Many young people think this when leaving the church after the wedding ceremony: “We’re finally married, the goal was achieved, everything was finished – now we have the full right to enjoy ourselves!”
They do not understand that all this is just the beginning; they are not at their destination, but at the starting point. They don’t know that they have to renew their marriage every day to really “become one”. They do not realize that they will disappoint each other very quickly if they do not endow themselves with love anchored in God and only by God – infinitely.
When you drive a speeding car, will you dare release the steering wheel and accelerator pedal – “because it is already going”?
No matter how long your marriage lasts, you are not yet completely united, and you will never really be. You have to get married every day again.
To marry means to accept and unite each other on three levels of existence: at the level of bodily affairs, on the plane of emotional life and on the spiritual plane. Don’t try to play the role of an angel or an animal. Be human!
A table must stand on its legs if it is to be useful. A bike without wheels would not be a complete bicycle, and a roof must rest on the walls of the house. Also, you must take into account the hierarchy of values of your being, otherwise your marriage will not have good foundations and will not be balanced. If you let your sensual love run free – you can’t make it a gift for you beloved. If what is bodily, sensual, is not imbued with spirit, it always turns to itself as a goal; it only seeks its own satisfaction. If you want to love, your body must be subject to spirit, and God’s grace must dwell in your soul.
The only meaning of a kiss is to be a sign of love. In it you confess: “I miss being involved with you, I want to be a gift for you, I want to entrust myself to you”. Sexual devotion is then fully human, if it is a free gift of love, conscious and voluntarily taken and open to bestow on the third person, the child. In his manifestation, the child negates selfishness and sole motivation due to pleasure.
To be able to give yourself, you must be in full control of yourself; you must own your body, you must govern your heart, you must control your spirit. You will never be able to stop conquering yourself, and that is giving of yourself, which means loving. There will never be an end to your getting married.
It is not easy to not save for yourself anything from your body, your heart, your spirit. It is not easy to love in full reality. But you have your whole life to help each other develop your love.
Ever since human nature has been hurt by sin, it has been governed by a desire to possess that drives it to appropriate things and people. It resists when we want to give anything away. For us to become capable of love, we needed the grace of redemption.
There will always be a cross at a turning point in your love. Christ will call you from this cross to unite with Himself. When you manage to die to yourself, you will enter into His death with Him and He will take you into His Resurrection. You will meet a lot in your life of human couples going hand in hand – because the bodies are quick to desire one another.
Much less often will you be able to meet those that walk through life bound at the heart – because it is much more difficult to maintain mutual tenderness and cordiality. Very rarely will you meet a human couple with a deeply relationship – because only a few can achieve soul marriage. Human souls joined in marriage are those who live their thoughts, feelings, impressions, all that life gives them, all hesitation, regrets, plans, dreams, joys, disappointments – all their inner life and maturation of the deepest trust. It is the souls who draw from the source of “living water,” and strengthened by this grace, that discern their decisions with the right mind, formed on the truth of the Gospel and doing the will of God as their highest standard of conduct.
Married souls who follow the same path serve the brethren. They meet God together; in the shape of two hands folded for prayer.
