It bears with them, 
handles them tactfully, helps to overcome them. It is capable 
of bestowing love where all is not lovable. Penetrating beyond 
the exterior, it can peer into the soul and see the image of 
God behind a silhouette which has become less pleasing.

That is the whole secret. Supernatural love in us seeks to love 
in the manner and according to the desire of God; it requires 
us therefore to love God in those we love and then to love the 
good qualities He has given them and bear with the absence 
of those He has not given or with the characteristics He has 
permitted them to acquire.

Loving without any advertence to self, supernatural love is 
patient and constant in spite of the faults of those it loves. 
The Little Sister of the Poor loves her old folk despite their 
coughing, their unpleasant mannerisms, their varying moods. 
The Missionaries who care for the lepers love them in spite of 
their loathsome sores.

Unselfish as it is, supernatural love inspires the one who is 
animated by it to seek the temporal and above all the 
spiritual good of the one he loves before his own. Delicately 
it calls the attention of the loved one to his faults, not to 
reproach him, but to help him correct them. It does not give 
in to irritability or moodiness; it is quick humbly to beg 
pardon and to make reparation, should it ever fail. And when 
there has been a little outburst, how comforting it is, in the 
intimate converse of the evening, to acknowledge one's 
failings, to express sorrow, and to promise to do better in the 
future with the other's help!

But all this presupposes prayer and a true desire for union 
with God.


UNITED STRIVING FOR SANCTITY

A BEAUTIFUL work which husband and wife can pursue 
together is the mutual effort to correct their faults. Maurice 
Retour, an industrialist and one of the youngest captains of 
World War I of which he was a victim, suggested this to the 
woman he loved even during their engagement. He wrote to 
her, "I must confess something to you . . . I became aware of 
your imperfections and I thought how pained I should have 
been if I had not been able to see clearly into your soul . . . 
You see how frank I want to be with you. We are just engaged 
and yet instead of paying you compliments, I do not fear to 
speak to you of your imperfections which my love for you 
cannot hide . . . Tell me you will pardon me."

Another time he wrote, "In general, engaged persons strive to 
shine in each other's eyes. We, on the contrary, began by 
showing each other all our faults...You have acknowledged all 
your faults to me; I confessed to you all my weakness . . . 
Thank you for your great confidence in me. But never forget 
that if I permit myself to give you advice which seems good 
to me, I can always be mistaken and you ought to discuss it 
with me. Otherwise I shall never dare to give you my 
opinions."

In a later letter he said to her, "I have already abused the 
liberty you gave me. I have told you frankly all I thought 
about you, nor was I afraid to recognize before you what you 
call your great faults. It was, I must confess, most difficult 
for me to tell you because I love you so much that I dread 
causing you the least pain." He added, "The interior life is 
what we need to correct our failings and we shall work from 
now on, if you wish, to grow in it."

This mutual effort of husband and wife to correct themselves 
of their faults may be much, but it is not enough. Something 
more beautiful remains--to strive positively for sanctity 
through mutual instruction, loving encouragement and a 
united and confiding zeal for each other's perfection.

"Why should we not live a saintly life?" asked Maurice Retour 
of his bride-to-be. And they decided upon some very definite 
principles for themselves.

"Let us put no faith in fortune, in pleasures, even in our self-
love which always increases and makes us run the risk of 
becoming blind.... The one who receives the most grace will 
make the other profit by it. What do we care what the world 
says! It will say what it pleases, but it never will be able to 
say that we are not true Catholics . . . Our life will be holy and 
simple."

"As far as jewels are concerned," commented Maurice, "I 
understand you perfectly. If you had loved them, I should 
never have opposed your tastes, but I tell you frankly, I 
should have suffered. We shall not fail by excesses on this 
score. We can do so much good with money that it would be 
wrong, in spite of my desire to spoil you, to spend it only on 
you. We shall save all we can to enable us to give more to 
charity. We shall always go straight to our goal and make no 
concessions to worldliness."

There is however, nothing admirable in a gloomy life. "Our 
interior life must be so intense that it remains alive in all our 
exterior actions, our pleasures, our work, our joys and our 
sorrows. I do not mean an interior life which makes us 
withdraw into ourselves and become bores for other people. 
On the contrary, we ought to spread our gaiety generously 
about us and spend all the activity of our youth to attract 
those who meet us. But, in order to be saints, we must be able 
to conserve in the midst of the most captivating pleasures 
and the most intense activity an interior calm which enables 
us to remain self-possessed always. . ."

A saint who is sad is sadly in need of sanctity!

A truly inspiring program!


IDEALS FOR MARRIAGE

ON ONE occasion when Maurice Retour was talking with some 
comrades about his ideals of marriage, he saw some of them 
smile sceptically. He who had written, "Love has always been 
sacred to me. In its name I desired to remain faithful to my 
fiancee even before knowing her," was to discover that all his 
companions did not share his noble sentiments, his desire for 
a chaste marriage.

That did not cause him to lower his standards. He simply 
tried to lead his companions to a more Christian 
understanding of married life and if he could not do that, he 
at least showed his displeasure and withdrew from the 
discussion.

Writing to his future wife, he said, "I have heard some 
comments about our future, each one more offensive than the 
other. But I pity these unfortunate individuals who have 
never known how to love truly, who have never experienced 
real intimacy with their wife, and who have sought nothing 
more than appearance or the satisfaction of their caprice. 
They can say what they wish, they can tell me that I am 
young or even a little simple but I shall never change my 
idea. They can never destroy my confidence--first of all, my 
confidence in you because of God who has certainly 
protected me in order to find you . . . secondly, my 
confidence in myself, because I know that I am different from 
certain individuals about me and I am not ashamed to say so 
even if it does sound like pride on my part."

If that is pride, it is permissible pride! Rather is it an 
expression of perfect mastery! It is the magnificent dignity of 
the Christian who knows, of course, that he is weak but who 
refuses to justify in advance his failings and cowardices, and 
who counts not upon himself but upon God for strength to 
persevere.

"Pay no attention to those who tell you I shall change," he 
wrote. "Do not listen to those who say that men who marry 
young will become unfaithful later. No, I do not want anyone 
to believe such a monstrous thing of me."

Who was to give him the strength to resist temptations which 
were always possible?

"The sacrament of our marriage will impart to us the graces 
necessary to keep our good resolutions. How few understand 
this sacrament! How few prepare themselves for it and expect 
to receive from it the graces it can give to those who seek 
them worthily."

Noble and irresistible pleading! It recalls the words of 
Lacordaire, "When a person has not taken the trouble to 
overcome his passions and when the revelation of chaste joys 
has not come to him, he consoles himself with vices, 
declaring them necessary, and clothes in the mantle of 
pseudo-science the testimony of a corrupted heart."

Surely marriage is a sacrament, but it is not a miracle. He who 
has prepared for it only by youthful escapades will possibly 
fail to remain steadfast. But can not he who has prepared 
himself by the chastity of celibacy for the chastity of 
marriage be trusted to preserve with the help of God, a chaste 
marriage?


ONE HEART, ONE SOUL

How happy are married persons who can say as Maurice 
Retour to his wife, "We love each other for our ideas. We see 
only God and we have become united in order to serve Him 
better." Such is Christian love.

"We shall ask Christ, who sanctified marriage, to give us all 
the graces necessary for us. We pray with force but also with 
joy because we have great confidence in the future since both 
of us expect our happiness from God alone."

And after Holy Communion which they both received on their 
wedding day they begged God "to make their mutual love 
always effect their personal sanctification, to bless their 
home by sending them many children, to keep in His grace 
themselves, their little ones and all who would ever live 
under their roof."

Sometimes we hear it said that there are no examples of 
married persons living effectively the holy law of marriage as 
God prescribed it and Christ ratified it.

There are many. More than one might think. And, thanks be to 
God, there have been some in all ages.

In the time of the early Church, Tertullian, believing his 
death to be approaching, wrote two books entitled Ad Uxorem, 
"To My Wife." In the last chapter of the second book he gives 
an unforgettable picture of marriage. One cannot meditate on 
it too often.

He extols the happiness of marriage "which the Church 
approves, the Holy Sacrifice confirms, the Blessing seals, the 
Angels witness, and God ratifies. What an alliance is that of 
two faithful souls united in a single hope, under a single 
discipline, under a similar dependence. Both are servants of 
the same Master. There is no distinction of mind or of body. 
Both are in truth one flesh; where there is but one body, there 
is but one mind. They kneel in prayer together, they teach 
each other, support each other. They are together in church, 
together at the Banquet of God, together in trials, in joy. They 
are incapable of hiding anything from each other, of 
deserting each other, of annoying each other. In complete 
liberty, they visit the sick and help the poor. Without anxiety 
about each other they give alms freely, assist at Holy Mass 
and without any embarrassment manifest their fervor daily. 
They do not know what it means to make a furtive sign of the 
Cross, to mumble trembling greetings, to invoke silent 
blessings. They sing hymns and psalms vying with each other 
to give God the most praise. Christ rejoices to see and hear 
them and gives them His peace. Wherever they are, Christ is 
with them.

"That is marriage as the Apostle speaks of it to us . . . The 
faithful cannot be otherwise in their marriage."

Oh, that we might fulfill this ideal in our marriage

We must pray for it and really want it.


MARRIAGE AND THE BIBLE (1)

I. The Law of Union.

How marvelous is the description of the creation of man and 
woman which the book of Genesis gives us.

God has created the universe. He has hurled worlds into 
space. Among all these worlds is the earth and on it are all 
the splendors of the mineral world, the plant world, and the 
animal world. Each time God sent forth some new creature 
from His creative Hands, He paused and said, "It is good!" God 
saw that it was good.

Yes, all of that creation is but a framework, a pedestal. Whom 
does He intend to place within that framework, upon that 
pedestal?

Man.

Look at Adam. He has intelligence, free will, and a heart.

A heart--the power to love. But to whom will man direct that 
power of love which God has placed in him?

God placed all of creation "beneath his feet." But what does it 
mean for man to have everything beneath his feet if he has 
no one to clasp to his heart? God understood man. That is 
why the Most High is not satisfied upon the completion of His 
masterpiece. He does not say as He did after each preceding 
creation, "It is good," but He says, "It is not good for man to be 
alone."

Therefore, the Most High, the divine Sculptor, chisel in hand 
approaches His masterpiece to attack the marble anew; he 
lays open its side and from the avenues to the heart removes 
a part; this part of Adam, He forms into woman. A 
magnificent indication of how close must be the union 
between husband and wife! A union of wonderful strength, 
engendered by love and for love! Saint Thomas explains that 
"God took the substance with which He formed woman close 
to the heart of man. He did not take it from the head for she 
is not made to dominate. Neither did he take it from man's 
feet, for she is not made for servitude. He took it near the 
heart because she is made to love and to be loved."

Such is the marvel of the union of love in marriage according 
to God. Love will make of two beings a single one.

Adam acclaimed it upon awaking: "This now is bone of my 
bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, 
because she was taken out of man." That is why the sacred 
text adds: "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother 
and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh."

This virginal page does not yet speak of the mother but only 
of the spouse. God gives Man a companion--not several but 
one--and this society is called conjugal society. This society 
will be composed of two persons, a couple, only two. So true 
is this that until this first woman became a mother she had 
no name of her own. There was only one name for both.

How wonderful is the inviolable oneness of the human couple 
according to the desire of God!


MAN BORN OF SLIME

WHAT was God's first aim in instituting marriage? Was it the 
mutual union of the couple? Was it procreation?

We can learn much of God's designs without departing from 
the story of Genesis. God desiring to multiply humankind by 
means of generation (the first aim) created a mutual 
attraction between the sexes which would lead them on to 
love (the second aim). That is how the matter stands from a 
logical point of view. Considered from the psychological 
point of view, the first aim is the union of the two; the child 
comes only as an issue and consecration of the union.

This is no time to develop a thesis. Much more valuable is it 
to draw inspiration for useful reflection upon the plan of God.

Adam was formed from the slime of the earth, Eve from the 
body of Adam. Might not this great difference in origin 
explain, in part at least, the essential difference between the 
masculine temperament and the feminine temperament? Man 
is coarser grained, more vehement in passion, more readily 
excited to physical desires. That is understandable because 
of his role in generation; he is constituted for conquest and, 
with rare exceptions, more readily advances beyond the 
suggestions or demands of delicacy and restraining modesty 
than a woman does. In many ways he evidences that he is 
more earthy than his wife. This is not a condemnation but 
simply a statement of a providential reality. Woman, 
according to Bishop Dupanloup, is more soulful than man. 
That, too, can be understood in the light of her role in 
marriage. Might it not also be explained by the fact that, born 
as she was from a living human being, the beginnings of her 
material being were nobler than Adam?

In any case, one thing is certain--God wanted Adam and Eve 
to be different from each other. It is a mistake for man to 
become effeminate, for woman to play the man. They are not 
made to resemble each other but to complement each other.

Let man keep the department of masculine forcefulness and 
let woman keep the department of necessary refinements.

Woman has probably failed at times in fidelity to her 
essential feminine vocation. Her game of imitating man 
whether attempted through perversity or thoughtlessness 
goes contrary to the plan of the Most High. God does well 
what He does. If He created Eve after Adam, it was not that He 
might have upon the earth only Adam and Adam.

Man too does not want to see just himself again in woman. 
Just because he has enough of being himself only, he desires 
something else. If woman presents nothing but an extension 
of masculinity, he has nothing but that to go on. He becomes 
completely himself only when a woman who is truly a woman 
comes to join him according to the plan willed by Providence.

Let women take on men's work, if need be, during difficult 
times which call men to arms; they but do their duty and we 
extol them for it. Aside from such an emergency, let them 
keep to their own field, the exercise of womanly functions, 
and leave to men the functions of man.


SOME FEMININE TRAITS

THE Bible clearly reveals the role designed for woman by 
Providence. Formed from a living person rather than from 
slime, her lead in the home is to be spiritual; drawn from 
close proximity to man's heart she is to rule by loving 
devotedness. Created as man's complement, she is not to 
become his rival but his helpmate.

It is worthy of note also that the first woman was imposed on 
Adam. The first man did not have a choice among several 
women. Eve formed by God from Adam's own being was given 
to Adam by God.

Ever after, aside from the periods in history when woman was 
nothing more than a slave or when she was given in marriage 
without her consent, she would be chosen by man in order to 
enter into marriage. As a consequence, woman has a double 
characteristic--an innate genius for adornment and, in regard 
to other women, a jealousy that can be inflamed by a mere 
nothing.

She has a genius for adornment. She must please. And that is 
right. No one need reproach her for striving to do so. "The 
pheasants are preening their feathers," Saint Francis de Sales 
humorously commented in answer to Saint Jane Frances de 
Chantal's letter expressing worry over her daughters' newly 
evidenced concern about their dress. It is excess that is 
blameworthy.

Charles Diehl, in the first volume of "Figures Byzantines" tells 
us that political reasons did not always direct the marriages 
contracted by the emperor of Byzantium. When the Empress 
Irene wanted to marry off her son Constantine, she sent 
messengers everywhere to find the most beautiful girl in the 
empire; she herself set the requirements as to age, height, 
and personal appearance of the candidates.

A fig for nobility! The basilissa needed only to be beautiful. 
That alone qualified her to be considered sovereign; the 
marriage would follow. It was not therefore as wife of the 
emperor that she received power but rather as a sort of 
choice by God indicated by her beauty. . .

How many women at that time must have hoped to become 
empress.

And how many women since the Byzantine era as well as 
before have counted on their "beauty" to come into power and 
acquire a husband. Provided that she stays within her bounds 
when capitalizing on her real or supposed beauty, woman 
does not depart from her role.

She does however depart from it when concern for her looks 
becomes her sole interest or when she gives herself up to 
jealousy of actual or possible rivals.

Her aim should be to keep within the plan of Providence and 
never go beyond it.


MARRIAGE AND THE BIBLE (2)

II. The Law of Procreation.

God did not create love and marriage only for the mutual 
pleasure of husband and wife. The purpose of their union 
goes beyond union. From the married couple's intimate union 
a third person will issue, and if the marriage is fruitful a 
series of thirds, a progeny which will be the glory of the 
parents.

Increase and Multiply. God could have multiplied the living 
without using his creatures as instruments. Adam and Eve 
were directly created. God needed no one. So true is this, that 
in the creation of the soul the Most High uses no 
intermediary. He reserves to Himself the power to infuse the 
soul into the child whose body the parents cooperate in 
producing.

As far as the body is concerned God permits and even desires 
that there should be an intermediary cause, and that 
constitutes a great marvel. God imparts to His creatures a 
share in His creative power. The parents are united in the 
physical expression of their conjugal love and from this 
bodily union, provided nothing bars the way, life will be 
born. For the soul there is to be no human agent. For the body 
a human agent shall exist. It is through the instrumentality of 
the parents that the body of the child will be born. But God 
reserves to Himself the power to put the soul into that body 
by a direct act of creation.

That is the basis for the sovereign beauty of fatherhood and 
motherhood . . . At the birth of her first born son, Eve, 
transported with joy, exclaimed, "I have gotten a man through 
God."

There is a double law in marriage--the law of chastity and the 
law of fecundity. The law of chastity permits the husband 
and wife to regulate according to their desire the frequency 
of intercourse. Should they by mutual consent decide to live 
for a time as brother and sister, say during Lent or Advent, or 
at some other times in their life together, for any just and 
noble reasons, they may do so provided they run no risk of 
sin.

The principal application of the law of chastity for the 
married is this: If they decide either by explicit or implicit 
agreement to perform the marriage act, they may do nothing 
to prevent conception.

Let them petition God for the desired grace to practice the 
restraints and continence they recognize as helpful or if it is 
not advisable for them to abstain from physical union, the 
grace to do nothing counter to duty.


CONJUGAL DUTY

THE demands of married life emanate above all from the 
Natural Law; in other words, right reason left to itself would 
reveal them to conscience. Even if Christ had never come, if 
Revelation had never been given, these requirements would 
be what they are. The Church, keeping to the doctrine of 
Christ merely upholds them with her supreme authority; she 
does not institute them. She reaffirms the law, explains its 
application, clarifies the ideal every time someone attempts 
to obscure it.

To that end we have various encyclicals of the popes as 
Maximum illud by Leo XIII and Casti Connubii by Pius XI and 
also pastoral letters issued periodically by bishops as the 
need arises.

One of the most complete of such letters on conjugal duty is 
the one written by Cardinal Mercier. Reminding the people of 
his diocese of the true doctrine on marriage, he explains the 
Christian concept of the conjugal life:

"The original and primary reason for the union of man and 
woman is the foundation of a family, the beginning of 
children whom they will have the honor and the obligation to 
rear in the Faith and in Christian principles.

"It appears, therefore, that the first effect of marriage is a 
duty which the married may not avoid . . .

"How far from truth are those who present marriage as a 
union whose sole purpose is physical love.

"The attraction to conjugal intercourse is legitimate, beyond a 
doubt. But such satisfaction of the sexual appetite is 
justifiable only in the function for which it was destined and 
which it was meant to ensure.

"How grave then is the sin of those who circumvent the divine 
law in this matter. A mortal sin is committed every time that 
the conception of a child is prevented by a deliberate 
positive act."

Deliberately, before, during or after intercourse to take 
precautions destined to prevent conception constitutes a 
formal and seriously unlawful act.

The insidious propaganda on birth control that is being 
spread about through pamphlets, lectures, and 
advertisements is nothing but an effort to make an attack on 
life a lawful act. Cardinal Mercier condemns doctors, 
pharmacists, or mid-wives who betray their social mission.

It is forbidden to attack life, even in the generative act itself, 
that is to say, at the very point of origin. And those who dare 
to kill the living one being formed in the womb of its mother, 
are punished by the Church with censure reserved to the 
bishop. That means that the priest who absolves them must 
obtain from the bishop special authorization to do so, 
although he need not mention their names.

How the thought of all the souls sacrificed through marriage 
frauds ought to incite me to pray for holiness of family life 
and general observance of conjugal duty. War is not the 
scourge which kills the most people. It is lust.


MOTHERHOOD

THE writer who said, "Man conquers and woman gives 
herself," was correct. Such indeed is the difference between 
man and woman in their attitude to life. His is an active 
heroism; hers a passive heroism. For the grown man, life is 
but a series of conquests; he goes from one victory to the 
other, carried along by the zest of it until he fails. Woman 
makes a gift of herself to life; she spends herself to the point 
of exhaustion for her husband, for her children, for those who 
suffer, for the unfortunate. But this gift of hers in its fullest 
significance is childbirth, a supreme act of passive heroism. 
Giving birth to a child is not a purely physical achievement. A 
mind, a soul come to life and uniting with the foetus form, 
without the mother's awareness, a man--a miracle indeed.

What is the most wonderful is the blossoming and growth of 
maternal love in the woman from the very moment of her 
child's conception, through its birth, and throughout its 
whole life, but particularly during its baby days.

In a certain sense, every woman from her earliest years has 
the makings of a mother in her. As a little girl she plays with 
her doll, and the game holds her interest only because her 
imagination transforms the rag doll or china doll she clasps 
in her already expert arms into a living child. So true is this, 
that even virginal souls who consecrate themselves to the 
service of the neighbor may be called mother; that they really 
are for their poor, their orphans, their sick . . .

But it is quite evident that at the time of actual maternity, of 
physical maternity, a special creation is effected in the 
woman. At the same time that milk mounts to her breast, 
maternal love takes possession of her soul, a love of a very 
special quality which does not precede but which follows 
childbirth. Before the child appears, there can be expectation, 
yearning, vague tenderness like the dawn preceding day; it is 
not yet maternal love in the strongest and strictest sense of 
the word.

The child is born. The woman, even though she had been 
extremely lazy, manifests an astonishing energy for all that 
concerns her baby. Though she had been previously most 
shiftless now she becomes ingenious, attentive, watchful and 
almost anxious. No one need tell her that her tiny babe can 
do nothing for itself and that it is exposed to danger of death 
at almost every instant. She anticipates its needs, its desires 
and a frown appears at the least cloud that passes over the 
cradle. No trouble daunts her. As a young girl and young 
woman she grumbled over sacrifice and became irritable; 
now she is eager in sacrifice--hours of watching, getting up at 
night; if not able to nurse the child, she makes minute 
preparation of formulas, and even later, pays careful 
attention to the kinds of food the baby may have. It all seems 
to come to her naturally; it seems to be second-nature. But 
even if she has acquired her knowledge through training and 
study in special courses which she may have taken with no 
particular relish, now she carries it out with special zest and 
warmth of feeling.

If her baby is well formed, beautiful, healthy and lively, she 
rejoices. But if, unfortunately, it is deformed, weak, listless, 
her love increases. It is as if she wishes to shower him with 
love to make up to the little one for all he lacks as if by 
clasping it more tenderly to herself she can supplement its 
life.

Should her child later become a prodigal, she will have for 
him an astonishing partiality; if she believes him to be a 
hero, it is her prejudice in his favor! Marvelous contradiction 
in which maternal love reveals itself!

How eagerly she desires the father's love for the child. Then 
again she is afraid that the father will not be sufficiently firm 
and will give in to him too easily. Now the warmest caresses, 
now the height of disinterestedness born of maternal love!


IS BIRTH CONTROL PERMISSIBLE?

To LIMIT procreation by the practice of contraceptive devices 
without foregoing sexual union is forbidden. No one has the 
right to suppress life. To do away with a living adult is 
homicide; to do away with the living child in the course of its 
development within the womb of its mother is the crime of 
abortion; to destroy the seed of life, in the very generative act 
itself so as to prevent possible conception is Onanism, so 
called after Onan in the Old Testament who indulged in this 
practice.

No one has the right to place any act which by its nature is 
productive of life, and on his own authority, frustrate the 
effects of that act which is the generation of a life. Nature 
must be allowed to take its course. However, if for some 
reason decreed by Providence, conception does not take 
place, that is God's act. The individual has not on his own 
decision killed or sought to kill human life.

It has already been said that to limit procreation by 
abstaining from intercourse is within the right of the husband 
and wife.

There is however another method of birth control which has 
been much discussed and about which it is essential to have 
clear ideas. May the married couple profit by the wife's cycles 
of infertility, as suggested by the Rhythm theory, limiting 
their sexual union to such periods as seem less likely to 
result in conception? The answer to that question ought to be 
qualified.

To adopt this practice temporarily in order to space births 
somewhat without having to deprive themselves of each other 
is certainly different from making the practice habitual in 
order definitely to avoid having any children or to avoid it at 
least for a long time.

Certainly graver reasons are needed to justify the second 
instance than to justify the first. Are the reasons for it purely 
selfish? Then the married partners are at fault. They do not 
by their conduct violate the law of chastity in marriage, that 
is true, but they do violate the law of charity, or to put it 
more graphically, the law of fruitfulness.

The plan of God for married persons in this matter of 
fecundity is not that they have the largest number of children 
possible. Rather it is that they should have the largest 
number that they are capable of rearing well considering the 
position in which Providence has placed them or in other 
words taking into account the health, the economic status of 
the family, and other such considerations. It is a problem of 
honesty.

It is up to each individual to face himself squarely on this 
problem, if it is his, and examine himself sincerely on the 
complete honesty of his manner of acting. Then such a one 
will be ready to meditate often upon the reasons that argue 
for peopling the cradles.


WHY HAVE A LARGE FAMILY

WE HAVE seen that the practice of Rhythm, above all if it is 
only temporary, is legitimate and reasonable. But, even in 
that case, particularly when it concerns those just starting 
out on their marital life, it is advisable to call attention to 
some vital considerations to be taken into account:

--The harm it can do by separating the idea of sexual pleasure 
from the idea of fatherhood and motherhood.

--The harm it can do by overemphasizing the carnal side of 
life together at the expense of the tender and spiritual aspect.

--The harm it can do by causing inordinate abandonment to 
the senses during the infertile periods.

Rather than seeking out the means--even legitimate means--of 
limiting the offspring, what is really important for the 
married couple is to discover the reasons for having many 
children.

There are reasons of charity:

1. Toward children who depend upon the parents to be called 
or not called to life--to eternity.

2. Toward Christian society to which they should seek to give 
as many baptized souls as possible and, if God permits, 
priests and religious for a world that needs them so much.

3. Toward their country for whom they may rear citizens who 
will bring her life and prosperity.

How beautiful are such reasons!

Consider these young chosen ones in perspective. It depends 
on me--on us--with just a little generosity on our part, to dare 
to bring them forth from nothingness, to call them into being, 
to life.

That will mean greater glory for God; it will mean for them an 
eternity of happiness. It is up to me--to us--to open for them 
the book of life, the Book of Life; for a life in its fuller sense is 
not merely a period of time, it is part of a life which will 
never end. In bringing forth children, parents are fashioning 
citizens of eternity.

It is not enough to consider the Church triumphant and how 
to help the greatest possible number to enter into it; we can 
and we ought to consider the Church militant. Are the number 
of baptized souls bent on living their baptism sufficient in 
number? Where can they better increase, develop and aid in 
the Christian renewal, that is, the baptismal renewal of the 
world than in Christian families? Are there enough priests? . . 
. War has mowed down a great number of them. Even before 
the war there were not enough for the work to be done. Now, 
the need is tragic. Bishops can only ordain . . . The priesthood 
depends mainly on marital holiness. If parents do their duty, 
if they are generous, there will be priests; otherwise, the 
Church will weaken.

As for our country, its beauty is proportionate to its men, to 
its men of valor. The recent wars showed the tragedy of a lack 
of manpower. These are of course temporal reasons, but 
spiritual interests are closely linked with them.

Reflect on all this . . . Let life live!


THE BELL OF LIFE

IN 1935 there was a project on foot to install a bell of life and 
a dial of death in the heart of the city of Berlin. The plan may 
have fallen through. A large bell was to boom out every five 
minutes; in the interval a smaller bell was to ring nine times 
announcing to the neighborhood that nine children were 
being born in Germany during that time. Then an hour glass 
was to indicate to the passersby that in the space of five 
minutes, seven Germans had gone to their graves.

Whether realized or not, the project was worthwhile. To 
announce the increase of life is helpful; to call to mind the 
work of death more helpful still, but not the least important 
is to point out the triumph of life over death.

Today's meditation is to dwell on this last thought. It is not so 
important now to contemplate the end of life and the 
responsibility to be faced at that dread moment as to 
welcome the new cradles of life and to determine whether I 
am increasing for my country as I should the chiming of the 
life-bell.

In November 1939, a leader of a heavy artillery division at 
the Maginot line wrote in a letter: "I have eighteen men in my 
sector. They are between thirty and thirty-five years old; all 
except a few are married; all of them together have only eight 
children!"

If, as good Political Economy points out the average number 
of children per family for a country which does not want to 
die out is three--two to replace the father and mother and a 
third destined to fill the void caused by infant mortality--then 
those eighteen men should have had at least fifty-four 
children among them. They had eight. The deficit then: Forty-
six.

There is of course no moral law that requires the married to 
have three children. The example given here is simply a 
social or national aspect of the problem. It has already been 
pointed out that the moral law is determined not by the 
country to which one belongs--although there might be a duty 
to give it a thought--but by the law of chastity in marriage on 
the one hand and the law of fecundity on the other.

It might be well here to come back to these points. The law of 
fecundity expects the parents to have as many children as 
they are capable of rearing in a human and Christian manner. 
As for birth control, the law of chastity sets the rule: nothing 
may be done artificially to frustrate conception.

But to return to the social viewpoint--my country's future, 
society's need: Of what good is it to cry out Long live my 
country! if my only contribution is to her death?

More cradles than tombs! That should be our motto. How 
great is the disaster when the contrary is true! Does not such 
an argument which possibly has no force with weaklings or 
those too wrapped up in themselves bear weight with me? It 
is not the most decisive argument to encourage large 
families, but it is not a negligible argument.

Patriotic duty does not belong to morality in war time only. It 
exists and binds conscience in peace as well. In another way 
perhaps but just as imperatively.

Do I love my country? Do I love her enough to be willing to 
give her children? Certainly not primarily for the time of war, 
but for peace-time equally. The more valiant hearts and arms 
there are, the more prosperous is the country. The true wealth 
of a people is their wealth in men.


THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF HAVING CHILDREN?

WE HAVE seen clearly that it is a "serious matter" to prevent 
conception by any voluntary positive act and if full 
knowledge and complete consent of the will are present it 
constitutes a mortal sin. If the marital act is performed, then 
God may not in any way--by the opposition of the parents--be 
hindered from creating a soul.

--But we cannot, considering our burdens, increase the 
number of our children!

--That may be, responds the Moral Law; such a case is far 
from being imaginary. But you do not enter upon marriage 
only for enjoyment. In the plan of Divine Providence, 
pleasure is the accomplishment or the result of duty fulfilled. 
To separate the pleasure from the duty, to seek the first while 
evading the second is to go counter to the divine plan. Sexual 
pleasure presupposes the normal exercise of the generative 
function, the acceptance of the resultant burdens for which it 
is, as Cardinal Mercier expresses it, "the providential 
payment."

--But when you consider the intimacy of life together, how 
can we refrain for any length of time at all without giving 
ourselves to each other?

--There is every reason to believe that, without prayer and 
recourse to the sacraments, you are right. But what is your 
supernatural program? What are you doing to rise above the 
senses, to moderate the flesh?

--Can't we choose those times when fertility is least probable?

--Yes, if you have a sufficient reason, as you seem to have. 
And the necessity of having to practice prudent and 
courageous continence several days each month will in itself 
force you to a certain and meritorious generosity.

--Even that is not possible for us; for then we would have to 
renounce marital intimacies.

--Of course. But nowhere has it been said that marriage is a 
state where one can allow himself every liberty suggested by 
his caprice without exercising any judgment.

That is said nowhere; at least, not in any sane and honest 
books on morality. Married persons are too quick to think 
that, because they have not chosen "the state of perfection" 
in absolute virginity, the great virtues are not for them.

Even in granting themselves what they may legitimately 
permit themselves, the husband and wife have a large field 
for detachment. They ought to be willing to profit by the 
opportunity and not reject it on the plea of moral or 
physiological impossibility when it is really because of their 
lack of stamina, of Christian spirit, and the will to self-
control.

How will such married persons aenemic in their spiritual life 
and accustomed to denying themselves nothing, even when 
the cost is not too great, deny themselves when a serious law 
binds them?

One must learn to will in order to know how to will. And if one 
falls he must not excuse but accuse himself.

You are the Judge of my past, O my God. I offer You all its 
efforts and its weaknesses. Give me the grace to be generous 
in the future.


THE ONLY CHILD

THERE is, as we have seen, a double duty involved in the 
marital bond:

--The duty of chastity: In no way to attack the law of life.

--The duty of charity or fruitfulness: To do one's best for the 
production of life.

It is impossible--and that is self-evident--to set a definite 
figure as the gauge of duty in procreation. A very competent 
authority on this subject, Father P. Boisgelat, S. J., has this to 
say:

"Who keeps below his minimum possibilities fails in the duty 
of his state of life and sins through selfishness. Who strives 
for his possibilities and realizes them does his duty. Who 
exceeds the maximum of his possibilities sins by imprudence 
and intemperance."

As for this level of possibility about which he speaks, it must 
be determined by each one's conscience without selfishness 
and without imprudence.

"One must on his part confide in God, abandoning to Divine 
Providence the possibility of unforeseen misfortunes, such as 
the unexpected and early death of the father, a possible lower 
economic status in the future, war. . . 

"Duty obliges us to foresee only what is foreseeable and 
likely; all the rest must be confided to God."

There are couples who eagerly desire one child but not 
several children. They want the one either to have a tangible 
proof that they have made a fruitful marriage or to create a 
precious and living bond between them. They desire only the 
one because they do not want to be encumbered; they do not 
want to limit the regular tenor of their lives, the quality and 
variety of their wardrobe, and they are afraid to run the risk 
to their health that every new birth might bring; they dread 
the crying and the inconvenience caused by very little 
children. These reasons and others just as selfish are worth 
nothing. Serious reasons are necessary to dispense from 
serious duty.

The idea of limiting the family in order to give to the one (or 
to the very small number) resources which will eliminate the 
necessity of working or assure the whole benefit of the entire 
fortune is not in itself selfish on the part of the parents. It is 
extremely harmful however. We are not born to avoid work 
here below. Each one is obliged to contribute his maximum 
effort to the welfare of society. We are not here to reign, but 
to wrestle.

Parents do not manifest much esteem for the fruit of their 
blood if they do not deem it capable of gaining, by its own 
power, a place in life whenever it so desires.

Then, too, is there not always the danger that the only child 
will receive too soft a training, that he will be spoilt and be of 
an inferior character?

Should this only child die young, what anguish for the father 
and mother! They themselves become the very first victims 
of their damnable birth control.


CHRIST AND MARRIAGE

OUR LORD did not come to destroy but to fulfill the law. 
Marriage was to remain exactly what it was in the Natural Law: 
the exchange of two wills for the purpose of procreation. Our 
Savior who knew very well the difficulties of the marital state 
made a sacrament of this mutual exchange of wills, a rite that 
imparts grace. Each of the two in becoming united to the 
other will enrich that other one with an increase of 
sanctifying grace. Both should be in the state of grace before 
the marriage takes place since it is a sacrament of the living, 
which means that its purpose is to intensify the divine life 
already existing in the soul. By their gift of themselves to 
each other they also obtain for each other a gift of new 
growth in the divine.

Because marriage is fundamentally a contract--a double yes 
giving to each of the two complete right to the other--it has 
this special feature that there is no other minister than the 
two concerned. Sometimes people say, "That's Father So and 
So; he married us." The expression is incorrect. It is not the 
priest who marries the bride and groom; they marry 
themselves. They themselves are the ministers of the 
sacrament which they receive at the same time. The priest is 
there only in the capacity of a witness representing the 
Church; as the witness required for the validity of the 
marriage; but a witness only.

What eminent dignity therefore has the sacrament of 
Matrimony! What eminent dignity have the bride and groom! 
They are for each other transmitters of the divine.

The bonds which they contract bear upon two points: the 
oneness of the couple, the indissolubility of their bonds. Our 
Lord, who made of marriage a grace-giving rite, also stressed 
the double obligation of unity and indissolubility.

Oneness: They form a single unit. They shall be two in one 
flesh, says Genesis. But due to human grossness, forms of 
polygamy were introduced. Our Savior forbade them, and the 
Church has always taken care to require the observance of 
the law. Love itself demands it. Marriage is such an intimate 
reality. To live it with several individuals at the same time is 
condemned by natural feeling itself. Divine law merely 
reaffirms this basic requirement. Furthermore, family 
stability as well as the happiness of the children militate 
equally in favor of oneness.

Indissolubility: Marriage creates a oneness forever; a oneness 
that can be dissolved only by the death of either partner. The 
encyclical of Pius XI, "Casti-Connubii" reminds the world of 
this:

"For each individual marriage, inasmuch as it is a conjugal 
union of a particular man and woman, arises only from the 
free consent of each of the spouses; and this free act of the 
will, by which each party hands over and accepts those rights 
proper to the state of marriage is so necessary to constitute 
true marriage that it cannot be supplied by any human power.

"This freedom, however, regards only the point whether the 
contracting parties really wish to enter upon matrimony or to 
marry this particular person; but the nature of matrimony is 
entirely independent of the free will of man, so that if one 
has once contracted matrimony he is thereby subject to its 
Divinely made laws and its essential properties."


MARRIAGE AND BAPTISM

CHRIST came to restore to us the divine life lost by original 
sin. He instituted baptism as the practical means of entering 
upon the supernatural. The baptized person is not only a soul 
and a body, but a soul in which God lives.

According to one of the Fathers of the Church baptism is a 
marriage between God and the soul; he goes so far as to call 
the soul Spirita Sancta the feminine form for the Holy Spirit 
(Spiritus Sanctus). Without this marriage of God and the soul, 
the individual can have no spiritual fecundity. It is 
impossible: The most noble human act performed by one in 
mortal sin has no value at all for heaven.

What then is the marriage of two beings of flesh and bone?

It is the image on an earthly plane of a union which is more 
beautiful although invisible--the union of God and the soul.

Baptism, marriage--two sacraments of union--and the second 
will always be but a symbol of the first. Union of God with the 
soul, union of husband and wife. Two sacraments of union; 
two sacraments of fecundity. Without God, the soul can do 
nothing fruitful for heaven; without each other, husband and 
wife cannot beget children. And just as Saint Paul could call 
all sin adultery since it is deliberate divorce from God, so 
every break in the marriage bond is blameworthy and true 
adultery.

Both baptism and marriage then are sacraments of inviolable 
union. A rupture of the union whether a divorce from God or 
a divorce from one's partner in marriage can in either case be 
called adultery.

What better guarantee have the wedded couple of their 
reciprocal fidelity than their common life in the state of 
grace! Each of the two refusing to be divorced from God is 
thus more sure of the other. United as they are by the same 
promise, by conjugal embraces, they are likewise united with 
each other by the same Holy Spirit who forms the Bond 
between them. Any husband or wife who denies this is 
already committing an offence against the integrity of the 
gift of self. Each of the two must live the truth of Tertullian's 
definition of a soul in grace. "What is a Christian?" he asked. 
"A Christian is a soul in a body and God in that soul." To give 
to one's partner in marriage only the first two elements and 
refuse the third is not to give all, not to give the best. Truly it 
is a plunder, a plunder which injures husband and wife. Is it 
possible not to realize this? It remains profoundly true just 
the same: Indeed, it is a double betrayal. For who can say that 
one who has been coward enough to betray God will not be 
just as likely to betray the partner of his life?

So true is this, that only fidelity to God can give 
completeness to marriage.


RESPECT IN LOVE

COMPLETE fidelity in marriage is essential. It is however only 
a minimum. To treat each other as living tabernacles of God--
that is what marriage between two baptized persons 
demands.

Know you that the sacrament of Christian initiation 
transforms a person into a living temple of the Most High?

You know.

Well then, behind this more or less attractive human 
silhouette which is the person of the marriage partner, body 
and soul, there is God dwelling within and living His Divine 
life in the depths of the soul. Consequently when poor health 
or advancing age cause husband or wife to grow less 
attractive exteriorly, that is not a reason for love to wane.

How many know that when husband and wife in the state of 
grace embrace each other by conjugal privilege, they clasp 
the Holy Trinity, who unites them even more closely than 
their human embrace? Far from coming between them, what 
supernatural intimacy and what magnificent dignity does it 
give to their union! How it elevates, and idealizes what in 
itself is good though still carnal and therefore capable of 
easily becoming earthy and, for some, difficult to consider as 
something noble.

It is rare to find Christians who truly have faith at least faith 
in the fundamental mystery of the life of the baptized. Father 
Charles de Foucauld wrote to his married sister who was the 
mother of a family:

"God is in us, in the depths of our soul . . . always, always, 
always there, listening to us and asking us to chat a bit with 
Him. And that is, as much as my weakness will permit, my 
very life, my darling. Try, that more and more it may become 
yours; that will not isolate you, nor draw you away from your 
other occupations. It only requires a minute; then, ins