Praising God – the goal of marriage unity
“You are blessed, O God of our fathers; blessed too is your name for ever and ever. Let the heavens bless you and all things you have made for evermore.
You it was who created Adam, you who created Eve his wife to be his help and support; and from these two the human race was born. You it was who said, ‘It is not right that the man should be alone; let us make him a helper like him.’
And so I take my sister not for any lustful motive, but I do it in singleness of heart. Be kind enough to have pity on her and on me and bring us to old age together. ” Tb 8: 5-7
The body, thoughts, emotions, will, feelings, abilities – they are the works and gifts of the Creator, “since it is in him that we live, and move.” (Acts 17:28 ) Within ourselves, each one of us can achieve this special encounter, spending time with God, through the acting of our faith. It is necessary to learn how to pass over the threshold of the temple within ourselves, where the eternity of the spirit is hidden. It is a monumental task and a mystery; it is a state, in which only a spiritual person can understand how “so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony.” Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,”(Eph 5:21) and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love. In the joys of their love and family life he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb: .”(CCC 1642)
When the young man Tobiah was to marry his wife Sarah, the accompanying angel Raphael instructed him, that his first thought before uniting with her would be to direct his prayers to God and glorify Him. Only this type of stance – praise of God – is the opening of the marriage no the correct direction towards salvation of both partners. The abundance of the sacramental streams of grace flowing upon the married couple should lead them in unceasing chorus like Tobiah, “let all heavens and all your creatures praise you for all ages.” This is the highlighting of the most important direction of their further path.
How to begin?
It is best to start by looking in the mirror and to look at some photographs form the past. It will show us how quickly the time that is given to us by God passes. We must not delude ourselves – every tick of the clock counts down to the time of our lives’ reckoning. We will find ourselves in only two possible groups – those who won or those who lost their eternity. We do not have much time to complete this journey, but only for its duration can we collect the fruits necessary, about which Christ will ask us.
It also is necessary to examine the fundamental truth: neither your husband, nor your wife, nor your children are your possessions – not even you are your own possession – although you right now can decide some things about yourself… “He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers — all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together and he is the Head of the Body, that is, the Church. He is the Beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way; because God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through his death on the cross.
(Col 1:15-20)
The main goal of your family life is neither gaining of social status, fame, power or the collection of wealth, nor is it any sort of state or thing of passing nature, but the realization that our salvation and working to save others is the only and final call of the family, and the real giving of glory to God. This attitude begets a necessary humility, a state of the soul, where only then can we enter into ourselves. “Humility is fundamental to spiritual life, because this is its beginning.”(Cardinal George Basil Hume) “Humility is not only the condition for authenticity and the realness of each virtue, but also the condition necessary for the Transformation in Christ. But it in itself has great value, for it gives the person an extraordinary beauty.” (Dietrich von Hildebrand)
Roman Harmata
