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"You are there, my God. I love You." It will take you no more time than that and all that you do will be much better done having such a help. And what help it is! Little by little, you will acquire the habit and you will finally be always aware of this sweet companion within yourself, this God of our hearts... Let us pray for each other that we may both keep this dear Guest of our souls loving company." If husband and wife were equally convinced of the living splendor their souls actually present, how the marital act, so holy to begin with, would become for them an act of divine faith, an act penetrated by the highest supernatural spirit. I want to meditate often on my baptism, and the mystery of the divine life in me. I want to become accustomed to treat myself as a living tabernacle of my Lord, to regard the companion of my life as the thrice holy shrine of the Divinity, for I know this to be a reality. The just live by faith. I want to live by faith. MARRIAGE AND THE MYSTICAL BODY CHRIST came to restore the divine life lost to us by sin. But how? He did not save us only by some act external to Himself as one might lay down a sum of money to ransom a slave but by incorporating us in Himself, by making all of us with Him a single organism. "I am the Vine, you are the branches." Christ is the Head, we the members and together we are the whole body, Christ. The aggregate of all the members, all the branches united constitutes the Church joined by an unbreakable bond to Christ, its Leader and Head. And Christian marriage will be . . . and will only be . . . but the symbol of this union of Christ with His Church, of the Church with its Head Saint. Paul at the end of his Epistle to the Christians at Ephesus gives no other rule of love and of security in their union to the married than the counsel to copy this union in their life. He says to wives. "Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord: because the husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the Church being Himself Savior of the body. But just as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things." Then addressing himself to husbands, he continues: "Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and delivered Himself up for her." This is the way husbands ought to love their wives and recalling the words of Genesis. "They shall be two in one flesh," Saint Paul concludes, "This is a great mystery.... I mean in reference to Christ and to the Church." Is it possible to imagine a divorce between Christ and the Church, between the Church and Christ? By the same token, it should be impossible to conceive of a divorce between a man and woman in Christian marriage, the man being but a double, an image of Christ; the woman a double, an image of the Church. This is but a negative aspect . . . not to be disunited. The union of Christ with the Church which baptism symbolizes invites the married to have for each other the most profound and entire consecration to each other. It is this entire consecration to each other which Saint Paul demands. It is not without reason that the liturgy of the nuptial mass contains this particular epistle of Saint Paul. Unfortunately how few understand something of the significance of these texts! How much more fitting would it be, at the time of the marriage, to profit by the marriage discourse to explain to those concerned the sublime meaning of the ceremony and the obligations which will ensue instead of handing out just so much twaddle and bestowing so many compliments! The whole difficulty is that it would necessitate touching upon the profound Gospel spirit and, for the majority of persons, the Gospel is a dead letter. As a consequence, everyone keeps to the low level of hackneyed themes understandable to all. I shall come back often to this Epistle of my nuptial Mass; it will help me to deepen my Christianity. MUTUAL DEVOTEDNESS THE emphasis upon the duty of reciprocal devotedness of husband and wife is evident in the previous quotation from Saint Paul. So that the Church may remain intact, beautiful, and immaculate, Christ is lavish in His care of her. In return the Church leaves nothing undone to bring glory to her Divine Spouse. That is how husbands and wives should treat each other. The husband must be another Christ, a faithful copy of Christ. He ought to neglect nothing for the honor and the welfare of his wife; he should even be ready, if the need arose, to shed his blood for her. She, on her part, ought to do everything to revere her husband. It must be a mutual rivalry of love. Just as there exists between Christ and the Church, in perfect harmony with their mutual devotedness, a bond of authority on the one side and of submission on the other, so too in the home, the husband is entrusted with the lead in their advance together and the wife joins her efforts to his in sentiments of loving submission. The wife's duty of subordination to her husband does not arise from woman's incapacity but from the different functions each of the two are to exercise. When each fulfills well the proper function, the unity of the home is assured. The wife is not a slave; she is a companion. On essential points there is no subordination but necessary equality. The man has no right to come to marriage sullied and yet demand that his wife be still a virgin. The man does not have permission to betray the home, and the wife the obligation to remain faithful. And when it is a question of the marriage right, the duty is conjugal, equal for each: When the husband asks the wife to give herself to him she must grant the request. But there is a reciprocal duty. When she makes the same request of him, he too must grant it. The duty of subordination holds only where the direction of the home is concerned. It does not give the husband the right to impose any of his whims upon his wife. In fact, should he go so far as to make demands contrary to the law of God, she has the duty to resist him with all gentleness but also with the necessary firmness. Rightly understood, then, the wife's submission to her husband is not at all demeaning. Moreover, to obey is never to descend but to ascend. Let husband and wife strive not so much to equal each other as to be worthy of each other. Let the husband put into the exercise of his authority the reserve and prudence which win confidence and let the wife strive to be an accomplished woman not masculine but feminine. The interesting character of the home is not a man, a woman, but the couple; not an individual, but the family, the harmonious development of the family cell; not duality as such but the advance in common of the two. WOMAN'S SUPERIORITY IN HIS book "Il Sangue di Cristo," Igino Giordani pronounces this judgment: "Even when he is good, man always reminds one a little of a heron; he stands on one foot and assumes poses. He turns to the right, then to the left, and what concern he shows for his appearance! "The Christian woman fulfills the more obscure domestic tasks, services humble and hidden. The woman is to be like Mary. She will become familiar with the tasks that require abnegation. Is it not perhaps easier to ascend the pulpit than to watch at the bedside of the dying? There are plenty of such examples. Saint Augustine wrote stacks of books but who made a confessor of the faith out of this professor? His mother--with her tears. "More women than men enter religion; yet they do not have the satisfaction of the priesthood. It is perhaps because of these interceding and retiring women that all does not go up in the smoke of vanity's fireworks." Men might perhaps retort that on the score of vanity, women do not yield to them a point. If they, the men, know how to pose to advantage, and women, just to win admiration, also do their share of strutting, and with an earnestness worthy of a better cause. Would they be such slaves to fashion if they did not have--and how much more than men--the mania for excelling their rivals and gaining notice? Certainly in self sacrifice and above all in the daily humble hidden devotedness which the tasks of the home require, woman is in the lead. That does not mean that man, in his profession, does not know how to sacrifice himself for the one he loves. Would he spend himself as he does if he did not know that a smile would reward him in the evening and a gentle voice would sing his praises? Nevertheless, in general, the opinion of Giordani can be accepted as well as the proofs he gives for it. We need not consider religious life now. It has no point here. All we need do is look to the Christian home to find without difficulty numerous and sometimes touching examples of devotedness which nothing can exhaust. Here is a wife; she has a husband who gets beside himself with rage; he has real fits of temper, the blood rushes to his head and he is practically on the verge of a stroke. Will the woman let him to his fate and punish him for his violence by depriving him at least for a time of her attentions? Not at all! Wasn't it Shakespeare who gave us this delightful scene: A sheriff is enraged against his wife. She leaves the room. Perhaps she has gone off to pout because she is away for a while. But no! Here she comes, her arms loaded down, and sets about preparing mustard packs for her husband's feet and cold packs for his head to avert the ill effects of his moments of fury. It might be just an episode in a play but it is none the less symbolic. That is woman for you! THE BOSS IN THE HOUSE AFTER a meditation on his duty of ruling his future home, Maurice Retour wrote the following ideas to his fiancee: "In all the families I have visited, the husbands want to appear to rule their wives while the wives quietly claim that they rule their husbands. I eagerly desire to have influence on your soul to help you ascend; but I desire just as eagerly to have you exercise a great influence on mine. Let us leave to others such petty behavior and thank God in all humility that He has enlightened us." In another letter he came back to the same idea "I wish to be master before the law, I even want to be responsible to God for the morality of our home, but for all the details of our life there is no master. I have never had greater disdain for anyone than I have for a married man who presumes to dominate his wife. I have seen some husbands grow actually stubborn over some detail so that they do not have the appearance before others of giving in to their wives. I think such husbands are idiots." Then as a reason for his opinion he adds, "Two persons living together necessarily have an influence upon each other, but I promise you never to try by any subtlety to hold you under my dominion. We shall live side by side without a thought for such notions. I want to believe that we can belong to each other in order to enjoy life but with a love that will bring us ever close to God.... God must always be foremost and He must be our goal even in our love, now and always." All husbands are not of that calibre. In a novel by a German author, a certain baron gives his idea on how women should be treated. "They must be made to feel their inferiority otherwise they will be spoiled. "If you get married, do as I do. Never tell her beforehand about a trip or a horseback ride. Just lead in your horse. 'Where are you going, my dear?' she will ask the first or second time. Give no answer, but continue putting on your gloves. 'Are you going to let me alone like this?' she will add stroking your cheeks. You seize your riding whip quickly and say, 'Yes, I have to go to town. I have this and that to do. Goodby. And if I'm not back at nine o'clock for supper, don't wait for me.' She trembles, but you don't pay any attention. She runs after you, but you signal with your whip for her to go back. She runs to the window, leans out and waves her handkerchief crying 'Adrien!' But let her white banner wave and don't bother. Dig in your spurs and get going! I swear that that's the way to keep women respectful. By the third time, my wife asked no more questions and God be praised, the wailing has come to an end." A mere comparison of these two different attitudes makes the right one stand out clearly. There are some husbands who are blackguards; others who are gentlemen. My choice is made. MARRIAGE AND THE EUCHARIST (1) A YOUNG lady before her marriage wrote to her future husband asking him to go to Holy Communion with her as often as possible; "The Eucharist is the sacrament of those who are engaged to be married because it is the Sacrament of Love." So impressed was the young man by her thought and so much good did he derive from it, that he engraved the sentence on her tombstone when she was taken from him by an early death. Marriage and the Eucharist. . . how true that they are both sacraments of love. What does love require? Love expresses itself by these three needs: the need of the presence of the beloved, the need of union, the need of exchange of sacrifices. Each of the two sacraments satisfies this triple need. Need of presence. In the Eucharist: "This is My Body." God present in us in His divine nature by sanctifying grace received at baptism found the means to unite to Himself a human nature: "The Word was made flesh." He was certain that under that new form He would find a way to make Himself present to humanity. Therefore, the Eucharist. In marriage: Needless to mention the yearning the couple have to be together. If they talk, it will only be to tell each other how glad they are to be near each other. They may say nothing, but then in the deep silence which envelops them their souls will be knit together, they will commune and exchange the best of themselves. Silence between lovers is often more eloquent than words; the following advice of a Chinese sage to a young girl considering a proposal of marriage evidenced judgment and experience: "If he tells you, "I love you more than all the world," turn away your head and nonchalantly fuss with your hair. If he tells you, "I love you more than the golden rod in the temple," adjust the folds of your dress and reproach him laughingly as if amused at his impiety. "If he passes beneath your window on a white horse to say goodby because he prefers to die by a thrust of the sword than to despair, give him a flower and wish him a happy trip. "But if he remains beside you, numb as a slave before a king and clumsy to the point of spilling tea on your blue tablecloth, then smile at him tenderly as you would for the one whom you wish to accept for always." Even though at the beginning of marriage, being together is unalloyed joy and there is no need to urge cohabitation upon the newlyweds, it can happen that in the long run unpleasantnesses arise; the charm of being together wanes perhaps because faults show up more readily than in the past or because the couple's concept of marriage was overly romantic, not preparing them for the possible flaws in each other or simply because a man will never be anything else but a man and a woman never anything else but a woman, that is, two limited beings who can not avoid discovering their limitations sooner or later. No one is obliged to marry. But once married, cohabitation is a duty. Canon Law states: "The spouses must observe the community of the conjugal life." Saint Alphonsus says even more specifically, "The married are bound to cohabitation in one house to the sharing of bed and board." Separation regarding the last two points can for just reasons, be permitted in certain cases. Grave reasons are necessary to dispense husbands and wives from living under the same roof; there is always the danger of scandal to be feared and, under the stress of temptations which may arise, also the danger of transforming simple separation of bodies into real divorce. MARRIAGE AND THE EUCHARIST (2) LOVE, which thrives on the mutual presence of the two who cherish each other and yearn for each other, also seeks physical expression. It is true for marriage; it is true for the Eucharist. That physical expression is a need of love, both experience and the most elementary psychology more than amply prove. Doesn't a mother often say to her baby whom she is smothering with kisses, "I could just eat you up," as if she vainly dreamed of being able to reincorporate it? What is impossible to the mother is possible to Our Lord. He wanted to give Himself to us as food not so much that we might incorporate Him in ourselves as that He might incorporate us in Himself. In the case of ordinary food, it is the one who eats who assimilates. In the Eucharist, it is the Living Bread which assimilates us in Itself: "Take and eat, this is My Body; take and drink, this is My Blood. If you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, you shall not have life in you. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood shall have life everlasting." The Eucharist requires that we take it and consume it. The Host is not made for the eyes, to be seen, but to be eaten. It is not enough to look and to adore; we must receive and assimilate: "Take and eat." The Real Presence is already a great gift and to be present at Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament a precious exercise which the Church praises. But that is not the whole significance of the Eucharist. The Eucharist demands communion, the common union . . . and what a closely bound community . . . of two beings who love each other, Christ and the Christian. Because love is the ideal basis for the sacrament of matrimony, marriage in its turn dreams of physical expression. Since it is concerned with uniting not angelic but human natures, that is, spirits within bodies, marriage, while it involves a union of souls, also normally involves a union of bodies which should facilitate the union of souls. It is the entire being of the one which seeks to become united with the entire being of the other. It can then readily be understood how in view of the particular intimacy sought through bodily union, delicacy claims privacy. It is a good act without question and willed by God who by His nature can permit not even the shadow of sin. The Church, in the course of her history, condemned those overly severe moralists who wanted to oblige the married to go to confession before receiving Holy Communion if they had previously had intercourse. There is no question about the couple's right to all those marks of affection and tenderness which normally accompany the generative act. Still, between Christian husbands and wives, a wise modesty, not in the least fearful, but decently reserved, will be the rule. The strict right by which sin is measured is one thing; quite different is the domain of perfection or even of imperfection which extends far beyond that and which is properly the course of Christian refinement.
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