“Among the traits of a Christian […] he must not be a glutton, he must not love the world, and he must not be a womanizer; rather, he should marry one woman.”
— St. Basil the Great
Bishop 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 -
If you are not yet married, you are in a better position and more fortunate than someone who has made a wrong choice and is suffering from a wrong marital bond. Such a person has exhausted the only life-time marriage opportunity, unlike you, who still has the chance to be bonded with the appropriate person, even if the chance has been delayed.
“Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” (Habakkuk 2:3)
I Have No One: The Problem with Delayed Marriage
Dr. Niveen Adel Sadek -
Naturally, when he comes to choose a partner, he will take to account his parents’ opinion. How often have parents felt knives piercing their hearts when their children don’t ask them about the person who will be their companion in life? A mother’s heart is sensitive, and can’t endure such a blow. The child should discuss matters with his parents, because they have a special intuition enabling them to be aware of the things which concern them.
—Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Mount Athos, Marriage: The Great Sacrament, A Sermon delivered in the Church of St. Nicholas, Trikala, Greece, 17 January, 1971 -
The message that the Lord is sending our way is the following, there might be a lion in your life, threatening your spiritual and eternal life, and the physical desires of your body could be very strong in your life; however, if you submit to God, His Spirit will come upon you just like Samson, and you will be able to slaughter that lion which is threatening your eternal life. Not only will you kill the lion, but also honey could come forth out of it, and you could then say along with Samson:
“Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet.” Judges 14:14) The physical desires, which are ruining your life, could thus be transformed into a relationship of love with God, similar to St. Augustine.
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Do not seek excuses, saying that the physical desires are very strong; what should you do if your instincts are too strong to control? Submit to the Spirit of God; as the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and enabled him to overpower the lion, and as St. Augustine was able to control his desires, so shall you, and you will be able to kill that lion which is threatening your spiritual life as well as your eternal life.
CHOOSE YOUR SPOUSE
BISHOP YOUSSEF
SO GOOD QUOTES 