Celebrations following the wedding should be befitting the majesty of that holy sacrament. It is inappropriate for the married couple, after having acquired the blessings of this great Rite, to open the doors wide for Satan, disinviting God. What kind of marriage would we expect, if its first night consists of an invitation to Satan, replete with dancing, alcohol consumption, etc…)? It is impossible to assert that God will be present in such a marriage.
Wedding celebrations used to abound in the days of St. John Chrysostom, which led him to warn us in no uncertain terms against inappropriate celebrations. There is nothing to prevent us from rejoicing in a holy, spiritual way; our wedding celebrations should be appropriate for children of God.
I’d like us to ask ourselves: “If an invitation were sent to Christ, the holy virgin and the apostles to come to the celebration, would they attend?” If their answer is negative, and they will not attend, I ask, “Who, then, will attend? Will this marriage be successful if, at the outset, we have distanced Christ, the holy virgin and the apostles?”
It is imperative that we preserve the sanctity of the Rite of Matrimony; the more our starting point is sound, the more this is reflected in the life of the married couple.
—Bishop Youssef, Marriage: Vow or Contract?
Category: MARRIAGE
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God has granted us a vow in marriage in order to instill within us trust and the feeling of security in marriage. Entering into a relationship with the feeling that it could end anytime breeds mistrust and feelings of insecurity in that marriage; on the other hand, ensuring that the relationship is firmly founded and not susceptible to change yields the opposite effect.
—Bishop Youssef, Marriage: Vow or Contract? -
“The Father looked down from heaven, and found that man had defiled one of His most important works: marriage. Whereas God’s intent was that marriage embody cooperation, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” (Genesis 2:18), many spouses hate each other, to the extent that many have caused their partners to fall into sin, rather than cooperating with them to do good. For this reason, not every husband accompanies his wife down the road towards the Cross, so that they may learn from the true Groom – Who offered His bride’s dowry – the real meaning of a holy and eternal bond; this is the bond which ties Christ to His Church, and this is the bond on which is founded the absolute love, from which the man and his wife drink to lead a loving life together.”
— St. AugustineBishop Youssef, Marriage: Vow Or Contract?
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Every Sunday I get to see the person I love, and then go home with the person I’m married to.
Sunday Confessions: 1-28-24 -
In Albert Camus’s novel The Fall (1956), Clamence reflects to a stranger:
I knew a man who gave 20 years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life, and who one evening recognised that he had never loved her. He had been bored, that’s all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen – and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen, even loveless slavery, even war or death.
BOREDOM IS BUT A WINDOW TO A SUNNY DAY BEYOND THE GLOOM -
Saint Luke associated sorrows with the personal Cross which we have to shoulder in our life and which distinguishes the way of Christ from other ways of living. He says, typically, in one of his sermons: ‘Our life, the life of each person, is sorrow and pain. All these sorrows in our social and family life are our Cross. A failed marriage, an unfortunate choice of profession, don’t they bring us pain and sorrow? Shouldn’t people who’ve suffered these calamities have to bear them bravely? Serious illnesses, contempt, dishonour, loss of personal wealth, jealousy between spouses, slander and, in general, all the wickedness that people do to us, aren’t they all our Cross? That’s exactly what our Cross is, the Cross of the vast majority of people. These are the sorrows that afflict people and we have to bear them, even though most people don’t want to. But even people who hate Christ and refuse to follow His way, they, too, have to shoulder their own Cross of pain. What’s the difference between them and Christians? The difference is that Christians shoulder the Cross with patience and don’t complain against God. Humbly, with eyes cast down, they bear it to the end of their lives, following the Lord Jesus Christ. They do it for Christ and His Gospel, they do it for fervent love of Him, but the whole of their thought is caught up in the Gospel teaching.
—St. Luke the Surgeon -
The purpose of Christian marriage is for people to reach unselfish love and to cut off their own will, and thence to reach God.
+St. John Chrysostom -
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves -
Most married people did not marry on the proper bases. Consequently, they suffer regret for having married. Unable to confront themselves with this fact, they enter into an unconscious psychological trick, called denial, i.e., denying the suffering of regret. Having convinced themselves that a troublesome marriage is better than living a single life, they strive to comfort and console themselves.
When such people meet a happy unmarried person, they get disturbed by their status which shakes and threatens the foundation supporting their views and arouses the feeling of regret for their situation. Such an unhappily married person may, in an aggressive and hastening manner, start pressuring the single person to marry. They support their contention with some weak and unconvincing arguments such as:
“Marriage is the rule of life. Everyone should marry. Our fathers and grandfathers told us that everybody should marry, etc”
I Have No One: The Problem with Delayed Marriage
Dr. Niveen Adel Sadek
SO GOOD QUOTES 