Marriage
Advice from a Saint
- St. Francis de Sales
"Marriage is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church." It is "honorable to all" persons, in all persons, and in all things, that is, in all its parts. Its is honorable to all persons because even virgins must honor it with humility, in all persons because it is equally holy in the rich and in the poor, in all things because its origin, purpose, advantages, forms, and matter are holy. It is the nursery of Christianity, which supplies the earth with faithful souls to fill up the number of the elect in heaven. Hence the preservation of holy marriage is of the highest importance for the state since it is the origin and source of all that flows from the state.
Would to God that his well-beloved Son were invited to every marriage, as he was to the marriage at Cana, for then the wine of his consolation and blessing would never be lacking to it. The supreme reason why there is little of that wine at the beginning of married life is because Adonis is invited instead of our Lord and Venus instead of our Lady. The man who would have fair, mottled lambs, like Jacob's, must like him place fair rods of various colors before the ship when they meet to couple. The man who wishes to have a happy married life must reflect on his wedding day on the sanctity and dignity of this sacrament. Instead of his there are countless unseemly things done in play, feasting, and speech. It is not surprising that its effects are so disordered.
Above all else I exhort married people to have that mutual love which the Holy Spirit in Scripture so highly recommends to them. O you who are married, it means nothing to say, "Love one another with natural love"- two turtle doves make such love. Nor does it mean anything to say, "Love one another with a human love"- the pagans have duly practiced such love. With the great apostle I say to you, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church," and you wives, love your husbands as the Church loves her Saviour. God brought Eve to Adam, our first father, and gave her to him in marriage. It was God too, my friends, who with an unseen hand tied your holy marriage bond and gave you to one another. Why then do you not cherish each other with a completely sacred, and completely divine love?
The first effect of his love
is an indissoluble union of your hearts. If the adhesive is good, two
pieces of fir wood glued together will stick so fast to one another that
it is easier to break them in any other place than where they have been
joined together. God joins husband to wife with his own Blood and for
this reason the union is so strong that the soul must sooner break away
from the body of one of them than the husband from the wife. This union
must be understood principally not of the body but of the heart, affections,
and love.
The second effect of this love must be the inviolable fidelity of each
party to the other. In ancient times seals were engraved on finger rings,
as Scripture testifies. Consider the inner meaning of this ceremony in
marriage. By the priest's hand the Church blesses a ring. By giving it
first to the man the Church testifies that in this sacrament she puts
a seal and sign on his heart so that henceforward neither the name nor
the love of any other woman may enter his heart as long as she who has
been given to him is alive. Afterward, the bridegroom puts the ring on
the bride's hand so that on her part she will understand that her heart
must never admit affection for any other man as long as he whom our Lord
here gives to her shall live on earth.
The third fruit of marriage is the birth and lawful rearing of children.
It is a great honor to you who are married that in God's design to multiply
souls who can bless and praise him for all eternity he empowers you to
co-operate with him in so noble a work. This is done by your production
of the bodies into which he infuses souls like drops of heaven. Thus God
infuses souls by creating them just as he creates them by infusing them.
Husbands, preserve a tender, constant, heartfelt love for your wives. The woman was taken from the first man on the side nearest his heart so that she might be heartily and tenderly loved by him. Your wives' frailty and infirmity, whether of body or of mind, should never make you disdainful of them. God has created them such as they are. Hence since they are dependent on you, you will receive greater honour and respect and you will be companions to them while still remaining their heads and superiors. Wives, love the husbands God has given you with a love that is tender and heartfelt and yet filled with respect and reverence. God has created man as the more vigorous and dominant sex. He has willed that woman should depend on man, since she is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and that she should be made of a rib taken from beneath his arm to show that she must be under her husband's hand and guidance. All holy Scripture explicitly enjoins such submission, but the Scriptures make it an agreeable submission for they not only prescribe that you should adapt yourselves to it with love but also command husbands to exercise it over you with great charity, tenderness, and mildness. "Husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives considerately, paying honor to the woman as to the weaker vessel," says St. Peter. While I exhort you to advance more and more in the mutual love you owe to one another, take care that it does not degenerate into jealousy of any kind. It often happens that just as a worm is bred in the ripest, tenderest apple, so also jealousy grows in the most ardent and compelling love of man and wife. It spoils and corrupts the very substance of such love for little by little it breeds quarrels, dissension, and divorce. In fact,jealousy never gets in where friendship is based on true virtue in both persons, and its presence is therefore an infallible mark that love is in some degree gross and sensual and that its object presents only imperfect, inconstant, and untrustworthy virtue. It is a foolish boast on the part of friendship to try to exalt itself by jealousy, for jealousy is a sign of a friendship's height and bulk but not of its goodness, purity, and perfection. Perfection of friendship presupposes sure trust in the virtue of those we love, while jealousy presupposes doubt of it.
If you married men with your wives to be faithful to you, teach them by your example."How can you expect purity in your wives when you yourselves live in impurity? How can you demand of them what you don't give them?" asks Gregory Nazianzen. Do you want them to be chaste? Then conduct yourselves chastely toward them and, as St. Paul says, let "everyone of you learn how to possess his vessel in holiness." On the contrary, if you teach them evil ways it is no wonder that you suffer disgrace by their fall. Wives, your honor is inseparably joined to modesty and purity. Be zealous therefore to preserve your glory and do not permit loose conduct of any sort to tarnish your spotless reputation. Be fearful of every form of improper approach, no matter how slight it may be, and never permit any impure advances to be made to you. If anyone comes praising your beauty and grace, he must be looked at with suspicion for usually anyone who praises goods he can't buy is strongly tempted to steal them. If he adds dispraise of your husband to praise of you, he does you a grievous wrong. It is obvious that he not only want to ruin you but considers you half lost already, for when one is disgusted with the first merchant a bargain is half made with the second. In ancient times, according to Pliny ladies-like those of today -were accustomed to wear pearls in their ears because they like to hear them jingle together. For my part, I know that Isaac, a great friend of God, sent earrings as the first pledge of his love for the chaste Rebecca. I think that this mystical ornament signifies that his wife's ear is the first part a husband should take possession of, and that the wife must faithfully keep it for him so that no other sound or language should enter it but the sweet and loving music of pure, chaste words. Such words are the oriental pearls mentioned in the gospel. We must always remember that poison enters the soul through the ear, just as it enters the body through the mouth.
Love and fidelity joined together
always produce familiarity and mutual trust, and hence in their married
life the saints, both men and women, have used many reciprocal caresses,
truly affectionate but chaste, tender, sincere caresses. Thus Isaac and
Rebecca, the most chaste married couple of antiquity, were watched through
a window as they caressed one another in such manner that although there
was no immodesty Abimelech was convinced that they were man and wife.
The great St. Louis was equally rigorous to his body and tender in his
love for his wife, yet he was almost blamed for being too generous with
his caresses. Actually he deserved praise for being able to curb his courageous,
martial spirit and subdue it to theses little duties so needful to preserve
conjugal love. Although such demonstrations of pure, frank affection do
not bind hearts together, they tend to unite them and serve as an agreeable
help to their life in common.
When St. Monica was about to give birth to the great St. Augustine, she
dedicated him by repeated acts of ablation to the Christian religion and
the service of God's glory. He testifies to this and says that "He
had already tasted God's salt within his mother's womb." The story
contains a great lesson, for it tells Christian women to offer up to God's
Majesty the fruit of their wombs even before it comes into the world.
At such times God, who accepts the offerings of a humble and willing heart,
is want to inspire a mother's affections. Samuel, St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Andrew of Fiesole, and many others bear witness to this. St. Bernard's
mother a mother worthy of such a son-took her children as soon as they
were born into her arms and offered them to Jesus Christ. From that moment
she loved them with a holy respect as things consecrated to God and entrusted
by him to her care. This act had such happy results that all seven became
very saintly.
When children grow up and begin to have the use of reason both their fathers and their mothers must most carefully impress the fear of God on their hearts. The devout Queen Blanche performed this duty most fervently in the case of her son, St. Louis the king, and often said to him: "My dear child, I would much rather see you dead before my eyes than see you commit a single mortal sin." This caution remained so deeply stamped on his soul that not a day of his if passes without his remembering it and taking all possible care to keep faithfully this divine teaching. In our language families and generations are called huses, the Hebrews themselves called the generation of children building up a house. In this sense it is said that God built up houses for the Egyptian midwives to show that raising a house, that is, a family, does not consist in building a splendid residence and storing up vast worldly possessions but in training child well in the fear of God and in virtue. No trouble or labor should be spared to do this, for children are their father's and mother's crown. Hence St. Monica fought so fervently and constantly against the evil inclinations of St. Augustine that after following him by sea and land she made him more happily the child of her tears, by his soul's conversion, than he ahead been the child of her blood by is bodily generation.
St. Paul leaves to wives care
of the household as their portion. For this reason many truly believe
that their devotion is more fruitful for the family than that of husbands
who do not spend so much time at home and consequently cannot so easily
form the family in virtue. In view of this fact Solomon in his Proverbs
makes the whole household's happiness depend on the care and industry
of the valiant woman he describes.
In the book Genesis it is said that when Isaac saw that his wife Rebecca
was barren he prayed to the Lord for her. Or, according to the Hebrew,
he prayed to the Lord opposite to her because he husband prayed on one
side of the oratory and the wife on the other and the prayer of the husband
offered in this fashion was heard. The union of husband and wife in holy
devotion such as this is the best and most fruitful of all and they should
mutually encourage one another in it. There are certain kinds of fruit,
the quince, for instance, which because of their bitter juice are agreeable
only when preserved in sugar, while because of their tenderness certain
others, such as cherries and apricots, cannot be kept long unless preserved
in the same way. Wives should desire that their husbands be kept with
the sugar of devotion. Without devotion a man is a severe, harsh, rough
creature and without devotion a woman is very frail and apt to decline
in virtue or lose it. St. Paul says that " The unbelieving husband
is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified
by the believing husband, because in the close alliance of marriage the
one can more easily lead the other to a virtuous life. What a blessing
it is when believing husband and believing wife sanctify each other in
true fear of the Lord!
As other things, then, mutual
support must be so great that they will never be angry with each other
at the same time, and hence quarrels or disputes will never be seen between
them. Honeybees cannot remain in a place where there are echoes, loud
noises, and resounding voices, nor can the Holy Spirit remain in a home
where there are quarrels, recriminations, and the echoing sounds of scolding
and strife.
St. Gregory Nazianzen tells us that in his time married people kept their
wedding anniversary as a festival day. For my part, I approve of reviving
this custom, provided that it is not attended by worldly and sensual amusements.
On that day husband and wife should go to confession and receive Holy
Communion and with more than ordinary fervor commend to God the Success
and happiness of their marriage. They should renew their good intention
to sanctify it still more by mutual love and fidelity and, so to speak,
they should recover breath in our Lord to support the burdens of their
vocation.