Many men would fain take a wife and can take none: do you know why? The man says: I must have a wife full of wisdom: and you yourself are a fool. He would have her tall: and he is effeminate. He would have her an honest woman: but he lies as soon as he opens his mouth. He would have her temperate: and he is never out of the tavern. He would not have her gluttonous: and he is ever at his fegatelli [Italian dish]. He would have her active: and he is a sluggard. Peaceful: and he would storm at a straw if it crossed his feet. Obedient: and he obeys neither father nor mother nor any man. He would have her good and fair and wise and bred in all virtue. I answer, you will not have her! If you would have her thus, it is fitting that you should be the same: as you seek a virtuous, fair, and good spouse, so think likewise how she would fain have a husband prudent, discreet, good, and fulfilled of all virtue.
St. Bernardino of Siena
#marriage
St. Bernardino of Siena
#marriage
"I cannot believe that there are men who would proudly call themselves Christian yet hit their wives; these are thrice worthy of chains. Many among them see their wives in illness and pregnancy and find it hard to help them, thinking that by doing so they somehow undermine their 'dignity'.
It is even more common in our society to see a woman constantly complain about her husband and seeks to make of him her slave. Such women may call themselves pious but they are entirely devoid of virtue.
They have no true love for each other: true love should be riveted by the three corners: true love is as God's love. These three corners are friendship, virtue and pleasure.
If the friendship be frail, small is the love. If the pleasure be small, small again the love; if there be little virtue; slight love again!
Wherefore I bid you all, men and women, follow virtue, that your love may be unto you profitable and honest."
St. Bernardino of Siena
#marriage
It is even more common in our society to see a woman constantly complain about her husband and seeks to make of him her slave. Such women may call themselves pious but they are entirely devoid of virtue.
They have no true love for each other: true love should be riveted by the three corners: true love is as God's love. These three corners are friendship, virtue and pleasure.
If the friendship be frail, small is the love. If the pleasure be small, small again the love; if there be little virtue; slight love again!
Wherefore I bid you all, men and women, follow virtue, that your love may be unto you profitable and honest."
St. Bernardino of Siena
#marriage
"And to the women I say, go to the one that has both knowledge and conscience, one of those who know excellently how to discern that which ought to be done. Choose one who is good, not anyone, whatever he may be, no! For sometimes you will go to the one who has a carnal mind, and is not instructed, and who will say to you that for the sake of pleasure you should dress in a scandalous way or beautify yourself in a scandalous fashion for him, and to deck yourself out with ornaments to please him. Out upon him! For he is a beast. Do as I say: go to a man of conscience and learning, who is good, who will like your natural complexion and will not wish to add anything to that beauty which God has already fashioned you with."
"..Moreover, each should seek above all for goodness [in his spouse], and then for other advantages; but goodness first, goodness first of all."
St. Bernardino of Siena
#marriage #men
"..Moreover, each should seek above all for goodness [in his spouse], and then for other advantages; but goodness first, goodness first of all."
St. Bernardino of Siena
#marriage #men
Budziszewski,_Thomas_Aquinas_on_Marriage,_Fruitfulness,_and_Faithful.pdf
190.9 KB
Article
Thomas Aquinas on Marriage, Fruitfulness, and Faithful Love
J. Budziszewski
In this essay, I wish to present Thomas Aquinas’s teachings about love and matrimony as a background for the teachings of Humanae vitae.
First, though, let us consider why this is necessary, and to this end, let us review
the current status of matrimony in the popular culture.
St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of marriage is often caricatured. According to this distortion, he considers matrimony merely
a necessary evil, a reluctant concession to the sinfulness of human beings, and
the need to continue the human race. One version has it that the only justification for the spouses to have sexual intercourse is that they are trying to make babies. Another has it that there is a second justification as well, for a wife should submit grimly to intercourse just so that her husband will not be tempted to seek sex elsewhere. Neither of these two views allows love to be a part of the picture.
#marriage #aquinas
Thomas Aquinas on Marriage, Fruitfulness, and Faithful Love
J. Budziszewski
In this essay, I wish to present Thomas Aquinas’s teachings about love and matrimony as a background for the teachings of Humanae vitae.
First, though, let us consider why this is necessary, and to this end, let us review
the current status of matrimony in the popular culture.
St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of marriage is often caricatured. According to this distortion, he considers matrimony merely
a necessary evil, a reluctant concession to the sinfulness of human beings, and
the need to continue the human race. One version has it that the only justification for the spouses to have sexual intercourse is that they are trying to make babies. Another has it that there is a second justification as well, for a wife should submit grimly to intercourse just so that her husband will not be tempted to seek sex elsewhere. Neither of these two views allows love to be a part of the picture.
#marriage #aquinas
Ecce Verbum
Dignity_of_Woman_EN .pdf
The Major Problem of Finding The Beloved Thou
Why is it so difficult today to find a specific partner for marriage? First of all because many people are afraid of making a decision that would bind them for their whole life. The instability of the current age, the complete lack of steadfastness and perseverance, and the almost countless examples of ruined marriages inspire fear. All the more so because young people today, both men and women, are weakened by the poison of the contemporary mindset: There is hardly anyone nowadays who has not been affected by the pornographic trash that surrounds us and by all sorts of other sins resulting from the satisfaction of the senses and instincts. Psychology tells us that a lack of discipline in enjoying food, as well as alcohol, drugs, rock music, computer games, immoderate use of the television or Internet, etc., weaken the character and the natural strength of a human being and make him incapable of the sacrificial life that marriage and family require.
A young woman, especially one who is trying to maintain her ideal of femininity is pained by the feminization of men. The above-mentioned traits of today’s mind-set make him incapable of being a firm support and providing protection. In searching for a person who still does to some extent correspond to her wishes, she must before all else give priority to a great trust in God. “You know everything, and the more faithful I am to You, the more surely You will grant my prayer.” Next, she should not constantly have this important question uppermost in mind, but should tell herself again and again: “I have my duties; I have the will of God to fulfil here and now.”
Above all she should remember often that everything passes and that only one thing really counts, namely becoming holy. This knowledge about the “one thing necessary” enables a human being, first, to live in the truth and to grasp anew every day the meaning of his life and to actualize it.
Next one needs to maintain an attitude of openness: A young woman must not close herself off and simply wait passively for a miracle. God works, but He usually works through secondary causes and most often through quite ordinary everyday events. That is why she should gladly accept all honourable invitations, when she knows that the event will be attended by decent people. Perhaps it is God’s will that it should happen there. But how should she search? A fundamental rule of morality applies here: One must not try to achieve good by using a means which in itself is bad. The noble good of a worthy Thou, a companion for a lifetime, will never be found in an atmosphere of sin. Such places should be avoided at all costs. In contrast, events such as youth group meetings, days of recollection, family celebrations, invitations from good friends, e.g. birthdays or other similar celebrations, are certainly good soil in which honourable friendships can grow.
In Poland the fact is very well known that for hundreds of years many, many young people have found one another during the pilgrimage on foot to Częstochowa. They have a beautiful tradition there that married couples who became acquainted on that pilgrimage wear their wedding apparel and take their place at the head of the solemn procession leading the pilgrimage group, as a sign of thanksgiving that the Mother of God arranged for them to meet each other.
Fr. Karl Stehlin
#marriage
Why is it so difficult today to find a specific partner for marriage? First of all because many people are afraid of making a decision that would bind them for their whole life. The instability of the current age, the complete lack of steadfastness and perseverance, and the almost countless examples of ruined marriages inspire fear. All the more so because young people today, both men and women, are weakened by the poison of the contemporary mindset: There is hardly anyone nowadays who has not been affected by the pornographic trash that surrounds us and by all sorts of other sins resulting from the satisfaction of the senses and instincts. Psychology tells us that a lack of discipline in enjoying food, as well as alcohol, drugs, rock music, computer games, immoderate use of the television or Internet, etc., weaken the character and the natural strength of a human being and make him incapable of the sacrificial life that marriage and family require.
A young woman, especially one who is trying to maintain her ideal of femininity is pained by the feminization of men. The above-mentioned traits of today’s mind-set make him incapable of being a firm support and providing protection. In searching for a person who still does to some extent correspond to her wishes, she must before all else give priority to a great trust in God. “You know everything, and the more faithful I am to You, the more surely You will grant my prayer.” Next, she should not constantly have this important question uppermost in mind, but should tell herself again and again: “I have my duties; I have the will of God to fulfil here and now.”
Above all she should remember often that everything passes and that only one thing really counts, namely becoming holy. This knowledge about the “one thing necessary” enables a human being, first, to live in the truth and to grasp anew every day the meaning of his life and to actualize it.
Next one needs to maintain an attitude of openness: A young woman must not close herself off and simply wait passively for a miracle. God works, but He usually works through secondary causes and most often through quite ordinary everyday events. That is why she should gladly accept all honourable invitations, when she knows that the event will be attended by decent people. Perhaps it is God’s will that it should happen there. But how should she search? A fundamental rule of morality applies here: One must not try to achieve good by using a means which in itself is bad. The noble good of a worthy Thou, a companion for a lifetime, will never be found in an atmosphere of sin. Such places should be avoided at all costs. In contrast, events such as youth group meetings, days of recollection, family celebrations, invitations from good friends, e.g. birthdays or other similar celebrations, are certainly good soil in which honourable friendships can grow.
In Poland the fact is very well known that for hundreds of years many, many young people have found one another during the pilgrimage on foot to Częstochowa. They have a beautiful tradition there that married couples who became acquainted on that pilgrimage wear their wedding apparel and take their place at the head of the solemn procession leading the pilgrimage group, as a sign of thanksgiving that the Mother of God arranged for them to meet each other.
Fr. Karl Stehlin
#marriage
217157339.pdf
1.6 MB
Article
Marriage: Passion, Friendship & Vocation
Introduction
a. Why and how the problem started
b. In our own time
V. Chapter I: Why Romantic Passion Alone Cannot Sustain the Spousal
Relationship
a. Romantic passion focuses attention merely on oneself and how the other meets one’s needs
i. Sensuality and sentimentality
ii. Loves for pleasure and utility
1. Love for the sake of utility
2. Love for the sake of pleasure
3. Erotic love related to the love of pleasure
b. Neglecting the good of the other leads to disintegration
c. Disintegration is harmful to marriage
d. Summary
#marriage
Marriage: Passion, Friendship & Vocation
Introduction
a. Why and how the problem started
b. In our own time
V. Chapter I: Why Romantic Passion Alone Cannot Sustain the Spousal
Relationship
a. Romantic passion focuses attention merely on oneself and how the other meets one’s needs
i. Sensuality and sentimentality
ii. Loves for pleasure and utility
1. Love for the sake of utility
2. Love for the sake of pleasure
3. Erotic love related to the love of pleasure
b. Neglecting the good of the other leads to disintegration
c. Disintegration is harmful to marriage
d. Summary
#marriage
J. R.R. Tolkien on marriage
Men are not [monogamous]. No good pretending. Men just ain’t, not by their animal nature. Monogamy (although it has long been fundamental to our inherited ideas) is for us men a piece of ‘revealed ethic,’ according to faith and not the flesh. The essence of a fallen world is that the best cannot be attained by free enjoyment, or by what is called “self-realization” (usually a nice name for self-indulgence, wholly inimical to the realization of other selves); but by denial, by suffering. Faithfulness in Christian marriages entails that: great mortification.
For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify and direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains. It will not satisfy him—as hunger may be kept off by regular meals. It will offer as many difficulties to the purity proper to that state as it provides easements.
No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial. Too few are told that—even those brought up in ‘the Church’. Those outside seem seldom to have heard it.
When the glamour wears off, or merely works a bit thin, they think that they have made a mistake, and that the real soul-mate is still to find. The real soul-mate too often proves to be the next sexually attractive person that comes along. Someone whom they might indeed very profitably have married, if only—. Hence divorce, to provide the ‘if only’.
And of course they are as a rule quite right: they did make a mistake. Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgement concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably have married! Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the ‘real soul-mate’ is the one you are actually married to. In this fallen world, we have as our only guides, prudence, wisdom (rare in youth, too late in age), a clean heart, and fidelity of will…
source
(Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, pp. 51-52)
https://bibliothecaveneficae.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/the_letters_of_j.rrtolkien.pdf
•More:
https://t.me/ecceverbum/536
#marriage
Men are not [monogamous]. No good pretending. Men just ain’t, not by their animal nature. Monogamy (although it has long been fundamental to our inherited ideas) is for us men a piece of ‘revealed ethic,’ according to faith and not the flesh. The essence of a fallen world is that the best cannot be attained by free enjoyment, or by what is called “self-realization” (usually a nice name for self-indulgence, wholly inimical to the realization of other selves); but by denial, by suffering. Faithfulness in Christian marriages entails that: great mortification.
For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify and direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains. It will not satisfy him—as hunger may be kept off by regular meals. It will offer as many difficulties to the purity proper to that state as it provides easements.
No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial. Too few are told that—even those brought up in ‘the Church’. Those outside seem seldom to have heard it.
When the glamour wears off, or merely works a bit thin, they think that they have made a mistake, and that the real soul-mate is still to find. The real soul-mate too often proves to be the next sexually attractive person that comes along. Someone whom they might indeed very profitably have married, if only—. Hence divorce, to provide the ‘if only’.
And of course they are as a rule quite right: they did make a mistake. Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgement concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably have married! Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the ‘real soul-mate’ is the one you are actually married to. In this fallen world, we have as our only guides, prudence, wisdom (rare in youth, too late in age), a clean heart, and fidelity of will…
source
(Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, pp. 51-52)
https://bibliothecaveneficae.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/the_letters_of_j.rrtolkien.pdf
•More:
https://t.me/ecceverbum/536
#marriage
Telegram
Ecce Verbum
On marital chastity
St. Augustine,"To the Married"
"Do not allow your husbands to fornicate! Hurl the Church herself against them! Obstruct them, not through the law courts, not through the proconsul . . . not even through the Emperor, but through Christ.... The wife has not authority over her body, but the husband. Why do men exult? Listen to what follows. The husband likewise has not authority over his body, but the wife.... Despise all things for love of your husband. But seek that he be chaste and call him to account if his chastity be amiss....
"Who would tolerate an adulterous wife? Is the woman enjoined to tolerate an adulterous husband? Those of you who are chaste women, however, do not imitate your wanton husbands. May this be far from you. May they either live with you or perish alone. A woman owes her modesty not to a wanton husband but to God and to Christ."
Notes
Augustine teaches that wives can call their husbands "to account" if they fail in chastity. He sees specific warrants for female authority in the area of chastity. Chastity is one of the three goods of marriage taught by Augustine. It, along with the goods of children and indissolubility, is of the essence of the marital bond.
The wife has authority to require her husband to live up to these, and her authority covers any of his spousal duties. Just as the husband. A wife is not only there to serve her spouse. A wife's vocation means she has the authority to call her spouse to serve her and their children in his vocation as husband and father. This is the true sense of male and female authority. Equality does not mean that the man and woman have the <same> responsibilities. They don't. But the man and the woman have an <equal> authority to lead each other to fulfill the vocations to which God has called them.
#marriage
St. Augustine,"To the Married"
"Do not allow your husbands to fornicate! Hurl the Church herself against them! Obstruct them, not through the law courts, not through the proconsul . . . not even through the Emperor, but through Christ.... The wife has not authority over her body, but the husband. Why do men exult? Listen to what follows. The husband likewise has not authority over his body, but the wife.... Despise all things for love of your husband. But seek that he be chaste and call him to account if his chastity be amiss....
"Who would tolerate an adulterous wife? Is the woman enjoined to tolerate an adulterous husband? Those of you who are chaste women, however, do not imitate your wanton husbands. May this be far from you. May they either live with you or perish alone. A woman owes her modesty not to a wanton husband but to God and to Christ."
Notes
Augustine teaches that wives can call their husbands "to account" if they fail in chastity. He sees specific warrants for female authority in the area of chastity. Chastity is one of the three goods of marriage taught by Augustine. It, along with the goods of children and indissolubility, is of the essence of the marital bond.
The wife has authority to require her husband to live up to these, and her authority covers any of his spousal duties. Just as the husband. A wife is not only there to serve her spouse. A wife's vocation means she has the authority to call her spouse to serve her and their children in his vocation as husband and father. This is the true sense of male and female authority. Equality does not mean that the man and woman have the <same> responsibilities. They don't. But the man and the woman have an <equal> authority to lead each other to fulfill the vocations to which God has called them.
#marriage
Ecce Verbum
The Vocation of Love "Love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being" (Familiaris Consortio, n. 11; also cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1604). The vocation to a particular way of life is a determination of this common…
Love and Responsibility (1).pdf
45.1 MB
Love and Responsibility
Karol Wojtyła
Karol Wojtyla has produced a remarkably eloquent and resourceful defense of Catholic tradition in the sphere of family life and sexual morality. He writes in the conviction that science--biology, psychology, sociology--can provide valuable information on particular aspects of relations between the sexes, but that a full understanding can be obtained only by study of the human person as a whole.
Central to his argument is the contrast between the personalistic and the utilitarian views of marriage and of sexual relations. The former views marriage as an interpersonal relationship, in which the well-being and self-realization of each partner are of overriding importance to the other. It is only within this framework that the full purpose of marriage can be realized. The alternative, utilitarian view, according to which a sexual partner is an object for use, holds no possibility of fulfillment and happiness.
#love #marriage
Karol Wojtyła
Karol Wojtyla has produced a remarkably eloquent and resourceful defense of Catholic tradition in the sphere of family life and sexual morality. He writes in the conviction that science--biology, psychology, sociology--can provide valuable information on particular aspects of relations between the sexes, but that a full understanding can be obtained only by study of the human person as a whole.
Central to his argument is the contrast between the personalistic and the utilitarian views of marriage and of sexual relations. The former views marriage as an interpersonal relationship, in which the well-being and self-realization of each partner are of overriding importance to the other. It is only within this framework that the full purpose of marriage can be realized. The alternative, utilitarian view, according to which a sexual partner is an object for use, holds no possibility of fulfillment and happiness.
#love #marriage
Ecce Verbum
Love and Responsibility (1).pdf
A person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use
John Paul II, Love and Responsibility
"Treating a person as a means to an end, and an end moreover which in this case is pleasure, the maximization of pleasure, will always stand in the way of love."
"...if desire is predominant it can deform love between man and woman and rob them both of it."
"'Love' in this utilitarian conception is a union of egoism, which can hold together only on condition that they confront each other with nothing unpleasant, nothing to conflict with their mutual pleasure. Therefore love so understood is self-evidently merely a pretense which has to be careful cultivated to keep the underlying reality hidden: the reality of egoism and the greediest kind of egoism at that, exploiting another person to obtain for itself its own 'maximum pleasure'. In such circumstances the other person is and remains only a means to an end..."
"Anyone who treats a person as a means to an end does violence to the very essence of the other, to what constitutes its natural right."
" Sin is a violation of the true good. For the true good in the love of man and woman is first of all the person, and not emotions for its own sake, still less pleasure as such. These are secondary goods, and love -- which is a durable union of persons -- cannot be built of them alone."
"The person—especially a woman—may be disillusioned by the fact that over time a man’s affection turns out to be only, so to speak, a cover for desire or even for an explicit will to use. Both a woman and a man may be disillusioned by the fact that the values attributed to the beloved person turn out to be fiction. Because of the dissonance between the ideal and the reality, affective love is sometimes not only extinguished but even transformed into affective hatred."
"It is impossible to put your trust in another human being knowing or feeling that his or her sole aim is utility or pleasure. It is equally impossible to put your trust in a person if you yourself, have the same thing as your main object."
"Persons on the path to love feel "sympathy" for one another - they experience the feelings of the other. They also need to become friends, who want what is good for the other. And finally all this lead to a free decision to enter into betrothed love - "the giving of one's own person (to another)." Because the gift is reciprocal, because it is based on a unification of the persons on the basis of attraction, desire, goodwill, sympathy, and friendship, and because they give themselves freely to each other, the two are able to become one without either becoming a object of possession or use by the other.
Once they have become one in all these aspects and one by a decision of their wills, only then do they have a right to become one flesh, only then are they ready to accept together joint permanent responsibility for a potential new life, the fruit of their union, and to commit to care for each other not just when it is pleasurable but in sickness and in health, for richer, for poor, till death"
"Friendship, as has been said, consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person’s good."
Read more:
Love and Sexual Revolution
The phenomenon of shame and its interpretation
Thomas Aquinas on marriage
The greatest of friendships
#love #marriage
John Paul II, Love and Responsibility
"Treating a person as a means to an end, and an end moreover which in this case is pleasure, the maximization of pleasure, will always stand in the way of love."
"...if desire is predominant it can deform love between man and woman and rob them both of it."
"'Love' in this utilitarian conception is a union of egoism, which can hold together only on condition that they confront each other with nothing unpleasant, nothing to conflict with their mutual pleasure. Therefore love so understood is self-evidently merely a pretense which has to be careful cultivated to keep the underlying reality hidden: the reality of egoism and the greediest kind of egoism at that, exploiting another person to obtain for itself its own 'maximum pleasure'. In such circumstances the other person is and remains only a means to an end..."
"Anyone who treats a person as a means to an end does violence to the very essence of the other, to what constitutes its natural right."
" Sin is a violation of the true good. For the true good in the love of man and woman is first of all the person, and not emotions for its own sake, still less pleasure as such. These are secondary goods, and love -- which is a durable union of persons -- cannot be built of them alone."
"The person—especially a woman—may be disillusioned by the fact that over time a man’s affection turns out to be only, so to speak, a cover for desire or even for an explicit will to use. Both a woman and a man may be disillusioned by the fact that the values attributed to the beloved person turn out to be fiction. Because of the dissonance between the ideal and the reality, affective love is sometimes not only extinguished but even transformed into affective hatred."
"It is impossible to put your trust in another human being knowing or feeling that his or her sole aim is utility or pleasure. It is equally impossible to put your trust in a person if you yourself, have the same thing as your main object."
"Persons on the path to love feel "sympathy" for one another - they experience the feelings of the other. They also need to become friends, who want what is good for the other. And finally all this lead to a free decision to enter into betrothed love - "the giving of one's own person (to another)." Because the gift is reciprocal, because it is based on a unification of the persons on the basis of attraction, desire, goodwill, sympathy, and friendship, and because they give themselves freely to each other, the two are able to become one without either becoming a object of possession or use by the other.
Once they have become one in all these aspects and one by a decision of their wills, only then do they have a right to become one flesh, only then are they ready to accept together joint permanent responsibility for a potential new life, the fruit of their union, and to commit to care for each other not just when it is pleasurable but in sickness and in health, for richer, for poor, till death"
"Friendship, as has been said, consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person’s good."
Read more:
Love and Sexual Revolution
The phenomenon of shame and its interpretation
Thomas Aquinas on marriage
The greatest of friendships
#love #marriage
Telegram
Ecce Verbum
Love and Responsibility
Karol Wojtyła
Karol Wojtyla has produced a remarkably eloquent and resourceful defense of Catholic tradition in the sphere of family life and sexual morality. He writes in the conviction that science--biology, psychology, sociology…
Karol Wojtyła
Karol Wojtyla has produced a remarkably eloquent and resourceful defense of Catholic tradition in the sphere of family life and sexual morality. He writes in the conviction that science--biology, psychology, sociology…
Ecce Verbum
devout_life.pdf
The virtue of devotion in the married state
Introduction to the Devout Life, page 204
Francis de Sales
"It is said in Genesis (chap. xxv. 21), that Isaac seeing his wife Rebecca barren, prayed to the Lord for her, or, according to the Hebrew, prayed to the Lord over against her, because the one prayed on the one side of the oratory, and the other on the other; so the prayer of the husband, made in this manner, was heard. Such union as this of the husband and wife, in holy devotion, is the greatest and most fruitful of all; and to this they ought mutually to encourage and to draw each other."
"There are fruits like the quince, which on account of the harshness of their juice, are not agreeable except when they are preserved with sugar; there are others, which, because of their tenderness cannot be long kept, unless they are preserved in like manner, such as cherries and apricots; thus wives ought to wish that their husbands should be preserved with the sugar of devotion; for a man without devotion is a kind of animal, severe, harsh, and rough. And husbands ought to wish that their wives should be devout, because without devotion a woman is very frail, and subject to fall from, or to become weak in virtue."
"St. Paul says: “That the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband;” because, in this strict alliance of marriage, the one may draw the other to virtue; but what a blessing is it, when the man and wife being both believers, sanctify each other in the true fear of God.
"As to the rest: the mutual bearing with one another ought to be so great, that they should never be both angry with each other at the same time, nor suddenly, to the end that there should never be a division or contention seen between them."
#marriage
Introduction to the Devout Life, page 204
Francis de Sales
"It is said in Genesis (chap. xxv. 21), that Isaac seeing his wife Rebecca barren, prayed to the Lord for her, or, according to the Hebrew, prayed to the Lord over against her, because the one prayed on the one side of the oratory, and the other on the other; so the prayer of the husband, made in this manner, was heard. Such union as this of the husband and wife, in holy devotion, is the greatest and most fruitful of all; and to this they ought mutually to encourage and to draw each other."
"There are fruits like the quince, which on account of the harshness of their juice, are not agreeable except when they are preserved with sugar; there are others, which, because of their tenderness cannot be long kept, unless they are preserved in like manner, such as cherries and apricots; thus wives ought to wish that their husbands should be preserved with the sugar of devotion; for a man without devotion is a kind of animal, severe, harsh, and rough. And husbands ought to wish that their wives should be devout, because without devotion a woman is very frail, and subject to fall from, or to become weak in virtue."
"St. Paul says: “That the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband;” because, in this strict alliance of marriage, the one may draw the other to virtue; but what a blessing is it, when the man and wife being both believers, sanctify each other in the true fear of God.
"As to the rest: the mutual bearing with one another ought to be so great, that they should never be both angry with each other at the same time, nor suddenly, to the end that there should never be a division or contention seen between them."
#marriage
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Ecce Verbum
The Introduction to the Devout Life
by St Francis of Sales
by St Francis of Sales
theology_of_the_body (1).pdf
2.5 MB
The Redemption of the Body
and Sacramentality of Marriage
John Paul II
A series of 129 lectures given between 1979 and 1984, which answer the questions of what it means that we were created in the image of God; why we were created male and female; the marital union of a man and woman in God's plan; the purpose of the married and celibate vocations; purity and chastity
"The human body includes right from the beginning... the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift – and by means of this gift – fulfills the meaning of his being and existence.”
His reflections are based on Scripture and contain a vision of the human person truly worthy of man, they counteract societal trends which view the body as an object of pleasure or as a machine for manipulation.
Wojtyła’s way of thinking about love was inspired by the language of “gift of self ” found in St. John of the Cross, rooted in the relation of love between the Persons of the Holy Trinity.
Summarising notes
#marriage #love
and Sacramentality of Marriage
John Paul II
A series of 129 lectures given between 1979 and 1984, which answer the questions of what it means that we were created in the image of God; why we were created male and female; the marital union of a man and woman in God's plan; the purpose of the married and celibate vocations; purity and chastity
"The human body includes right from the beginning... the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift – and by means of this gift – fulfills the meaning of his being and existence.”
His reflections are based on Scripture and contain a vision of the human person truly worthy of man, they counteract societal trends which view the body as an object of pleasure or as a machine for manipulation.
Wojtyła’s way of thinking about love was inspired by the language of “gift of self ” found in St. John of the Cross, rooted in the relation of love between the Persons of the Holy Trinity.
Summarising notes
#marriage #love
Ecce Verbum
theology_of_the_body (1).pdf
Adultery vs the ethos of the Gospel
notes based on The Redemption of the Body
and Sacramentality of Marriage, John Paul II
1)"For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so" (Mt 19:8). 'Hardness of heart' indicates what, according to the ethos of the people of the Old Testament, had brought about the situation contrary to the original plan of God.
"Hardness of heart"-The Greek term sklerokardía was formed by the authors of the Septuagint to express what in the Hebrew meant: "non-circumcision of the heart" (cf. e.g., Dt 10:16; Jer 4:4; Sir 3:26f.) and which, in the literal translation of the New Testament, appears only once (cf. Acts 7:51). Non-circumcision meant "paganism," "immodesty," "distance from the covenant with God"; "non-circumcision of the heart" expressed unyielding obstinacy in opposing God. This is confirmed by the exclamation of the deacon Stephen: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7:51).
source
2) John 2:16-17: "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever." In these three forms of lust there fructifies the breaking of the first covenant with the Creator. The heart is affected by lust, but this inner being of man also decides exterior human behavior. No study of human ethos can ignore the interior dimension.
source
3) Over the centuries the authentic content of the Law was subjected to the weaknesses of the human will. Jesus speaks more precisely about a certain human interpretation of the law, which negates and does away with the correct meaning of right and wrong as specified by the will of the divine legislator. Christ desires such justice to be "superior to that of the scribes and Pharisees, which was a casuistic interpretation, superimposed on the original version of right and wrong connected with the law of the Decalogue. If Christ tends to transform the ethos, he does so mainly to recover the fundamental clarity of the interpretation: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill" (Mt 5:17).
It is confirmed by the books of the Bible in which we find the Old Testament legislation fully recorded as a whole. If we consider the letter of such legislation, we find that it takes a stand against adultery, using radical means, including the death penalty (cf. Lv 20:10; Dt 22:22). It does so, however, by effectively supporting polygamy, even fully legalizing it. Adultery is not understood as it appears from the point of view of monogamy as established by the Creator.
source
source
4) Christ talks about adultery committed in the heart, in contraposition to adultery committed in the body. Sirach 23:17-22 talked about the incessant fire that will consume a lustful man — his passions and then his heart, suffocating conscience. Giving in to the passion doesn’t extinguish it, but makes it stronger until it kills man’s spirit. Lust separates the body from its real meaning as the basis of communion. Lust in the heart obscures the significance of the body and the person. ”Man’s original desire “for” the other is distorted; he becomes a “taker” of the other, no longer a “giver to and for” the other.
source
5) Christ’s statement aims at constructing the new ethos of the Gospel and the rediscovery of those values lost by historical man. Christ wants the heart to be a place for the fulfillment of the law. The commandments must be kept in “purity of heart.” He wants to remove lust from the relationship between man and woman so that, in purity of heart, the nuptial meaning of the body and the person can shine in mutual self-giving and sacramental unity.
source
Adultery committed in the heart can and must be understood as “devaluation,” or as the impoverishment of an authentic value
#marriage #chastity #love
notes based on The Redemption of the Body
and Sacramentality of Marriage, John Paul II
1)"For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so" (Mt 19:8). 'Hardness of heart' indicates what, according to the ethos of the people of the Old Testament, had brought about the situation contrary to the original plan of God.
"Hardness of heart"-The Greek term sklerokardía was formed by the authors of the Septuagint to express what in the Hebrew meant: "non-circumcision of the heart" (cf. e.g., Dt 10:16; Jer 4:4; Sir 3:26f.) and which, in the literal translation of the New Testament, appears only once (cf. Acts 7:51). Non-circumcision meant "paganism," "immodesty," "distance from the covenant with God"; "non-circumcision of the heart" expressed unyielding obstinacy in opposing God. This is confirmed by the exclamation of the deacon Stephen: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7:51).
source
2) John 2:16-17: "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever." In these three forms of lust there fructifies the breaking of the first covenant with the Creator. The heart is affected by lust, but this inner being of man also decides exterior human behavior. No study of human ethos can ignore the interior dimension.
source
3) Over the centuries the authentic content of the Law was subjected to the weaknesses of the human will. Jesus speaks more precisely about a certain human interpretation of the law, which negates and does away with the correct meaning of right and wrong as specified by the will of the divine legislator. Christ desires such justice to be "superior to that of the scribes and Pharisees, which was a casuistic interpretation, superimposed on the original version of right and wrong connected with the law of the Decalogue. If Christ tends to transform the ethos, he does so mainly to recover the fundamental clarity of the interpretation: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill" (Mt 5:17).
It is confirmed by the books of the Bible in which we find the Old Testament legislation fully recorded as a whole. If we consider the letter of such legislation, we find that it takes a stand against adultery, using radical means, including the death penalty (cf. Lv 20:10; Dt 22:22). It does so, however, by effectively supporting polygamy, even fully legalizing it. Adultery is not understood as it appears from the point of view of monogamy as established by the Creator.
source
source
4) Christ talks about adultery committed in the heart, in contraposition to adultery committed in the body. Sirach 23:17-22 talked about the incessant fire that will consume a lustful man — his passions and then his heart, suffocating conscience. Giving in to the passion doesn’t extinguish it, but makes it stronger until it kills man’s spirit. Lust separates the body from its real meaning as the basis of communion. Lust in the heart obscures the significance of the body and the person. ”Man’s original desire “for” the other is distorted; he becomes a “taker” of the other, no longer a “giver to and for” the other.
source
5) Christ’s statement aims at constructing the new ethos of the Gospel and the rediscovery of those values lost by historical man. Christ wants the heart to be a place for the fulfillment of the law. The commandments must be kept in “purity of heart.” He wants to remove lust from the relationship between man and woman so that, in purity of heart, the nuptial meaning of the body and the person can shine in mutual self-giving and sacramental unity.
source
Adultery committed in the heart can and must be understood as “devaluation,” or as the impoverishment of an authentic value
#marriage #chastity #love
The meaning of marriage
A Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain speaking of love and his wife Raissa
excerpts taken from "Notebooks", ch.7 Love and Friendship
“The love of which I am speaking here is above all a disinterested love. It is not necessarily mad, boundless love; but it is necessarily and primordially a love of devotion and of friendship–that entirely unique friendship between spouses one of whose essential ends is the spiritual companionship between the man and the woman in order to help each other accomplish their destiny here on earth, and it is thus a love …which is truly in the measure of man, and in which the soul as well as the senses are involved, so that in this love, in which desire is there with all its power, disinterestedness really takes precedence over covetousness.”(p.243)
“It is through it [conjugal love] that marriage can be between man and woman a true community of love, built not on sand, but on rock, because it is built on genuinely human, not animal, and genuinely spiritual, genuinely personal love-through the hard discipline of self-sacrifice and by dint of renouncements and purifications. Then in a free and unceasing ebb and flow of emotion, feeling and thought, each one really participates, by virtue of love, in that personal life of the other which is, by nature, the other’s incommunicable possession.”(p.244)
“And then each one may become a sort of guardian Angel for the other–prepared, as guardian angels have to be, to forgive the other a great deal, in short, a being really dedicated to the good and salvation of the other, and consenting to be entrusted with the revelation of, and the care for, all that the other is in his or her deepest human depths.”(p.244)
#marriage
A Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain speaking of love and his wife Raissa
excerpts taken from "Notebooks", ch.7 Love and Friendship
“The love of which I am speaking here is above all a disinterested love. It is not necessarily mad, boundless love; but it is necessarily and primordially a love of devotion and of friendship–that entirely unique friendship between spouses one of whose essential ends is the spiritual companionship between the man and the woman in order to help each other accomplish their destiny here on earth, and it is thus a love …which is truly in the measure of man, and in which the soul as well as the senses are involved, so that in this love, in which desire is there with all its power, disinterestedness really takes precedence over covetousness.”(p.243)
“It is through it [conjugal love] that marriage can be between man and woman a true community of love, built not on sand, but on rock, because it is built on genuinely human, not animal, and genuinely spiritual, genuinely personal love-through the hard discipline of self-sacrifice and by dint of renouncements and purifications. Then in a free and unceasing ebb and flow of emotion, feeling and thought, each one really participates, by virtue of love, in that personal life of the other which is, by nature, the other’s incommunicable possession.”(p.244)
“And then each one may become a sort of guardian Angel for the other–prepared, as guardian angels have to be, to forgive the other a great deal, in short, a being really dedicated to the good and salvation of the other, and consenting to be entrusted with the revelation of, and the care for, all that the other is in his or her deepest human depths.”(p.244)
#marriage
Ecce Verbum
A person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use John Paul II, Love and Responsibility "Treating a person as a means to an end, and an end moreover which in this case is pleasure, the maximization of pleasure, will…
Karol_Wojtyla_THE_JEWELER’S_SHOP_A_Meditation_on_the_Sacrament_of.pdf
5.9 MB
The Jeweler's Shop: a meditation on the sacrament of matrimony passing on occasion into a drama
Karol Wojtyła
A three-act play, written in 1960, that looks at three couples as their lives become intertwined with one another.
Each act focuses on a different couple: the first happily planning their wedding, the second long-married and unhappy, the third about to marry but full of doubts. The acts focusing on each couple are tied together by encounters with the Jeweler, whose store seems supernaturally attuned to the truth of marriage.
This is a play full of wisdom on a subject of great relevance to all- love, meditating on the ways we look for God in one another.
Wojtyła has long been involved with the theater. As a student of literature, then priest, bishop and archbishop, he acted, directed, wrote dramatic criticism, made a Polish translation of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, and has authored six plays.
#marriage
Karol Wojtyła
A three-act play, written in 1960, that looks at three couples as their lives become intertwined with one another.
Each act focuses on a different couple: the first happily planning their wedding, the second long-married and unhappy, the third about to marry but full of doubts. The acts focusing on each couple are tied together by encounters with the Jeweler, whose store seems supernaturally attuned to the truth of marriage.
This is a play full of wisdom on a subject of great relevance to all- love, meditating on the ways we look for God in one another.
Wojtyła has long been involved with the theater. As a student of literature, then priest, bishop and archbishop, he acted, directed, wrote dramatic criticism, made a Polish translation of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, and has authored six plays.
#marriage