CHRIST IN THE HOME
http://www.ewtn.com/library/FAMILY/CHRISTH1.TXT
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
MARRIAGE
MARRIAGE AND SACRIFICE
IT IS not only the highest Catholic doctrinewhich requires the spirit
of sacrifice of the married couple but more immediate common experience.
To live mutually in the closest proximity, in constant forgetfulness
of self so that each of the two thinks only of the other requires
something more than mere human attraction.
"Do not believe those who tell you that the road of love offers only
the softest moss for your feet to tread. There are some sharp pebbles
on the trail blazed by Adam and Eve."
The married woman who wrote those lines in verse, said the same thing
in prose, a prose strangely poetic:
"To enter into marriage with the idea that someday they will be rid
of self is like putting a moth into a piece of wool. Whatever may be
the embroidery, the gold threads, the rich colors, the piece of wool
is destined to be eaten, chewed with holes and finally completely
devoured. It would be necessary for two saints to marry to be sure
that no bitter word would ever be exchanged between them; even then
it is not predictable what misunderstandings might crop up. Did not
Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas have to separate because they had too
many altercations? Then, can these two unfortunate children of Adam
and Eve destined to struggle in life with all that life brings in our
days of recurring difficulties expect never to have any temptations
to wound each other and never to succumb to such provocations?"
If marriage is difficult even when the husband is a saint and the
wife is a saint, how can we estimate the sacrifices it will require
when the couple are to put it briefly but "poor good Christians."
Here however we are discussing the case of two who are sustained by
dogma, morals, and the sacraments. But suppose one of the couple is a
sort of pagan, or if baptized, so far removed from his baptism that
nothing recalls any longer the mark of the children of God. What a
secret cause for suffering!
Such was the suffering of Elizabeth Leseur who was happy in her
married life in the sense that her husband was completely loyal to
her but unhappy in her home because on the fundamental point for
union, there was disunion, a separated life, the wife being Christian
to the degree of astonishing intimacy with God and the husband
remaining perfectly satisfied with the superficial life of so-called society.
Even when souls live in closest harmony, there will always be, even
in the best of homes, a hidden cause for mutual suffering, which one
author calls, "the eternal tragedy of the family, due to the fact
that man and woman represent two distinct worlds whose limits never
overlap." For woman love is everything. For man it is but a part of
life. The woman's whole life rotates about the interior of the home,
unless necessity forces her to work to earn a livelihood. The husband
lives whole days much more outside the home than in it; he has his
business, his office, his store, his shop, his factory. Except for
the early days of his married life, he is absorbed more by ambition
than by love; in any case, his heart alone is not busy throughout his
days, but also and frequently more often, his head.
Sometimes the wife suffers from not having her husband sufficiently
to herself; the husband suffers because he appears not to be devoting
himself sufficiently to his wife. Over and above other causes of
tragedy, here is the eternal and hidden drama. Much virtue is needed
by both to accept the suffering they unwittingly cause each other.
A MYSTIC MORAL BOND
ASIDE from the helps of Faith, two things especially can aid the
married couple to practice mutual forbearance and to accept the
sacrifices inherent in life together.
The first is the fact of their mutual share in the birth of their progeny.
Saint Augustine speaks beautifully of the two little arms of a child
which draw the father and mother more closely together within the
circle of their embrace as if to symbolize the living bond of union
the child really is between them.
Even when one's choice of a marriage partner has been perfect, when
ardent tenderness is evinced on both sides, there can still develop a
period of tenseness and strained relations. Who can best reconcile
the two souls momentarily at odds, upset for a time, or somewhat estranged?
The child.
Someone has said it well: "Life is long, an individual changes in the
course of ten, fifteen, twenty years shared with another. If the
couple that has a had a fall out, has known love in its fullness. I
mean by that the love of hearts and souls above all..., if the two
have the noble and deep memories which constitute our true
nourishment during our voyage on earth, if they are above all bound
together by the children that their love has brought into the world,
then there is a good chance that even though they are caught by the
undertow of passion, they will emerge safe and sound."
In addition to having children . . . that bond of love between the
father and mother even in the greatest stress and strain . . . what
most contributes to a speedy reconciliation after the clashes that
eventually arise or the misunderstandings which set them at odds is
the thought that they must endure, they must remain together.
What is to be thought of the following practice which is becoming
quite customary? In the preparation of the trousseau, only the
bride's initial is engraved on the silverware or embroidered on the
linen. Does it not seem to be a provision for the possibility of a
future separation?
By the constant repetition of the idea that man is fickle and that
"her husband is the only man a woman can never get used to," the
novel, the theater, the movies, set the stamp of approval on the
"doctrine" of the broken marriage bond as something normal, something
to be expected.
"On the contrary," says Henriette Charasson, who is a married woman
and an author quoted before, "if husbands and wives realized that
they were united for life, if they knew that nothing could permit
them to establish another family elsewhere, how vigilant they would
be not to let their precious and singular love be weakened; how they
would seek, throughout their daily ups and downs, to keep vibrant,
burning, and radiant, the love which binds them not only by the bond
of their flesh but by the bond of their soul."
We must thank God if He has blessed our home by giving us many
precious children; thank Him also for the Christian conviction which
we received formerly in our homes, convictions which will never
permit us to consider the possibility of the least fissure in our own
family now.
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Lord, may everything we do begin with Your inspiration and continue
with Your help,
so that all our prayers and works may begin in You and by You be happily ended.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
<*}}}>< <http://halfthekingdom.mofuse.mobi/>Half the Kingdom!
on your Mobile <*}}}><
<*}}}>< <http://www.halfthekingdom.org/wordpress/>Half the Kingdom!
Blog <*}}}><
<*}}}>< <http://www.halfthekingdom.org/>Half the Kingdom! Main Site
<*}}}>< <*}}}>< <http://www.halfthekingdom.org/by-the-by/>Half the
Kingdom! By the by <*}}}><
Lord, may everything we do begin with Your inspiration and continue
with Your help,
so that all our prayers and works may begin in You and by You be happily ended.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
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