Protect your marriage
Friends in Christ, today Our Lord gives his clear teaching on the sanctity of Holy Matrimony. ‘He who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery’
Many in the world consider marriage to be a throw-away convenience. But Mother Church has always praised this vocation of marriage. In his book, Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales has advice about marriage: He calls marriage the ‘nursery of Christianity’ because it peoples the earth with faithful souls who will become the elect of heaven.
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Writing in the year 1609, he says that the protection of marriage is of the highest importance to society, because married life is the foundation & source of society itself. (These words are applicable today, 400 years since he wrote that.) He says that he wishes Jesus and Mary would be invited to every marriage as they were at the wedding at Cana, but too many times Adonis and Venus are invited! Too many marriages begin without God.
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If instead of worldly love, God would be the love that binds marriage, it would really be an indissoluble union. When two pieces of wood are joined together with glue, it is easier to break them, than to separate them. But Christ unites husband and wife not with glue, but with his own blood.
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Regarding husbands, he says they should follow the example of St. Louis, who was so austere with himself, denying himself all sorts of comforts, yet he was often accused of being too lavish with the love and affection he showed to his wife.
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St. Francis goes on to give advice to wives: The woman should guard her good reputation jealously, he says. Fear anything which might soil your reputation. Be suspicious of anyone who praises your beauty or charm, because those who praise what is not for sale, are usually tempted to steal it. If anyone criticizes your husband do not stand for it. St. Francis does not have a problem with women wearing earrings; after all, he says Isaac sent earrings to Rebecca. He thinks that earrings are a mystical sign of a husbands love. They signify that her ears are her husband’s possession, and that they are carefully guarded from anything except pure words; just as poison of the body enters through the mouth, poison to the soul enters through the ears.
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Man and woman today must protect their marriage from the secret traps of so many enemies. And if they do, Holy Matrimony is a beautiful vocation on earth.
