Tag Archives: Marriage

What God has joined…now bring it to fulfillment…

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

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“What God has joined, men must not divide.”

“May God, who has begun this good work in  you, now bring it to fulfillment.”

Most people will hear these words at one point or another, whether in their own  Nuptials, Ordinations, or Religious Professions.  It is important, because it shows that God must be involved in your life.

“What God has joined, men must  not divide.”

“May God, who has begun this good work in  you, now bring it to fulfillment.”

Both of these statements show that God is involved in all things.  God brought the bride and bridegroom together, just as he brought that man or woman to lie prostrate before the Altar during the Litany of Saints.  God brings us together.  He creates a new family, for, as Genesis states “Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.”  In a Nuptial Mass, the Man and Woman leave their respective families and create a new one.   A man leaves his family, marries the Church, and his parish or community becomes his family.   A woman leaves her family, marries Christ, and her religious community becomes her new family.   For the women religious, this new family can be so new that they are given a new name!  We all have families, and we will all leave our families at one point or another, for our new families.

Let us remember that we cannot divide these new families, for God, in his infinite wisdom, has started this good work in all of us and will bring it all to fulfillment.

“What kind of Catholics do they think we are?”

21 Saturday Apr 2012

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It was with these words that, at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, of the Knights of Columbus, got a rousing round of appluase in the middle of his speech.  Carl Anderson, rewording that famous line from Winston Churchill’s famous speech to a Joint Session of Congress, “What kind of people do they think we are?”, posed that question to the government trying to take away our religious libertyl; trying to take away our first ammendment right, which clearly states that we have a Freedom of Religion, and not a Freedom of Worship.  It is with these short words that I hope to answer this question that the Supreme Knight posed.

What kind of Catholic am I?  Well, I am pretty sure the government thinks that I am the kind of Catholic willing to violate my conscience, willing to violate the solemn truths that I profess willingly and loudly. 

However, they are wrong.

I am not this kind of Catholic.  I am the kind of Catholic willing to stand up to the Government in all of her misleadings.  I am the kind of Catholic who will not violate my conscience in order for “healthcare” for all.  I am the kind of Catholic who will not tolerate these attacks on the family.  This very family that is the future of our once great country, which can be great again.  I am the kind of Catholic willing to stand up and profess my beliefs every chance I get!  I believe in One God.  I believe in Jesus Christ.  I believe in, and will adamently defend the sanctity of all human life from the unborn baby in it’s mother’s womb, to the elderly man who is dying in bed and deemed to “have no life.” 

But most of all, I am the kind of Catholic who will not stand idly by watching Catholic instutions make plans for closure.  Why must they close, you ask?  They must close because they are Catholic.  They will close, rather than violate their own consciences, contributing to this unfortunate culture of death.  This was relayed to those in attendance at the end of the breakfast by Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, S.V., Superior General of the Sisters of Life.

In their 151-year history, this congregation has, with the help of God, survived a Civil War on their doorstep, deadly epidemics, devastating floods, economic depression and tumultuous social upheaval. Today, however, they face a new, more insidious threat — their own government. Should HHS persist in implementing the [Interim Rule and its contraceptive] mandate without major modifications, the Congregation will be forced to curtail its mission. What war and disease could not do to the Congregation, the government of the United States will do. It will shut them down.

We cannot.  Nay, we MUST not stand around and watch this happen.  Wars, floods. and disease, just to name a few things, did not close down the Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St. Cecilia.  But the government will.  For following their first ammendment right of freedom of religion.  For being Catholic.  For fighting for families and the unborn child.  For refusing to acknowledge the so-called “validity” of homosexual unions.  For refusing to accept and embrace the unfortunate state of our society in which sexuality rules all, and, God-forbid one wasn’t having sex 24/7.

And so, in following the words of the Supreme Knight, this is the kind of Catholic that I am.  The kind of Catholic that they think I am might be different, but it does not matter.  I am going to stand up and profess the truths of the Catholic faith wherever I am, even if it means dying the death of a martyr, or in prison.  We must all take these words to heart.  We must all listen to them, and, once more, as Mother Agnes Mary, in quoting Tolkein,

Hold your ground! … A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. … This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you, stand!

 

And so, we must. 

Christ: The Unmarried Jew

03 Tuesday Apr 2012

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In this time leading up to Easter, many of the “historical” shows start having specials on the life of Christ.  One problem with this- Christ was never married, no matter how much Dan Brown wishes he was.  Christ could not have been married.  He was not only the Son of God, he WAS God.  In many of the Roman and Greek god myths, we see the gods running around and sleeping around.  Christ was not one of these though.  He was fully Divine and fully Human.  This has always been known, even if it was not always apparent.

Can you imagine the scandal that would have occured if Jesus Christ, God, the Son of the Father, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords had descendants???  Could you imagine what life would be like if you were a physical descendant of Christ?  No, you see, I’m better than you are because Jesus was my great great great great great great great great great great great great great great breath great great great great great great great great great great great great great great  breath great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather?

This caused great scandal in his Jewish history.  The Jew’s traditionally have placed a great emphasis not only on marriage, but on family.  Christ was not married, and thus counter-cultural.  We, even if we are called to marriage, are called to be counter-cultural.  We are called to live holy lives.  We are called to defend marriage between one man and one woman.  We are called to defend life from the moment of conception to natural death.  We are called to live like Christ, whether that is imitating Christ in his Marriage to the Church, for men, in persona Christi capitas; for women, who may be called to Christ in Holy Matrimony through religious life; for married couples called to live married lives in witness of the love that Christ had for His Church.

So, Christ was not physically married to a woman here on earth.  He was God.  Let us live out the lives that he has called us to, whether through the imitation of love that he had for the church with a physical marriage to either your husband or wife, and living this out through your counter-cultural examples of preserving traditional marriage, or through a representation of his life by being married to Christ or his Bride, the Church.

First Comes Love, or does it?

01 Thursday Mar 2012

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In a homily preached on September 8, 2011, the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Blessed Mother, in the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, in Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania, His Excellency, the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap., the newly installed Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington mentioned arranged marriages.  Specifically, he said,

A married friend told me last week that getting ready for today reminded him of planning for a very, very,very big wedding.  He was being humorous, but he was actually more accurate than he knew.  The relationship of a bishop and his local Church is very close to a marriage.  The ring I wear is a symbol of every bishop’s love for his Church.  And a bishop’s marriage to the local Church reminds me, and all of us, that a bishop is called to love his Church with all his heart, just as Christ loved her and gave his life for her.

Of course, my appointment to Philadelphia is an arranged marriage, and the Holy Father is the matchmaker.  The good news is that romance is a modern invention — and given the divorce rate, not everything it’s cranked up to be.  In fact, history suggests that arranged marriages often worked at least as well as those based on romantic love.  When arranged marriages were common, there was an expectation that people would get to know each other and then come to love one another.  Good matchmakers were aware of the family history of each of the spouses and their particular needs.  And the really wise matchmakers could make surprisingly good choices.

In the Church, we believe that the Holy Spirit guides the decisions of the Holy Father.  And the results are always joyful if we commit our wills to cooperating with God’s plan.  For any marriage to work, two things need to happen.  People need to fall in love, and together they need to be fruitful.  That’s what we need to dedicate ourselves to today – to love one another and be fruitful together in the new evangelization.

Getting to know each other is a great adventure.  Our life together is part of the story of salvation, which God continues even into our own time.  Mary didn’t expect the Annunciation.  She didn’t expect to be mother of the Redeemer.  And yet her act of obedience changed the course of history and led to a new covenant of love and fruitfulness.  I have no illusions of being worthy of this ministry, but I do trust in the wisdom of the Holy Father.  So I’m deeply grateful for his confidence and the privilege of serving this Church.

His Excellency, the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap., at his Installation Mass

This idea of arranged marriages has been in my mind more and more these past few weeks, as we have been discussing not only arranged marriages, but marriages that happened out of love.  It is true that the higher you went up the noble food chain, the less love was involved. This is important while looking at history, because those marriages that were unhappy, in which the bride and groom never did learn to love each other, led to adultery, on both sides of the issue.

I happen to agree with the His Excellency here that maybe there was something to arranged marriages, and not marrying for love.  People learned to love each other, there was less divorce, and families thus stayed together.  Maybe its time we bring this back, at least partially.

Maybe then we wouldn’t have marriages like that of Giovanni and Lussana.  There marriage was one of so-called love, where Lussana cheated on her husband with Giovanni, and maybe even had her husband killed, in order to marry Giovanni.  Giovanni later divorced her after he became the sole heir to his family’s fortune, and left Lusanna out cold.  This is just another marriage based on love failing.

Then again, you never truly know…

“Catholics for Choice”

11 Saturday Feb 2012

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As I was reading blogs and reflecting on the excellent lecture that His Eminence, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., I got thinking about why I haven’t posted on the debacle that is the Health and Human Services announcement like The American Papist, Thomas Peters, Rocco Palmo, and smaller bloggers, like my friend here, who took the time to examine specific statistics which have been thrown around a lot these past few days.  I, however, won’t be posting links to official statements, like Rocco or Thomas, or examining specific statistics that have been thrown around these past few days.  I will be talking about something else.  Something, while related, has a little following of itself.

There is a group that calls themselves “Catholics for Choice”.  This “choice” that they are talking about is not a good choice at all, for they claim that it is necessary to be able to not only have birth control, but abortions as well.  These Catholics, who say that they are for choice, do not understand that there is only one logical choice that they can be for.  That choice is that of life, and not using contraceptives and abortifacients, which is what this group pushes for.

Today, in the inaugural lecture on Faithful Citizenship, hosted by The Catholic University of America Knights of Columbus, in conjunction with the Catholic Apostolate Center and The Catholic University of America, His Eminence mentioned many things that stuck with me, and a few of them apply to this topic that I am speaking of here.

First off, His Eminence mentioned that “one cannot be authentically Catholic and not be pro-life at the same time.”  He then went on to say that not only are out consciences freeing things, even though it may not seem that way, and that being pro-life is not enough, it’s about the dignity of every human person.  These three statements really bring out that points about why Catholics cannot be for choice in the areas that these so called “Catholics for Choice” are calling for.

Number one, they have consciences.  While we may think that their consciences are poorly formed, they still have them.  Number two, we need to approach these people on the streets.  We need to talk to them.  With love.  None of this I’m right and you’re wrong.  Yes, we may be right in some respects, but we need to dialogue with them about these issues.  We need to sit down with them face to face, find out why they believe that it is right to have a choice in these issues,  and then, using nothing but love and care, explain why they hold the wrong positions.  This isn’t accomplished by yelling and screaming, or by denying communion.  For, how do we know that these “Catholics for Choice” didn’t go to confession 15 minutes ago, or have a change of heart 20 minutes ago before entering the Church for Mass?  There are issues that we need to turn to Rome to, and I believe that the one of invoking Canon 915 is one of them.  For, we, as Catholics follow the lead and example of His Holiness.  The fact that not only has he not denied anyone communion, but he has not said that it should be done either is a pretty clear sign that we shouldn’t either.

So, as Catholics, can we chose?  Well, to use contraceptives, abortifacients, and to have abortions- the answer is no.  These were spelled out very clearly in the encyclical letter of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae.  He states very clearly the Church’s position on the issues regarding human life.  However, I come bearing great news!  There are things that you can choose!  You, as a Catholic can choose whether to go to a Mass that is sung or said.  You can choose to go to a Mass with incense or no incense.  You can choose to pray the rosary or the divine office, charisimatic or quiet prayer.  However, we cannot choose to use these evil contraceptives, abortifacients, or to have abortions.  That is clear.

Our Lady of Lourdes, Pray for us.

N.B. I refuse to link to the group Catholics for Choice.  They get enough traffic as it is, and I have no need or desire to increase that traffic.

The Reformation Family

09 Thursday Feb 2012

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Today in my history class, we focused on The Reformation Family.  Now, the family during the Reformation was pretty similar to the family after the reformation.  Before the Reformation, men and women got married, had children, and did whatever line of work they were in, whatever it happened to be.  The average marriage lasted fifteen years, and ended because one spouse died, either during childbirth, or of an illness, or war.  In addition to this, chances are that the living spouse would remarry ASAP, especially if there were surviving children.

The biggest change to the reformation family was an increased light shown on the family.  In Catholicism, the family was there, and the more children that there were, the less likely it was for all of the children to go off and get married.  Because of this, there was a huge increase of people joining Monasteries, Convents, and the Sacred Priesthood.  While this, in and of itself, is a great thing, they were entering for the wrong reason- because the family had too many children and thus not all were able to get married.

Following the reformation,  there were many more marriages, because the reformers took the humanist ideals that marriage is good and celibacy is bad.  This led to a huge number of priests and nuns leaving the priesthood and convents, respectively.  This meant that there were many more people getting married.

So, more people getting married, yet Luther gets rid of marriage as a sacrament.  Can anyone figure that one out???  I get that he is all for sola scripture, but can anyone show me how marriage isn’t a sacrament???? I mean, Jesus states that

But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Here, in Mark 10:6-9, Jesus not only clearly establishes Marriage as a Sacrament, but also forbids divorce.   Divorce… what a fun idea, one to tackle in a future post…

Families: A Modern Attack on a Historical Institution

01 Wednesday Feb 2012

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Be attentive to our prayers, O Lord and in your kindness uphold what you have established for the increase of the human race, so that the union you have created may be kept safe by your assistance.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.
(Collect for the Nuptial Mass, Editio Typica Tertia, ICEL 2010)

In my prior post on families, I quoted the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that a family is a covenant by which a man leaves his family and takes a wife, in which they become one, and their purpose is to procreate the world.  The Catechism goes on to say that the family is a “domestic church.”  Specifically, it states

 1656 In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia domestica.168 It is in the bosom of the family that parents are “by word and example . . . the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation.”1691657 It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way “by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity.”170 Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and “a school for human enrichment.”171 Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous – even repeated – forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one’s life.

These two quotes pack a large amount of information in them, and they go back a long time, even before the Catechism of the Council of Trent was published.  The church truly believes that the family is, first and foremost, the place of education and learning, one of nurturing, one of the witness of the love that Christ gave for his bride, his family- The Church.

The family has been a generally protected institution until modern times.  This is seen all throughout history, especially in the Medieval Era.  Throughout the High Middle Ages, one saw the family getting the respect that they deserved, even if they happened to be very different practices than we today are used to.  The families of old were very oriented towards protecting themselves, which is the opposite of what we see today.  Yes, they were worried that the name might not continue or that money might be lost.  Heck, most of the time love wasn’t even the main concern.

Today, we see many different attacks on the family from all different parts of society.  It is no longer considered the sacred institution that it once was, no longer understood as a domestic church whose sole purpose is to protect the children.  Chances are, these days, that one runs into someone trying to redefine what marriage is, and, by proxy, the family.  To protect the family, marriage must be protected as a Sacred Institution between one man and one woman.  The state MUST stop interfering in families, and must respect Right of the Religious Institutions to protect the family, especially since the State is dead set on destroying it.

I would like to end this post with two things.  The first is a quote on the Holy Family from Father Z.  He says, on the Holy Family, that,

God Incarnate chose to begin manifesting this sacrificial love, which reached its culmination on the Cross, in the family home.

Together with Mary and His earthly father Joseph, Christ began to reveal something of the unity of love within the most perfect of communions, the Holy Trinity.

It is fitting to celebrate the Holy Family within the Octave of Christmas when we contemplate the coming of the Lord in imitation of that final, perfect communion with God to be enjoyed only by the blessed in heaven.

The family is a paradigm of all other human relationships. The Holy Family teaches us, who are still in this world but moving inexorably toward our judgment and final goal, how to live – together – in this present state of “already, but not yet”.

The second is the Collect for the Feast of the Holy Family.

O God, who were pleased to give us
the shining example of the Holy Family,
graciously grant that we may imitate them
in practicing the virtues of family life and in the bonds of charity,
and so, in the joy of your house,
delight one day in eternal rewards. Amen

(Editio Typica Tertia, ICEL 2010)

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Ora pro Nobis

St. Joseph, the Most Chaste Spouse, Ora pro Nobis

St. Anne, Ora pro Nobis

St. Joachim, Ora pro Nobis

Just a short aside:  As you may know, the Department for Health and Human Services gave Religious Institutions one year to comply with regulations that violate their consciences.  Regulations that force religious institutions to demean families, and, specifically women, by forcing them to provide free birth control, and eventually, abortion, to these women who deserve much better.  Please take 5 minutes to sign this petition to rescind the HHS mandate.  Every signature counts.