CHRIST IN THE HOME

BY RAOUL PLUS, S.J.

a Translation from the French

FREDERICK PUSTET CO., INC. Publishers NEW YORK AND

CINCINNATI

Nihil Obstat:

JOHN M. A. FEARNS, S.T.D., Censor Librorum

Imprimatur:

+FRANCIS CARDINAL SPELLMAN,

Archbishop of New York

New York, June 19, 1951

The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that

a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No

implication is contained therein that those who have granted

the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur agree with the contents,

opinions or statements expressed.

COPYRIGHT, 1951, IN UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN

BY FREDERICIC BUSTET CO., INC. Third Printing Printed in

U.S.A. Biblical Quotations have been checked with the

Confraternity Edition of the New Testament and the Douay

Version of the Old Testament.

TO JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH

THE HOLY FAMILY

THAT THEY MAY OBTAIN

FOR THE WORLD

THE GRACE OF MANY FAMILIES

WHO KEEP

CHRIST IN THE HOME

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

INTRODUCTORY READINGS

The Saint of Modern Times

Sanctity of the Laity

Fantasy or Sacred Duty

My Personal Vocation

What Kind of Soul Am I?

MARRIAGE

Before Embarking (1)

Before Embarking (2)

Requisites for a Happy Marriage

A Proposal

The End of Love?

One Only Being

Love

The Palace of Chance

Infinity Promised

The Nuptial Liturgy

The Wedding Day

Total Union

The Four Bonds of Conjugal Union

Life Together Is Difficult

Loving Each Other In God

Supernatural Love

United Striving for Sanctity

Ideals for Marriage

One Heart, One Soul

Marriage and the Bible (1)

Man Born of Slime

Some Feminine Traits

Marriage and the Bible (2)

Conjugal Duty

Motherhood

Is Birth-Control Permissible?

Why Have a Large Family?

The Bell of Life

The Impossibility of Having Children?

The Only Child

Christ and Marriage

Marriage and Baptism

Respect in Love

Marriage and the Mystical Body

Mutual Devotedness

Woman's Superiority

The Boss in the House

Marriage and the Eucharist (1)

Marriage and the Eucharist (2)

Strange Profanation

Marriage and the Eucharist (3)

Marriage and Sacrifice

A Mystic Moral Bond

A Father's Answer to His Daughter

Transported Together

Single Though Two

Marriage and the Priesthood (1)

Marriage and the Priesthood (2)

Masculine Treason

Marriage and the Counsels (1)

Marriage and the Counsels (2)

Marriage and Vows

The Social Ideal

THE HOME

Great Adventurers

The Psalm of Young Mothers

Up to Date

Paternal Solicitude

The Family

Heredity

Parental Responsibility

The Family Spirit

"The Whole Sea"

Homelife

The Family Table

Strange Profanation

A Christian Setting

Judicious Economy

The Providential Role of Insecurity

The Snuffbox

Estranged Parents

The Womanly Ideal

Her Husband's Helper

Good Sense

Women and Education

Endurance

Unbearable Husbands

Unbearable Wives

The Counsels of Madame Elizabeth

Woman, The Strength of Man

Is Genius Celibate?

The Power of a Smile

A Devastating Disposition

Man's Virtues versus Woman's Virtues

Man's Fidelity

A Wife with Character

Praiseworthy Vanity

A Director's Counsels

Friendly Argument

Feminine Faults

The Psychology of a Mother

Courageous Mothers

Courageous Fathers

A Mother's Zeal

Domestic Help

Love Out of Bounds

The Folly of Love Out of Bounds

The Prayer of the Married

Prayer Together

Prayer for Each Other

Marriage and a Life of Prayer

Choice Graces

TRAINING

The First Years

Love for Children

From Three to Five

The Art of Giving Children Faults

The Untimely Laugh

Love versus Maternal Instinct

Training in Obedience

Children Who Command

Training in Docility

Intelligence and Firmness in a Mother

Picture Study

Impartiality

Difficulties of Christian Education

Supernatural Mothers

Education to the Supernatural (1)

Education to the Supernatural (2)

Education to the Supernatural (3)

Jesus and the Child

The Father Who Doesn't Pray

Table Prayers

Children and Christmas

Eucharistic Education (1)

Eucharistic Education (2)

Eucharistic Education (3)

Eucharistic Education (4)

Eucharistic Education (5)

Training to Purity (1)

Training to Purity (2)

Training to Purity (3)

Training to Purity (4)

Reading

Training of the Emotions

The Child and Laziness

Lazy Children

Training in Sincerity (1)

Training in Sincerity (2)

Training in Sincerity (3)

Honesty and Tact

Is Self-Accusation Obligatory?

Training to Confidence

All My Faith

Formation of Character (1)

Formation of Character (2)

Formation of Character (3)

Education in Reverse

Important Nevers

Training the Adolescent

Girls versus Boys (1)

Girls versus Boys (2)

A Father's Letter

Misunderstood Children

A Defaulting Father

A Mother to Her Son

Tick Tock

Training in Generosity

Mothers and Vocations

Priests in the Family

The Mother of a Saint

Parents of Saints

Training in Charity

Training in Social Responsibility (1)

Training in Social Responsibility (2)

Training in Social Responsibility (3)

Training in Social Responsibility (4)

The Family and the School

The Secularism of Christians

Family Affections

The Hierarchy of Duties

PREFACE

A HOME ruled by the spirit of Christ is a happy home. It is

also a school of virtue directed to spiritual transformation in

Christ.

But Christ does not force His entry into a home. He enters

only by invitation. He remains only when evidently welcome.

It is the wise bride and groom who let Him know by their

spiritual preparation for marriage that they want Him to

accompany them from the altar of their vows into the home

they are about to establish. It is the wise husband and wife

who let Him know they want Him always present by striving

to put on His mind and to establish their family according to

His principles.

In such a home, husband and wife and children will enjoy

gladness of heart, happiness in the fulfillment of duty, and

intense union of souls.

The strength and honor of the family come above all from

within, from union with Christ which gives power to manifest

in daily living the beautiful family virtues of patience,

energy, generosity, forbearance, cheerfulness, and mutual

reverence with their consequent effect of peace and

contentment.

This book is an invitation to the married or those about to

marry, to spend the interior effort required to unite them

solidly in Christ and to make them worthy transmitters of the

Christ-life to their family. It is an invitation to fulfill the high

purpose of their marriage which is to help each other to

sanctity and to rear saints for heaven; to possess Christ

themselves as completely as possible and to give Christ to

their children.

Now sanctity is the result of personal cooperation with grace.

It is no passive attainment. Equally true is it that spiritual

truths and principles merely known but not realized are of

little force in stimulating spiritual energy and effort.

Consequently this book of spiritual readings makes no

attempt to present fully developed meditations. It is not to be

a substitute for personal reflection and prayer. Its various

topics are presented as points of departure into deeper

realms of thought and prayer; by the personal following

through of the ideas offered, conviction and realization will

be achieved and lives transformed. A stronger bond of

communication will be established between the soul and God

resulting in real prayer and not prayers said. The affections

made will be the outpouring of the individual's response to

God and not someone else's pre-planned expression of what

that response ought to be.

The essential thing is to talk over the subjects with God. It is

important then to enter into His Presence before each reading

by a reverent act of recollection; to beg His light to see the

truth and His strength to act on conviction and realization. It

is important to see; it is more important to will.

The points offered for prayerful consideration are not meant

to carry the reader into the clouds of elevated speculation

and theory but rather to direct the soul to study prayerfully

the daily, common, routine elements of his life in order to lift

them out of possible monotony and deadening repetition into

the challenging and absorbing adventure of making them

divine.

This book in no way presumes to replace what should be for

all Christians the two essential meditation books--the Gospels

and the Missal. In fact, it presupposes that its readers are

Christians accustomed to live in the spirit of Our Lord's life

according to the rhythm of the liturgy. It endeavors to

provide variety and to bring into practical application some

of the lessons hidden in the Gospels or the Missal.

Of vital importance is it, no matter what the meditation book,

to draw from the little that one reads a maximum of

nourishment for the soul. That is not impossible. All one need

do is to beg God for His grace and to co-operate with the

grace that He gives.

Such a manifestation of good will is a sincere invitation to

Christ and a convincing proof that He is welcome in your life.

CHRIST WILL ENTER YOUR HOME

HE WILL REMAIN TO DWELL WITH YOU

INTRODUCTORY READINGS

THE SAINT OF MODERN TIMES

FORMERLY when people dreamed of sanctity or even of the

interior life, they aspired to one thing only--to get away from

the world, to go off to the desert, or at least to the priesthood

or the religious state. To become a saint in the world, to

acquire a true and profound union with God in the world, to

exercise oneself in the practice of complete abnegation, and

to pursue perfection in the world seemed scarcely possible.

People are beginning to realize better that there is such a

thing as sanctity in the world.

We honor those who follow a priestly vocation or a

consecrated life in religion. They have chosen the better part

which will not be taken from them.

But are we to conclude therefore that the laity, because they

live in the world, because they have entered the married

state, must be content with a cheaper view of perfection?

Must assume that the practice of the highest virtues is not for

them? That they may not aspire to divine union and the

secret joys of a valiant fidelity inspired by love?

Fortunately there are many who realize the falsity of such a

conclusion. Saint Francis de Sales challenged the laity to

strive for high sanctity.

"The world of today longs to contemplate the saint of modern

times who will take his place beside the ancient and

venerable figures of our history," observes Rademacher, the

author of "Religion and Life." "It demands the saintly man of

the world who unites harmoniously in his personality all the

aspects of a noble humanism established on correct values,

entirely impregnated with a living faith, a strong love of God,

and a supple, joyous participation in the life of the Church....

There ought to be even now on this earth a type of saintly

employee, saintly merchant, saintly industrialist, saintly

peasant, saintly wife, saintly woman of Christian culture and

refinement. The saint's role in the world today is to be the

pioneer of the new family, of the new State, of the new

Society, of the new humanity, of the Kingdom of God which is

always new."

No profession is of itself an obstacle to holiness. No state of

life is an obstacle; and marriage, if rightly understood, not

only demands holiness but leads those who fulfill all its

requirements to true sanctity.

In trying to picture what the saint of the next centuries

should be, Foerster, a Protestant author, did not hesitate to

write: "Just as in former times the saint was characterized by

his courage to confess his faith and die a martyr, since he

held faith to be his highest ideal for which he must be willing

to suffer; just as the saint of the Middle Ages and even of our

own day, has been characterized by virginity, since then and

now, and especially in our times, it requires a struggle to

conquer many temptations to preserve personal purity; so

perhaps the saint of the centuries to come will be the perfect

wife or husband, since the vital ideal for which we should

willingly suffer today is the sacredness of marriage."

There is much truth in these words. It may be though that the

age of martyrs is not so far distant as the author would have

us believe. And consecrated virginity, thank God, continues

to hold a strong appeal for many souls. But is Foerster not

pathetically correct in stating that saints in married life, in

conjugal fidelity, are a crying need of our age to counteract

the attacks on the family and notably the attacks on the

indissolubility of marriage?

What thirst consumes me as I begin this book of spiritual

readings? Is it the thirst for sanctity? How far am I willing to

go?

Let me gauge the measure of my desire, of my sincerity.

SANCTITY OF THE LAITY

THE author of the so-called "Precepts of Contemporary

Philosophy" may have been trying to be witty when some

years before the war broke out in 1939 he wrote the following

comment on sanctity:

"Sanctity: An idolistic word no longer having any more than

historical interest. Civil and military society has preserved its

heroes; religious society has lost its saints or, if any more of

them remain, we no longer hear them mentioned.... The age

of great Christian fervor has indeed passed away.... Without

wanting to appear sacrilegious, I believe that the Catholic

faith would have difficulty finding martyrs thoroughly

convinced of their faith and ready to sacrifice themselves for

it even to death."

True, heroic virtue is rare and where it does exist, it makes so

little noise! How much real sanctity there is! Sanctity which

may never be officially canonized but real just the same: the

sanctity of a doctor who spends himself for the love of God

and for the suffering members of Christ without counting the

cost; the sanctity of a servant who lives her life of obedience

and continual renunciation humbly and in a supernatural

spirit--multiple types of sanctity, hidden and unknown but

effective and a delight to the Heart of God. We should of

course like to see sanctity more widespread, but we must not

deny what already exists.

Furthermore, opportunities for martyrdom are not of general

occurrence, and sanctity adorned by the martyr's palm is not

the only kind of sanctity. As Rene Bazin so truly wrote: "Men

do not seem to recognize the sacrifice of life unless it is

made all at once." Martyrdom by the little fires of hidden

fidelities constantly adhered to, of tormenting temptations

courageously and perseveringly repulsed, of the exact and

loving fulfillment of duties toward God and neighbor, of

prayer faithfully practiced despite disgust, aridity and the

pressure of work--is it not a martyrdom? Who can estimate

the value of its countless offerings which are not publicized

but which cost . . . and which count!

The amount of sanctity in the world today is not the essential

problem; the important question is how much there ought to

be, what the needs of the world demand, what the glory of

God and Christianity well understood require.

Speaking one day with a group of cardinals, the Holy Father

Pius X put this question to them:

"In your opinion, what is the most vital need for the salvation

of society?"

"To build schools," answered one cardinal.

"No."

"To build more churches," suggested another.

"No again."

"To increase the number of priests," said a third.

"No, no," replied Pius X. "All those things are important, but

what is most necessary at present is to have in every parish a

group of lay people who are very virtuous, very determined,

enlightened in their faith and who are true apostles."

Let us consider now just the two words "virtuous" and

"determined."

The Holy Father said "virtuous"--"very virtuous" and he was

speaking of lay people.

Do I belong to that number of virtuous lay people?

"What luck not to be a saint!" Doctor Vittoz of Lausanne used

to say, "For then I can exert myself to become one!"

Pius X had good reason to add the word "determined" to the

word "virtuous." Is my resolution to reach high sanctity

resolute, determined?

FANTASY OR SACRED DUTY

IN his interesting book, "Man the Unknown," Alexis Carrel

makes this statement:

"Each individual is set by the conditions of his development

upon the road which will lead him either to the solitary

mountains or to the mud of the swamps where humanity

contents itself."

If not rightly understood, this statement might imply that, by

a sort of pre-established harmony over which we have no

control, we are inevitably directed in spite of ourselves either

toward the heights or toward the lowlands.

It could be that because of inherited tendencies, family

traditions, examples we may have witnessed, or the training

we have received, we are more strongly drawn either to

laziness or to generosity. However, everyone has the duty on

his own responsibility to make himself what he ought to be.

The problem of salvation and the degree of sanctity to be

attained is essentially an individual problem. We save

ourselves or we damn ourselves; we conquer ourselves or we

let ourselves be conquered--these are all personal verbs.

"Everyone has the duty," that is the reality. It is not a matter

of satisfying a fantasy, a more or less poetic taste for the

heights. So much the better if the heights tempt me! So much

the worse for me if I am the prey of a positive spirit of low

ideals. I do not have to strive for the Christian ideal simply

because of a certain forceful subjective attraction. No, I have

an obligation to strive for it and this obligation springs from

the Gospel command, a command given to all, Be ye perfect

as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Am I perhaps too much in the habit of seeing in the Gospel

only the restrictions it imposes upon me? Of viewing religion

from the negative side? I must accustom myself to consider

the Gospel from the positive aspect--the call to sanctity. The

capital problem for the Christian who wants to be a real

Christian is not the problem of sin but the problem of

perfection.

Not to fall back!

Much more and much better--to rise.

In the "Journal of Salavin" by George Duhamel, Salavin

laments in self-disgust, "How can one resign himself to being

only what one is and how try to be other than what one is."

Then he declares:

"After some indefinite time, I am going to go away."

"And where are you going?"

"Nowhere."

Evading--when it should be a matter of ascending.

For me as a Christian, the road is known. I know where to go.

And the instructions are clear. Someone expressed them in

three points:

1. To commit this year the least number of sins possible.

2. To acquire this year the most virtues possible.

3. To do to others the most good possible.

Here is a program that will not only avoid the abyss but lead

to the heights.

MY PERSONAL VOCATION

NOTHING is more interesting and at the same time more

stirring than to study my particular role in the eternal

destinies of the world . . . what God from all eternity has

planned for me . . . what kind of saint He wants me to be . . .

by what combination and sequence of circumstances He

established me where I am . . . all He has given me--a

Christian country, a Christian family, a Christian education,

numberless graces exterior as well as interior, the

Sacraments, interior inspirations, invitations to mount

spiritually--and then to discover in what degree He intends to

use me to lead other souls to salvation and perfection.

Religion in spirit and in truth--what is it? It consists in

participating in the very sanctity of God Himself in my own

personal life, and in cooperating with God to bring grace into

the lives of others and to help keep them to grow in the

divine life.

There is no question then of eternity forcing its way into my

existence without my opening the door to it; it permeates me

from within in keeping with the freedom I give it.

Nor must I be aiming only at my own sanctification. I have

the responsibility of souls, not only the souls of my own but

of multitudes who are in some way connected with my soul.

The salvation of the world depends in part on the saint that I

become.

One author puts this thought very well. "Each being in the

universe must act with the consciousness of having been

chosen for a task that he alone can accomplish. As soon as he

discovers what this task is and he begins to dedicate himself

to it, he can be sure that God is with him and that He watches

over him. Let him be full of confidence and joy! He is

associated with the work of creation." And we might add "with

the work of redemption." This ought to be a continual marvel

to him that weak and sinful though he knows himself to be he

is nonetheless called, unquestionably called, to an action of

unique value, to the exaltation of the divine in himself and

the propagation and the extension of the divine in humanity!

I ought to try to realize ever more deeply the tremendous

significance of my personal vocation; to consider the degree

and the kind of sanctity to which I am called; to measure the

extent of the field where my zeal for souls is to labor--the

family, the parish, the city....

Everything in my life should be referred to God. As Saint

Augustine said, "Totum exigit te qui fecit te, He from whom

you received all things demands all." I must therefore make

the gifts He bestowed on me serve for His glory alone. I

should not deny these gifts, nor store them away; on the

contrary, I should exploit them, but for Him. To quote Saint

Augustine again, "Let everything useful that I learned as a

child be consecrated to Your service, O my God. Let it be for

Your service that I speak, that I read, that I write, that I

count!" He did not renounce the use of his mind, the exercise

of his intelligence, the application of his profane sciences

but he subordinated all to spreading the glory of God and

extending his apostolate for souls.

I can be inspired to a like rule of life. I can use human gifts as

well as divine gifts to attain the highest peak of my vocation.

I am not what my neighbor is and my neighbor is not what I

am. I have a role to fill and no one else but me can fill it.

I must know my capital and prudently determine my

investments.

WHAT KIND OF SOUL AM I?

SOMEONE has said, "All beings receive the same light but all

accept it unequally. Some are like white surfaces and they

shed the light all about them; these souls have the most

innocence. Others are like black surfaces and they enfold the

light in their own darkness; these souls are like closed

coffers. Then again some divide the light keeping part for

themselves and reflecting the rest as do surfaces of

variegated colors and, like these same colored surfaces,

change the intensity of light and shadows according to the

time of day; these are the most sensitive souls. There are

others who like transparent surfaces let all the light pass

through them retaining nothing of it; these souls are nearest

to God. Some might be compared to mirrors in which all

nature and the people who look at them never cease to see

themselves and to reflect themselves; these souls are nearest

us and their presence alone suffices to judge us. Some make

us thing of prisms in which the white light is spread out into

the rainbow colors of the spectrum...."

In which class do I belong?

I need not indulge in morbid or vain introspection but try

merely to get a clear view of God's intentions concerning me.

I know the Parable of the Talents. I must not envy the riches

of another but determine exactly the capital that God asks me

to exploit for His greater glory, for my own sanctification, for

the good of all souls with whom my sanctification is bound

up, from those nearest to me even to the most distant at the

other end of the world. Tu quis es? "Who are you?" the judges

asked Our Lord, Et quid dicis de teipso, "and what do you say

of yourself?"

Who am I? The mystery of each personality! It is a mystery

which even the most perfect and most intimate union with

another personality cannot completely pierce, as for example

in marriage. There is a limitless diversity in personalities,

since God made all souls originally without ever copying any

previous model. How delightful this variety is: rose,

anemone, violet; an extraordinary medley, gradations without

limit of cut or of color....

Who am I? What are my resources? What are my good points?

What are my faults? What is the color of my desires, the force

of my will, the intensity of my religious need, my thirst for an

integrated life, my Christian fervor, the value of my fidelity?

Who am I? That is a different question from what I say I am or

what I give to understand that I am. No, I am not a hypocrite; I

do not seek to deceive for the sake of deceiving. But I am like

everybody else and, without wanting to, without directly

saying it, I fix up the pages of my country's history--I try to let

myself be seen only under the most glorious aspects. People

believe me to be better than I am. In any case they have a

different opinion of me from what I really am.

Who am I? And what difference is there between what I am

actually and what I let others discover of my person and my

intimate self?

Saint Augustine prayed, "Lord, let me know myself, let me

know Thee." He desired nothing else. I want to make that my

prayer too.

MARRIAGE

BEFORE EMBARKING (1)

WHOEVER desires to marry ought to prepare himself for that

great step:

--First of all, by preserving chastity.

--Then, by praying much for his future home and family.

By preserving chastity: Whoever cannot see the need for this

will not be likely to understand the need for anything. But

one must be able to see the need for more than this, to desire

more.

The practice of purity in its entirety involves not only the

avoidance of serious wrongdoing harmful to the integrity of

the body but also whatever sullies imagination, thought or

desire. Consequently questionable companions, flirtations,

and imprudent reading are out of the question. Custody of

the eyes is essential. Death enters in through the windows of

the body. Eve and David both sinned through their eyes.

For certain temperaments, such vigilance demands great

generosity. No one can deny it.

"The good is more difficult than the evil," wrote Paul Claudel

in response to Jacques Riviere who had explained that to

remain pure was difficult. "But there is a return. The good

opens up before us incomparable horizons because it alone is

in keeping with our reality, our nature, our life and our

vocation. This is particularly true where love is concerned.

How ridiculous the romantic fever of a purely fleshly love

seems to me!"

Sensing the old classic objection in his correspondent,

Claudel took the offensive:

"As for the emotional cramping Christianity imposes upon

you, I can scarcely understand what you mean. When you

speak of sins, I suppose you refer to sins of the flesh,

because I cannot imagine that you have any tendency to

drunkenness, avarice, acts of violence or similar things.

"The first answer to your difficulty is that when we become

Christians, it is not for our pleasure or personal comfort, and

further, if God does us the honor of asking sacrifice of us,

there is nothing to do but consent with joy.

"The second answer is that these sacrifices amount to very

little or practically nothing. We are still living in the old

romantic idea that the supreme happiness, the greatest

interest, the only delight of existence consists in our

relations with women and in the sensual satisfactions we get

from them. But we forget one fact, the fact that the soul, the

spirit, are realities just as strong, just as demanding as the

flesh--even more so; we forget that if we accord to the flesh

everything it demands, we shall do so with the consequent

loss of other joys, other regions of delight which will be

eternally closed for us. We shall be draining a glass of bad

wine in a hovel or in a drawing room and be unmindful of

that virginal sea which stretches out before others under the

rising sun."

How splendidly Shakespeare has expressed the same

thoughts:

What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?

A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.

Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?

Or sees eternity to get a toy?

For one sweet grape who will the wine destroy?

Or, what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,

Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?

(Rape of Lucrece, Stanza 31)

This is also what Saint Augustine has written in his own

epigrammatic style: momentaneum quod delectat, aeternum

quod cruciat. One instant of pleasure, an eternity of

suffering....

Let me examine my own soul. Have I come to marriage

entirely chaste? Chaste in body? Chaste in thought? Chaste in

heart?

If my answer is Yes, then I must thank God. It is a choice

grace.

If my answer is No, then what can I do to make reparation, to

obtain from God the grace of entire fidelity to my duty, from

now on?

BEFORE EMBARKING (2)

IN addition to the preservation of chastity, the person

aspiring to marriage has a second great duty--to pray much.

An old proverb wisely states, "Before embarking on the sea,

pray once. Before leaving for war, pray twice. Before

marrying, pray three times."

And this necessity of praying more before marriage than

before a voyage or a battle is evident for several reasons.

Consider the risk of associating oneself closely with a

creature who has many limitations; with a creature about

whom one knows very little particularly in the matter of

shortcomings, since during the period of courtship and

betrothal one unconsciously does everything not to reveal

himself; with a creature whom one loves with all one's heart

but who possesses not only lovable traits, but also faults

which can cause suffering; with a creature who can bestow

the greatest joy, but who can also unfortunately inflict the

deepest pain.

Furthermore, in order to bear joys as well as possible trials,

do we not need much help from God? And to obtain this help,

must we not pray much?

Another reason for the necessity of such prayer when one

desires to establish a home is that from a union once

sanctioned by the Church and consummated there is no

possible withdrawal. It is a choice which is definitely

established. For two changeable human beings to dare to bind

themselves to each other forever in a relationship so intimate

as the realities of marriage, is not God's sustaining help a

prime requisite? And to obtain this help is it not necessary to

pray much?

Has my life before marriage been one of sanctification and of

prayer in preparation for my marriage? Or have I confided

solely in the human merits existing on both sides and

neglected to place under God's protection the union I was

about to contract?

If I have been neglectful, I must make up for it now. There is

still time.

If, on the contrary, I prayed much before my marriage, I may

not leave off earnest prayer now that I am married. The

greater the place God holds in my life, the greater can be my

assurance that my home shall be supernaturally happy and,

without a doubt, humanly happy as well.

"To you, O Mary, my good Mother, I confide my marriage and

my home. It seems that marriage is the means of

sanctification destined for me by God as it is for the chosen

soul whom you have given me.

"Together we shall do our best to glorify God--this is our firm

resolution. Bless us, help us, strengthen us. Sailors call you

Stella Maris. Be for us, too, the Star of the Sea and keep us

safe throughout our crossing; we put under your care our

vessel and its crew. You shall be the Queen on board ship."

REQUISITES FOR A HAPPY MARRIAGE

FOR a happy marriage, it is necessary, of course, that the

engaged couple find each other congenial and enjoy each

other's company.

They must agree to share loyally the joys and the sorrows of

wedded union and fulfill its obligations.

Each one must be bent on procuring for the other as much

happiness as possible and oblige himself beforehand to a

mode of life which will disturb his partner as little as

possible.

The husband must love his profession, and his wife should

share this love or at least neglect nothing in order to respect

and facilitate it.

They should be able to make their decisions together, not

certainly without sometimes having recourse to the counsels

of competent authorities, but with a beautiful and joyful

independence of any member of the family who may be too

prone at times to attempt to domineer over the young couple.

There should, of course, be no presumption, no narrow

aloofness, but a serene and supple liberty of spirit; serene

and supple humility.

In order to be able to practice the sanctity of their state in all

the details of their life, they must understand their duty of

leaning upon God. It will not be sufficient to link together

their two wills; they must be determined to pray to obtain

help from on High.

They must likewise have a certain concern, a legitimate

concern, for physical charm, without, however, losing sight of

the fact that beauty of soul is superior to beauty of body; so

that if some day the physical attraction should diminish, they

will not be less eager to remain together, but each will strive

to find in the other the quality upon which profound union is

established.

Both of them must love children. They must develop in

themselves to the best of their ability the virtues necessary

for parenthood, the courage to accept as many children as

God wants them to have and the wisdom to rear them well--

difficult virtues requiring strong souls.

Each must be possessed of a rich power of cordiality for the

members of the other's family. Both must resolve to take their

in-laws and their household as they find them, and adopt as a

principle for their contacts with them, It was not to share

hates but to share love that I entered into your family.

Consequently, they must refuse to be drawn into family

quarrels, seeking rather in all their actions to promote

charity, union, and peace.

Even before their marriage, the young couple should decide

to keep their expenses at a minimum, according to their

situation, not with avarice or niggardliness, but with the

desire to live in the gospel spirit of detachment from the

goods of earth. Such judicious economy, which should of

course be devoid of even the appearance of stinginess, will

enable them to set aside something useful and necessary for

their children. It will also enable them to relieve the misery

around them.

It is to be assumed that both individuals contemplating

marriage have the requisite health, since marriage has been

created not only for mutual support but also to transmit life.

It is further to be assumed that each of the two has kept

nothing of his past life hidden from the other, and that in

view of this entire loyalty which is so desirable a trait in

married couples, each has kept himself pure and refrained

from dangerous experiences.

A PROPOSAL

LOUIS PASTEUR came from a family of modest means. When

he was twenty-six years old, his astonishing discovery in

regard to crystals drew upon him the attention of scientists.

In 1849, he was named assistant professor in the University

of Strasbourg. The rector of the university, Mr. Laurent, had

three daughters. Fifteen days after Pasteur's first visit, he

asked for Marie in marriage. The young scientist felt that this

young woman understood life as he did and wanted the same

kind of life he sought--a life of simplicity, of work, and of

goodness. He sent this letter to Mr. Laurent:

"Sir, a request of great significance for me and for your

family will be addressed to you in a few days and I believe it

my duty to give you the following information which can help

to determine your acceptance or your refusal.

"My father is a tanner at Arbois, a little city in the Jura region.

My sisters keep house for my father since we had the sorrow

of losing our mother last May. My family is in comfortable

circumstances, but not wealthy. I do not evaluate what we

own at more than ten thousand dollars. As for me, I decided

long ago to leave my whole share to my sisters. I, then, have

no fortune. All I possess is good health, a kind heart, and my

position in the university.

"Two years ago I was graduated from l'Ecole Normale with the

degree of agrege in the physical sciences. Eighteen months

ago I received my doctorate, and I have presented some of my

works to the Academy of Science where they were very well

received, especially my last one. I have the pleasure of

forwarding to you with this letter a very favorable report

about this particular work of mine.

"That describes my present status. As for the future, all I can

say is that unless I should undergo a complete change in my

tastes, I shall devote myself to chemical research. It is my

ambition to return to Paris when I have acquired a reputation

through my work. Monsieur Biot has spoken to me several

times to persuade me seriously to consider the Institute. In

ten or fifteen years I shall perhaps be able to consider it

seriously if I work assiduously. This dream is but wasted

trouble; it is not that at all which makes me love science as

science."

Could a more modest, more completely sincere letter ever be

sent by a young man in love?

And when he addressed himself to Marie he assured her with

touching clumsiness that he was sure he could hardly be

attractive for a young girl, but just let her have a little

patience and she would learn his great love for her and he

believed she would love him too, for "my memories tell me

that when I have been very well known by persons, they have

loved me."

But great as was his love for Marie, his heart was divided:

Louis Pasteur loved science, he loved his crystals. He began

to scruple about it, and finally wrote to his fiancee, asking

her "not to be jealous if science took precedence over her in

his life."

She was not jealous. Madame Pasteur married not only the

man but also his passion for science. Her love had that rare

quality of knowing how to efface itself, and to manifest itself

precisely by not manifesting itself at all at times. She was a

worthy companion of this great man, of this great scientist, of

this great heart.

THE END OF LOVE?

A CERTAIN essayist makes this appalling statement: "What a

sad age this is in which one makes his First Holy Communion

to be through with religion, receives his bachelor's degree to

be through with studying, and marries to be through with

love."

Let us omit the first two statements from this consideration

and take up the third.

Is it true that for some, marriage is the end of love?

That statement can be taken in different ways.

Some think that before marriage one can play at love. Then

when the senses have been dulled, one shall try to find a

companion for himself. "Youth must pass," people say

condescendingly on observing the looseness of young men.

There are even certain pseudo-moralists who advise young

girls not to marry before "deliberately having their fling as

well as the boys"--advice which unfortunately some of them

do not fail to follow.

This is an odious concept of love and marriage or of

preparation for it. I certainly want none of it.

Again there are those who think that love is all well and good

before marriage. As for marriage itself, it is first and foremost

an investment. The problem is not so much to marry someone

for whom one experiences a strong attraction, but rather to

realize a good business deal. It is not the person one seeks,

but the name, the status, the fortune. There is nothing of love

in this. No, indeed, it is all a matter of interest: a concept

equally as odious as the first, equally repellent.

What the author of the statement probably meant is that

before marriage, the young man and woman are all fire and

flame, and perhaps for a short time after marriage. Soon, or at

least comparatively soon after marriage, they no longer speak

of love. They have become two under the yoke--two bearing

the necessary restraints of their united existences. Gone is

the enchantment of betrothal days or of the early days of

married life. There is nothing left but the grayish prose of

humdrum existence with an individual of whom one has

made a god or a goddess--a person who is after all only a poor

creature.

--A man, "a poor man who eats, drinks, wears shirts and

drawers, and who loses his buttons," as someone jokingly

described him. "A man who will never be able to find

anything in a dresser or clothes closet; who will never

appreciate the cooking or the menu; who at night throws his

clothes in a heap on a chair and the next morning complains

that the creases in his trousers are not pressed in well

enough; a man who formerly seemed like a knight, a

magician, a prince charming, and whose bold gestures so

commanding yet so delicate thrilled the heart and stirred

one's whole being, causing one's imagination to crown him

with the aureola of perfection," and who now . . .

--A woman, a poor creature indeed, perpetually thirsting for

caresses even at the most inappropriate times; a woman who

has foolish notions, headaches, fits of humor; who manifests

a flare for spending which can never resist the appeal of any

show window, particularly if there is an interesting clearance

sale on; a woman who wants a wardrobe capable of ruining

the most industrious man, the wealthiest husband--a poor

sort of woman, indeed!

Is it not because of all these things, at least partially because

of them, that Our Lord wanted to make marriage a rite giving

divine graces--a sacrament?

Perhaps we have exaggerated the poetry of conjugal life; let

us not now exaggerate the prose of life together.

As a preparation for this prose, which is always possible and

often very real even in the most successful marriages, I shall

aim to sanctify myself in the practice of charity and patience.

ONE ONLY BEING

"LOVE seeks to escape through a single being from the

mediocrity of all others." This is the definition one author

gives of love.

It is not a matter of reviewing all human beings with whom

one comes into contact as if they were on parade, so that with

methodical, rational, and cold discernment one might pick

out the chosen man or woman. It is not a selection; the object

of one's desire attracts at once; it is just he or she; all the rest

do not exist. As one writer put it, "Love is monotheistic." There

is no need at all of overthrowing idols; one pedestal alone

stands, bearing the holy representation that the eyes feast

upon and toward which the heart turns with an irresistible

impulse.

Oh, the incomprehensible power of the heart in love promptly

to divinize the poor reality it has chosen! Nothing else exists

for it any longer! In the play "Asmodee," by Mauriac, the

heroine Emmanuelle, who had thought of religious life until

she met Harry with whom she fell deeply in love at first sight,

goes so far as to declare:

"You know when I used to hear a person say of someone, "He

is everything for me," I did not know what that meant. I know

now. Our pastor tells me that husbands and wives love each

other in God. I can't understand that. It seems to me that if

Harry were some day to be everything for me, then there

would no longer be any room in my heart or in my life for

anyone, not even for God."

Aside from this particular example of Emmanuelle, there is

some truth in those words; they emphasize a well-known fact.

How many young girls during their engagement period, how

many young wives in the months following upon their

marriage, neglect the spiritual, overwhelmed as they are with

human happiness! Previous to that time, all their love, all the

need they felt for giving themselves was directed to divine

realities. Their capacity for tenderness was showered upon

Jesus and Mary; it was fed in Holy Communion.

Now another object engages all their concern. They must be

vigilant that their piety does not diminish. Their needs have

increased; it is not the time to decrease their cultivation of

holiness. Doubtless, and above all in the case of a married

woman, some spiritual exercises will not be possible; for

example, daily Holy Mass and Holy Communion in certain

cases will have to be sacrificed through fidelity to duty in

their new state. But piety itself must not diminish as it so

often does in a period of human happiness.

It is essential in the midst of marital joys, and above all in the

joys preceding marriage or following immediately upon it, to

strive to preserve a sense of balance and of true values. Love

of God does not operate exactly as the attraction of creatures.

In the one case, it is a question of an invisible reality; in the

other, of a sensible reality. This last, even though closer and

more accessible, never eclipses the first. Esteem as divine

what is divine, and do not knowingly divinize or, more

correctly speaking, transfigure to excess a creature, no matter

how rich its gifts.

Remain if possible always in truth. Realize that God alone is

God, and that every created being has its limitations. Strive to

make your limitations and your mediocrity as little felt as

possible and generously pardon the limitations and

mediocrity of your companion for life.

The earth shall never be anything but the earth; it is untimely

to try to make it heaven.

LOVE

Why does a woman desire a man? Why does a man desire a

woman? What is the explanation of that mysterious attraction

which draws the two sexes toward each other?

Will anyone ever be able to explain it? Will anyone be able to

exhaust the subject?

One fact is certain: Even aside from the physiological aspect

of the problem, the effeminate man does not attract a woman;

she makes fun of him, finds him ridiculous. So too the

masculine woman weakens her power of attraction for a man,

and ends by losing it entirely.

The age-old spell which each sex casts upon the other is

closely allied to the fidelity with which each exactly fulfills

its role. If woman copies man and man copies woman, there

can be comradeship but love does not develop. In reality,

they are nothing more than two caricatures, the woman being

degraded to the rank of a man and a second-rate man at that,

and the man to the rank of a manikin in woman's disguise.

The more feminine a woman's soul and bearing, the more

pleasing she is to a man; the more masculine a man's soul

and bearing, the more pleasing he is to a woman.

We do not mean to say that between two poor specimens of

either sex there will never be any casual or even lasting

sexual appeal and experience. But we can hardly, if ever, call

it love. If men and woman are no more than two varieties of

the same sex, a sort of neuter sex, the force which creates

love disappears. Normally, as we say in electrical theory,

opposite charges must exist before any sparks will shoot

forth. Bring into contact two identical charges and there will

be no effect; electricity of opposite polarities must be used;

then and then only will there be reaction.

In the realm of love, the general rule is the same. In fact, man

and woman are two different worlds. And that is as it should

be, so that the eternal secret which each of them encloses

may become the object of the other's desire and stimulate

thirst for a captivating exploration.

That is love's strange power. It brings two secrets face to

face, two closed worlds, two mysteries. And just because it

involves a mystery, it gives rise to limitless fantasies of the

imagination, to embellishments in advance of the reality. So

that

One finally loves all toward which one rows.

Whether that toward which one rows is an enchanted island or

one merely believes it is, what ecstasy!

Comes the meeting, the consecration of the union by

marriage; each brings to the other what the other does not

possess. In the one, delicate modesty and appealing reserve;

in the other, conquering bravery. A couple has been born.

Love has accomplished its prodigy.

Yet, how true it is, that having said all this, we have said

nothing. The reality of love is unfathomable.

Could it be perhaps because it is the most beautiful

masterpiece of God?

THE PALACE OF CHANCE

A MODERN writer describes marriage as "having an

appointment with happiness in the palace of chance."

Two persons are complete strangers to each other. One day

they meet. They think they appreciate each other, understand

each other. They encounter no serious obstacles; their social

position is just about the same; their financial status similar;

their health seems sufficient; their parents offer no

objections; they become engaged. They exchange loving

commonplaces wherein nothing of the depths of their souls is

revealed. The days pass; the time comes--it is their wedding

day.

They are married. In the beginning of their acquaintance,

they did not know each other at all. They do not know each

other much better now, or at least, they do not know each

other intimately. They are bound together; possible mishaps

matter little to them; they are going to make happiness for

themselves together. It is a risk they decided to run.

That this procedure is the method followed by many can

scarcely be denied.

Let us hope that we personally proceed with more prudence.

Upon the essential phases of life together, the engaged

couple should hold loyal and sincere discussion. And in these

discussions and exchange of ideas, each one should reveal

himself as he really is, and let us hope that this revelation is

one of true richness of soul.

To make a lover of a young man or young woman is not such

a difficult achievement. But to discover in a young man

before marriage the possibility, or better still, the assurance

of a good husband who will become a father of the highest

type, and in a young woman, the certain promise of the most

desirable type of wife who has in her the makings of a real

mother and a worthy educator--that is a masterpiece of

achievement!

"To love each other before marriage! Gracious, that is simple,"

exclaims a character in a play, "they do not know each other!

The test will be to love each other when they really do get

acquainted." And he is not wrong.

In keeping with his thought is the witty answer given by a

young married man to an old friend who came to visit him.

"I am an old friend of the family," explained the visitor. "I

knew your wife before you married her."

"And I, unfortunately, did not know her until after I married

her!"

But even when a man and woman do know each other deeply

and truly before marriage, how many occasions they will still

have for mutual forbearance. It is necessary for them to have

daily association with each other in order to understand each

other; for the woman, to understand what the masculine

temperament is; for the man to understand what the feminine

temperament is. That may seem like a trifling thing; yet it

goes a long way toward a happy marriage. To understand

each other not only as being on his part a man and on her

part a woman, but as being just such a man or just such a

woman, that is to say, persons who in addition to the general

characteristics of their species possess particular virtues and

particular faults as a result of their individual temperaments-

-that requires rare penetration!

A home is not drawn by lot, blindly. A palace of chance! No,

indeed. If we want to turn it into a palace of happiness as far

as that is possible here below, we must above all things

refuse to have anything to do with chance. We must know

what we are doing and where we are going.

INFINITY PROMISED

"ONE of the duties of husband and wife is to pardon each

other mutually for not giving infinity after practically

promising it.

How much each of them expects from the other, from this

union hoped for, guessed, discovered, known and loved!

"Is it true, then, that the mystery of infinity is written upon

this little forehead, which is all mine," sighs the man with the

Hindu poet Tagore. "You are half woman and half dream."

And what a seraphim, what a dream prince and legendary

hero she believes to be marrying, she whose imagination is

livelier and more powerful in evoking imagery?

Ah, the sweetness of loving, the sweetness of being

two to know

The ineffable depths of the heart and its burning love's glow,

. . . To know all that a soul holds of power to feel,

To understand the eyes' great force magnetic, fair,

To sob softly--my forehead pressed against your hair

Because I feel so small before Love which passes.

But even in the very moment of the embrace, how difficult--

impossible even--to arrive at perfect unity; physical union

can be achieved, but how delicate an attainment is union of

souls! As an English novelist expresses it:

"The anguish of those who love is caused by their

powerlessness to surmount the barrier of their individuality.

Even in love we cannot escape from the eternal solitude of

ourselves. We embrace without being able to be fused into

one . . . We yearn to be but one and we are always two . . . We

are frustrated as two birds would be who sought to be united

through a pane of glass."

Thus it is even when the two understand each other. In vain

do they try to transfigure poor reality, seek to keep their idol

more clearly before their vision, by closing their eyes, and by

renewing marks of affection compensate for the infirmity of

nature present in their very efforts at mutual tenderness; it

still remains true that they always desire more than they

possess; of what import is it that their substances intermingle

if their consciences remain separated?

And what about those who only half understand each other or

do not understand each other at all? Not only is their

intimacy no mutual exchange, but their very cohabitation

accentuates their isolation all the more. The poet, Anna de

Noailles, who was unhappy in her married life, expressed this

idea when she said, "I am alone with someone."

It is a suffering for two who do not love each other to be

together; it is a suffering to be together if they do love each

other, because they never know if they embrace all they

really believe they embrace. Berdyaev, the author of "The

Destiny of Man," expresses this suffering of love when he

says, "If unreciprocated love is tragic, reciprocated love is

perhaps even more so."

How incorrect to think that there is no matter for

renunciation in marriage!

The Nuptial Liturgy

ORDINARILY there is very little recollection manifested at a

wedding ceremony. It is just as if the congregation had no

idea of the sanctity of the place or the grandeur of the event.

Yet, all is holy.

The priest begins "In the Name of the Father and of the Son

and of the Holy Ghost," and prays that God may bless the two

about to be married so that all may redound to the glory of

His Name.

Then follows the exchange of consent accompanied by the

rite of joining hands.

"The Lord be with you," says the priest before blessing the

ring. . .

And later, "Be unto them, O Lord, a tower of strength." Can

anything less than this Almighty protection suffice for the

work of sanctification in their life together?

The Gradual of the Nuptial Mass invokes the blessing of

fecundity upon the marriage. "Thy wife shall be as a fruitful

vine on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants

about thy table."

Marriage is not a union founded on chance or pure caprice;

reason must control the glow of passion, and the union

effected by marriage must be of such a nature that death

alone can break it. The Gospel of Saint Matthew gives us Our

Savior's own words on this subject. In answer to the question,

"Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause,"

Christ answered very definitely, No, and quoted the Scripture

text, "They shall be two in one flesh." Then He made it more

emphatic by adding, "What therefore God hath joined

together, let no man put asunder."

At the Pater Noster of the Nuptial Mass, the priest does

something he never does in any other Mass. He interrupts the

Sacrifice, permits the Body and Blood of Christ to lie upon the

altar, and turning, calls down a new benediction of God upon

the bride and the groom. He recalls how the Most High God

has watched over the sacred institution of marriage from the

beginning of the world, to keep it intact in spite of the frailty

of humanity. The rest of the prayer besides referring to the

examples of faithful wives of the Old Testament--Rachel,

Rebecca, Sarah--implores rich graces for the bride.

"O God, by whom woman is joined to man, and that fellowship

which

Thou didst ordain from the beginning is endowed with a

blessing which alone was not taken away either by the

punishment for the first sin or by the sentence of the

flood; look in Thy mercy upon this Thy handmaid;

True and chaste let her wed in Christ . . .

Let the father of sin work none of his evil deeds within her...

Let her be true to one wedlock and preserve inviolable

fidelity;

Let her fortify her weakness by strong discipline;

Let her be grave in demeanor and honored for her modesty.

Let her be well taught in heavenly love;

Let her be fruitful in offspring."

The priest continues the Mass and receives Holy Communion.

The bride and groom should also receive the Body and Blood

of Christ during this Nuptial Mass. The rubrics of the missal

call for it expressly. The ideal then is to communicate not at

an earlier Mass but during the Nuptial Mass itself, which

nothing, not even the early hour of the day, can prevent from

being solemn.

Before the Last Blessing, the priest speaks once more to the

newly married couple as if he could not tire of blessing them

before their great departure:

"May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of

Jacob be with you, and may He fulfill His blessing in you:

that you may see your children's children even to the third

and fourth generation, and afterwards may you have life

everlasting, by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ: who with

the Father and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth forever."

THE WEDDING DAY

WHAT a marvel of grandeur and of poetry is the nuptial

liturgy! The Church, full of solicitude for the two daring

young souls ready to launch out on the voyage of life, is

eager to prepare them as seriously and as solidly as possible,

to put before them essential principles, and to petition God to

take this holy couple under His especial care, and conduct it

to the great eternal family after their life of reciprocal love

and confiding generosity.

Is it any wonder that such a noble and meaningful ceremony

should bring to mind the First Mass of a newly-ordained

priest?

Unfortunately, the worldly trappings that often accompany

the marriage celebration detract considerably from the

sacred atmosphere of the event. Particularly true is this of the

banquet which is generally a part of the celebration.

The Church has nothing against wholesome joys, particularly

family feasts to commemorate an outstanding occasion in

life; but she certainly does not approve of the carousings for

which wedding banquets are so frequently the excuse, or the

tone of certain parties held in connection with weddings.

Could anyone imagine an ordination to the priesthood

celebrated in such a fashion?

After the Nuptial Mass, the world takes over, there are the

congratulations, the general stir to get into the line of march

in order to see and be seen; there is not a minute for prayer,

for recollection, for thanksgiving. The world, even during the

Mass as well as after it, assumes control of the couple and

their family. Events following the marriage ceremony do

nothing to correct these concessions to the world. Does it not

seem reasonable that when the fundamental interests of the

family are impeded by the worldly spirit, the family should

do everything in its power to escape from it?

There are those who understand this: Sodalists, the Jocists,

members of Catholic Action groups or similar organizations,

even previous to the war, wanted to break away from these

pagan practices. It is not a matter of seeing in the holy place

only the Church vestibule or the Church lobby. No, no, the

church is the house of God. Let everything there be holy and

all that is done there be done holily, the founding of the

family more than anything else!

Those groups who recognize the sanctity of the marriage

ceremony have set the example of communicating at their

Nuptial Mass; they have suppressed boisterous and giddy

celebrations. In the same spirit they decided to delay their

departure for their honeymoon and postpone the distractions

it entails; so beneficial is it to remain in prolonged

recollection during their first days together. They remember

to make their union of souls predominate. Therefore, together

they restrain themselves and by mutual accord embrace

sacrifice.

Saint Paulinus, a renowned lawyer of Bordeaux, who

renounced a worldly life when he was at the height of

success, and with his wife retired into the city of Nola in

Campania, wrote these significant lines:

Concordes animae casto sociantur amore;

Virgo puer Christi, virgo puella Dei.

which mean: "Let these souls who are one heart and soul be

united in a chaste love; he, a virgin, a son of God; she, a

virgin, a daughter of God."

Why not secure for these two splendid baptized souls, these

two virgin souls, whom marriage has united forever, a

departure worthy of them?

TOTAL UNION

IN "Les Vergers humains," Louis Lefebvre has this charming

verse in which the poet addresses his wife:

I speak to God most often in my verse;

I speak to my own destiny;

I speak to my own son;

With every living being, I converse

But I speak not to you; you are myself; we are but one.

There are other exquisite examples of such perfect union

between husband and wife realized not only in poetry but in

the prose of everyday life.

See this husband and wife seated before the fireplace

watching the play of the flames.

"What are you thinking about?" queries the wife.

"And you?"

"The same thing you're thinking of."

Idyllic, some will say. And why not, just as truly, an exact

description?

Then there is the example of another couple so completely in

accord at all times that the husband one day playfully

petitioned his wife, "Contradict me sometimes, so that we can

be two." These two fulfilled to the very letter the statement of

the Bible, "They shall be two in one flesh." They were one, not

only in their flesh, but one in a communion of thought and

opinion. They had become so thoroughly one that they forget

to be two.

This could be an evil if it meant the weakening of one of the

two personalities to the point of absorption by the other.

Some women when first married are in such adoration before

their husbands or the husbands are so infatuated with their

wives that unity is effected, but it is a unity through

suppression and narrowness. God grant, however, that such a

unanimity never be replaced by the less happy state wherein

each one clings tenaciously to self-assertion. What should be

sought is unity through mutual enrichment in mutual

understanding.

In some marriages this unity becomes so complete that not

even death can break it. Such, for example, was the union

between Queen Astrid and King Leopold III, or between

Mireille Dupouey and her husband, a naval officer killed in

1915. During the seventeen years Mireille Dupouey lived

after her husband's death, she continued to write letters to

him as if he were still living, and to set a place at table

between herself and her son for her dear departed who was

forever present to her, forever one with her.

In contrast to these families where union is complete, how

many there are in which dispute rages permanently; or, if not

dispute, at least misunderstanding, constant bitterness.

It has been said and truly said that it is not easy for a man

and woman, two poor human beings, finite, limited, and

possessed of individual faults, to spend cloudless days

together. "A woman must take much upon herself, to live with

a man, whoever he may be," writes a moralist. "A man must

take much upon himself to live with a woman even though

she be most loving. How many perplexities between them,

how many veiled enmities even in their most evident

caresses! How many half-consented-to abdications on both

sides!"

But live together they must. How can they achieve as perfect

a harmony as possible?

Day after day they must seek it, study, meditate, resolve and

act!

THE FOUR BONDS OF CONJUGAL UNION

THE four bonds of conjugal union are the bond of

consciences, the bond of intellects, the bond of souls, and

the bond of hearts.

The bond of consciences: This means that husband and wife

must have the same norms for judging between right and

wrong. Is it not only too clear that if they do not have an

identical point of view in their appreciation of God's law, a

fundamental disunity will be introduced into the very

foundation of their unity? If one, for example, holds to the

principle of free love while the other advocates the principle

of unity in marriage, can there be complete communion? Or if

one is determined to abide by the demands of the moral law

in the difficult duty of procreation while the other has no

intention of abstaining from the latest practices of birth

control or from onanism, will there not be constant struggle

in their home, and that in regard to their most intimate

relations? If both are not in agreement on the question of

their children's education, one will insist on secular

education, the other on Catholic education, and again conflict

will ensue.

The bond of intellect: This bond is not so essential as the first-

-it is in the realm not of strict requirement, but of the

desirable. There is much to be gained from shared reading

experiences, from a mutual exchange of artistic impressions

and psychological observations.

For this, it is not necessary that the wife share her husband's

work. It is enough if she is able to be interested in his

profession. Nor is it necessary that they have the same tastes,

the same outlook; a certain diversity in mentality, on the

contrary, is desirable on condition that there are possibilities

for mutual exchange of ideas which will lead to mutual

enrichment.

That evidently supposes great simplicity in both husband

and wife, a loving liberty in their communication of ideas, a

very humble recognition of any superior quality in each

other, an entire good faith which makes each one willing to

yield to the ideas of the other when they are better.

The bond of souls: It is not sufficient to enjoy an exchange of

ideas in profane matters only. It is very desirable that there

be harmony of action in the domain of the spiritual, the

supernatural. . .prayer together. . .meditation in common . . .

reception of Holy Communion together.

Father Doncoeur and several others go so far as to advise

making the examination of conscience together with mutual

admonition and mutual resolves. This would surely call for

extreme delicacy and could not be so generally recommended

as the suggestions given previously. But how beautiful it is

when husband and wife are as an open book to each other!

Is it good to tell each other the graces received from God, the

aspirations of the soul to become holy, to become a saint?

Yes, certainly, on condition that all be done with simplicity,

with mutual spontaneity, with nothing of constraint,

exaggeration or artificiality. Why should one hide perpetually

from one's life companion the best of oneself? Some

individuals remain much too reticent and it is a hindrance to

great depths of intimacy.

The bond of hearts: How many in marriage love each other

selfishly, show themselves demanding, moody, eager to

receive, but never generous in giving. There is so much

selfishness in certain families even when they are very

closely united.

The remedy is to supernaturalize the affections; to pass as

quickly as possible from passionate love to virtuous love and

to make conjugal love a permanent exercise of the theological

virtue of charity.

LIFE TOGETHER IS DIFFICULT

MARRIAGE is not an easy vocation. It requires great virtue of

husbands and wives.

Personal experience reveals how true that is; those who

cannot claim this personal experience can, in any case,

accept the statement of psychologists who observe, "Marriage

is the most difficult of all human relations, because it is the

most intimate and the most constant. To live so close to

another person--who in spite of everything remains another

person--to be thus drawn together, to associate so intimately

with another personality without a wound or without any

shock to one's feelings is a difficult thing."

According to an old saying, "There are two moments in life

when a man discovers that his wife is his dearest possession

in the world--when he carries her across the threshold of his

home, and when he accompanies her body to the cemetery."

But in the interval between these two moments, they must

live together, dwell together, persevere together. "To die for

the woman one loves is easier than to live with her" claim

those who ought to know. And how many women could claim

similarly, "To die for the man one loves is easier than to live

with him."

They must bear with each other.

A French journalist while visiting Canada stopped for a time

at Quebec. "You have no law permitting a divorce in the case

of husbands and wives who do not understand each other?"

he questioned.

"No."

"But what do those married persons do whose discontent is

continual and whose characters are in no way compatible?"

"They endure each other."

How expressive an answer! How rich in meaning! How

expressive of virtue which is perhaps heroic! They endure

each other.

This is not an attempt to deny the delights of married life,

but to show that more than a little generosity is required to

bear its difficulties.

In "The New Jerusalem" by Chesterton, a young girl is sought

in marriage. She opposes the proposal in view of differences

in temperament between herself and the young man. The

marriage would certainly be a risk; it would be imprudent.

Michel, the suitor, retorted to this objection in his own style:

"Imprudent! Do you mean to tell me that there are any

prudent marriages? You might just as well speak of prudent

suicides . . . A young girl never knows her husband before

marrying him. Unhappy? Of course, you will be unhappy.

Who are you anyway to escape being unhappy, just as well as

the mother who brought you into the world! Deceived? Of

course you shall be deceived!"

Who proves too much, proves very little. We can, however,

through the exaggeration find the strain of truth. "Michel" is a

little too pessimistic. He makes a good counterpart to those

who enter into marriage as if in a dream. "Marriage," wisely

wrote Paul Claudel--and he gives the true idea--"is not

pleasure; it is the sacrifice of pleasure; it is the study of two

souls who throughout their future, for an end outside of

themselves, shall have to be satisfied with each other

always."

LOVING EACH OTHER IN GOD

WE HAVE already seen that it is essential to advance as

quickly as possible from a purely natural love to a

supernatural love, from a passionate love to a virtuous love.

That is clear. No matter how perfect the partners in marriage

may be, each has limitations; we can foresee immediately

that at the point where the limitations of the one contact the

limitations of the other, sparks will easily fly;

misunderstandings, oppositions, and disagreements will

arise.

No matter how much effort one puts forth to manifest only

virtues, one does not have only virtues. And when one lives in

constant contact with another, his faults appear quickly; "No

man is great to his valet," says the proverb. Sometimes it is

the very virtue of an individual which seems to annoy

another. One would have liked more discretion; one is, as it

were, eclipsed. Two find their self-love irritated, in conflict.

Or perhaps virtues no longer appear as virtues by reason of

being so constantly manifested. Others become accustomed

to seeing them and look upon them as merely natural traits.

"There is nothing more than that missing for him or her to be

different." It is like the sun or the light; people no longer

notice them. Bread by reason of its being daily bread loses its

character of "good bread."

Daily intercourse which was a joy in the beginning no longer

seems such a special delight; it becomes monotonous.

Husband and wife remain together by habit, common

interests, honor, even a certain attachment of will, but do

they continue to be bound together by love in the deepest

sense of the word?

If things go on in this way, they will soon cease to be much

concerned about each other; they may preserve a mutual dry

esteem which habit will render still drier. Where formerly

there existed a mutual ardor, nothing more remains than

proper form; where formerly there was never anything more

than a delicate remonstrance, there now exists depressing

wrangling or a still more depressing coldness.

Married persons must come to the help of weak human nature

and try to understand what supernatural love is in order to

infuse it into their lives as soon as possible.

Is not the doctrine of the Church on marriage too often

forgotten? How many ever reread the epistle of the Nuptial

Mass? Meditate on it? In any case, how many husbands and

wives read it together? Meditate on it together? That would

forearm them against the invasion of worrisome

misunderstandings. Why not have recourse to the well-

springs of wisdom?

There are not only the epistles. There is the whole gospel.

The example of Joseph and Mary at Nazareth is enlightening.

What obedience and cordial simplicity in Mary! What

deference and exquisite charity in Saint Joseph! And between

the two what openness of heart, what elevated dealings! Jesus

was the bond between Mary, the Mother, and Joseph, the

foster-father.

In Christian marriage, Jesus is still the unbreakable bond--

prayer together, Holy Mass and Holy Communion together.

Not only should there be prayer with each other, beside each

other, but prayer for each other.

SUPERNATURAL LOVE

SOME persons imagine that the endeavor to transform their

natural love into supernatural love will make them awkward,

make them lose their spontaneity, their naturalness.

Indeed, nothing is farther from the truth, if supernatural love

is rightly understood.

What does it really require?

First of all, does it not require us to fulfill the perfections of

natural love? Supernatural love, far from suppressing natural

love, makes it more tender, more attentive, more generous; it

intensifies the sentiments of affection, esteem, admiration,

gratitude, respect, and devotion which constitute the essence

of true love.

Supernatural love takes away one thing only from natural and

spontaneous love--selfishness, the arch-enemy of love. It

demands that everything, from the greatest obligation to the

simplest, be done as perfectly as possible. Then by elevating

simple human love to the level of true charity, it ennobles the

greatest powers of that love. It suppresses nothing. It

enriches everything. Better still, it provides in advance

against the danger of a diminution in human love. It pardons

weaknesses, deficiencies, faults. Not that it is blind to them,

but it does not become agitated by them. It bears with them,

handles them tactfully, helps to overcome them. It is capable

of bestowing love where all is not lovable. Penetrating beyond

the exterior, it can peer into the soul and see the image of

God behind a silhouette which has become less pleasing.

That is the whole secret. Supernatural love in us seeks to love

in the manner and according to the desire of God; it requires

us therefore to love God in those we love and then to love the

good qualities He has given them and bear with the absence

of those He has not given or with the characteristics He has

permitted them to acquire.

Loving without any advertence to self, supernatural love is

patient and constant in spite of the faults of those it loves.

The Little Sister of the Poor loves her old folk despite their

coughing, their unpleasant mannerisms, their varying moods.

The Missionaries who care for the lepers love them in spite of

their loathsome sores.

Unselfish as it is, supernatural love inspires the one who is

animated by it to seek the temporal and above all the

spiritual good of the one he loves before his own. Delicately

it calls the attention of the loved one to his faults, not to

reproach him, but to help him correct them. It does not give

in to irritability or moodiness; it is quick humbly to beg

pardon and to make reparation, should it ever fail. And when

there has been a little outburst, how comforting it is, in the

intimate converse of the evening, to acknowledge one's

failings, to express sorrow, and to promise to do better in the

future with the other's help!

But all this presupposes prayer and a true desire for union

with God.

UNITED STRIVING FOR SANCTITY

A BEAUTIFUL work which husband and wife can pursue

together is the mutual effort to correct their faults. Maurice

Retour, an industrialist and one of the youngest captains of

World War I of which he was a victim, suggested this to the

woman he loved even during their engagement. He wrote to

her, "I must confess something to you . . . I became aware of

your imperfections and I thought how pained I should have

been if I had not been able to see clearly into your soul . . .

You see how frank I want to be with you. We are just engaged

and yet instead of paying you compliments, I do not fear to

speak to you of your imperfections which my love for you

cannot hide . . . Tell me you will pardon me."

Another time he wrote, "In general, engaged persons strive to

shine in each other's eyes. We, on the contrary, began by

showing each other all our faults...You have acknowledged all

your faults to me; I confessed to you all my weakness . . .

Thank you for your great confidence in me. But never forget

that if I permit myself to give you advice which seems good

to me, I can always be mistaken and you ought to discuss it

with me. Otherwise I shall never dare to give you my

opinions."

In a later letter he said to her, "I have already abused the

liberty you gave me. I have told you frankly all I thought

about you, nor was I afraid to recognize before you what you

call your great faults. It was, I must confess, most difficult

for me to tell you because I love you so much that I dread

causing you the least pain." He added, "The interior life is

what we need to correct our failings and we shall work from

now on, if you wish, to grow in it."

This mutual effort of husband and wife to correct themselves

of their faults may be much, but it is not enough. Something

more beautiful remains--to strive positively for sanctity

through mutual instruction, loving encouragement and a

united and confiding zeal for each other's perfection.

"Why should we not live a saintly life?" asked Maurice Retour

of his bride-to-be. And they decided upon some very definite

principles for themselves.

"Let us put no faith in fortune, in pleasures, even in our self-

love which always increases and makes us run the risk of

becoming blind.... The one who receives the most grace will

make the other profit by it. What do we care what the world

says! It will say what it pleases, but it never will be able to

say that we are not true Catholics . . . Our life will be holy and

simple."

"As far as jewels are concerned," commented Maurice, "I

understand you perfectly. If you had loved them, I should

never have opposed your tastes, but I tell you frankly, I

should have suffered. We shall not fail by excesses on this

score. We can do so much good with money that it would be

wrong, in spite of my desire to spoil you, to spend it only on

you. We shall save all we can to enable us to give more to

charity. We shall always go straight to our goal and make no

concessions to worldliness."

There is however, nothing admirable in a gloomy life. "Our

interior life must be so intense that it remains alive in all our

exterior actions, our pleasures, our work, our joys and our

sorrows. I do not mean an interior life which makes us

withdraw into ourselves and become bores for other people.

On the contrary, we ought to spread our gaiety generously

about us and spend all the activity of our youth to attract

those who meet us. But, in order to be saints, we must be able

to conserve in the midst of the most captivating pleasures

and the most intense activity an interior calm which enables

us to remain self-possessed always. . ."

A saint who is sad is sadly in need of sanctity!

A truly inspiring program!

IDEALS FOR MARRIAGE

ON ONE occasion when Maurice Retour was talking with some

comrades about his ideals of marriage, he saw some of them

smile sceptically. He who had written, "Love has always been

sacred to me. In its name I desired to remain faithful to my

fiancee even before knowing her," was to discover that all his

companions did not share his noble sentiments, his desire for

a chaste marriage.

That did not cause him to lower his standards. He simply

tried to lead his companions to a more Christian

understanding of married life and if he could not do that, he

at least showed his displeasure and withdrew from the

discussion.

Writing to his future wife, he said, "I have heard some

comments about our future, each one more offensive than the

other. But I pity these unfortunate individuals who have

never known how to love truly, who have never experienced

real intimacy with their wife, and who have sought nothing

more than appearance or the satisfaction of their caprice.

They can say what they wish, they can tell me that I am

young or even a little simple but I shall never change my

idea. They can never destroy my confidence--first of all, my

confidence in you because of God who has certainly

protected me in order to find you . . . secondly, my

confidence in myself, because I know that I am different from

certain individuals about me and I am not ashamed to say so

even if it does sound like pride on my part."

If that is pride, it is permissible pride! Rather is it an

expression of perfect mastery! It is the magnificent dignity of

the Christian who knows, of course, that he is weak but who

refuses to justify in advance his failings and cowardices, and

who counts not upon himself but upon God for strength to

persevere.

"Pay no attention to those who tell you I shall change," he

wrote. "Do not listen to those who say that men who marry

young will become unfaithful later. No, I do not want anyone

to believe such a monstrous thing of me."

Who was to give him the strength to resist temptations which

were always possible?

"The sacrament of our marriage will impart to us the graces

necessary to keep our good resolutions. How few understand

this sacrament! How few prepare themselves for it and expect

to receive from it the graces it can give to those who seek

them worthily."

Noble and irresistible pleading! It recalls the words of

Lacordaire, "When a person has not taken the trouble to

overcome his passions and when the revelation of chaste joys

has not come to him, he consoles himself with vices,

declaring them necessary, and clothes in the mantle of

pseudo-science the testimony of a corrupted heart."

Surely marriage is a sacrament, but it is not a miracle. He who

has prepared for it only by youthful escapades will possibly

fail to remain steadfast. But can not he who has prepared

himself by the chastity of celibacy for the chastity of

marriage be trusted to preserve with the help of God, a chaste

marriage?

ONE HEART, ONE SOUL

How happy are married persons who can say as Maurice

Retour to his wife, "We love each other for our ideas. We see

only God and we have become united in order to serve Him

better." Such is Christian love.

"We shall ask Christ, who sanctified marriage, to give us all

the graces necessary for us. We pray with force but also with

joy because we have great confidence in the future since both

of us expect our happiness from God alone."

And after Holy Communion which they both received on their

wedding day they begged God "to make their mutual love

always effect their personal sanctification, to bless their

home by sending them many children, to keep in His grace

themselves, their little ones and all who would ever live

under their roof."

Sometimes we hear it said that there are no examples of

married persons living effectively the holy law of marriage as

God prescribed it and Christ ratified it.

There are many. More than one might think. And, thanks be to

God, there have been some in all ages.

In the time of the early Church, Tertullian, believing his

death to be approaching, wrote two books entitled Ad Uxorem,

"To My Wife." In the last chapter of the second book he gives

an unforgettable picture of marriage. One cannot meditate on

it too often.

He extols the happiness of marriage "which the Church

approves, the Holy Sacrifice confirms, the Blessing seals, the

Angels witness, and God ratifies. What an alliance is that of

two faithful souls united in a single hope, under a single

discipline, under a similar dependence. Both are servants of

the same Master. There is no distinction of mind or of body.

Both are in truth one flesh; where there is but one body, there

is but one mind. They kneel in prayer together, they teach

each other, support each other. They are together in church,

together at the Banquet of God, together in trials, in joy. They

are incapable of hiding anything from each other, of

deserting each other, of annoying each other. In complete

liberty, they visit the sick and help the poor. Without anxiety

about each other they give alms freely, assist at Holy Mass

and without any embarrassment manifest their fervor daily.

They do not know what it means to make a furtive sign of the

Cross, to mumble trembling greetings, to invoke silent

blessings. They sing hymns and psalms vying with each other

to give God the most praise. Christ rejoices to see and hear

them and gives them His peace. Wherever they are, Christ is

with them.

"That is marriage as the Apostle speaks of it to us . . . The

faithful cannot be otherwise in their marriage."

Oh, that we might fulfill this ideal in our marriage

We must pray for it and really want it.

MARRIAGE AND THE BIBLE (1)

I. The Law of Union.

How marvelous is the description of the creation of man and

woman which the book of Genesis gives us.

God has created the universe. He has hurled worlds into

space. Among all these worlds is the earth and on it are all

the splendors of the mineral world, the plant world, and the

animal world. Each time God sent forth some new creature

from His creative Hands, He paused and said, "It is good!" God

saw that it was good.

Yes, all of that creation is but a framework, a pedestal. Whom

does He intend to place within that framework, upon that

pedestal?

Man.

Look at Adam. He has intelligence, free will, and a heart.

A heart--the power to love. But to whom will man direct that

power of love which God has placed in him?

God placed all of creation "beneath his feet." But what does it

mean for man to have everything beneath his feet if he has

no one to clasp to his heart? God understood man. That is

why the Most High is not satisfied upon the completion of His

masterpiece. He does not say as He did after each preceding

creation, "It is good," but He says, "It is not good for man to be

alone."

Therefore, the Most High, the divine Sculptor, chisel in hand

approaches His masterpiece to attack the marble anew; he

lays open its side and from the avenues to the heart removes

a part; this part of Adam, He forms into woman. A

magnificent indication of how close must be the union

between husband and wife! A union of wonderful strength,

engendered by love and for love! Saint Thomas explains that

"God took the substance with which He formed woman close

to the heart of man. He did not take it from the head for she

is not made to dominate. Neither did he take it from man's

feet, for she is not made for servitude. He took it near the

heart because she is made to love and to be loved."

Such is the marvel of the union of love in marriage according

to God. Love will make of two beings a single one.

Adam acclaimed it upon awaking: "This now is bone of my

bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman,

because she was taken out of man." That is why the sacred

text adds: "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother

and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh."

This virginal page does not yet speak of the mother but only

of the spouse. God gives Man a companion--not several but

one--and this society is called conjugal society. This society

will be composed of two persons, a couple, only two. So true

is this that until this first woman became a mother she had

no name of her own. There was only one name for both.

How wonderful is the inviolable oneness of the human couple

according to the desire of God!

MAN BORN OF SLIME

WHAT was God's first aim in instituting marriage? Was it the

mutual union of the couple? Was it procreation?

We can learn much of God's designs without departing from

the story of Genesis. God desiring to multiply humankind by

means of generation (the first aim) created a mutual

attraction between the sexes which would lead them on to

love (the second aim). That is how the matter stands from a

logical point of view. Considered from the psychological

point of view, the first aim is the union of the two; the child

comes only as an issue and consecration of the union.

This is no time to develop a thesis. Much more valuable is it

to draw inspiration for useful reflection upon the plan of God.

Adam was formed from the slime of the earth, Eve from the

body of Adam. Might not this great difference in origin

explain, in part at least, the essential difference between the

masculine temperament and the feminine temperament? Man

is coarser grained, more vehement in passion, more readily

excited to physical desires. That is understandable because

of his role in generation; he is constituted for conquest and,

with rare exceptions, more readily advances beyond the

suggestions or demands of delicacy and restraining modesty

than a woman does. In many ways he evidences that he is

more earthy than his wife. This is not a condemnation but

simply a statement of a providential reality. Woman,

according to Bishop Dupanloup, is more soulful than man.

That, too, can be understood in the light of her role in

marriage. Might it not also be explained by the fact that, born

as she was from a living human being, the beginnings of her

material being were nobler than Adam?

In any case, one thing is certain--God wanted Adam and Eve

to be different from each other. It is a mistake for man to

become effeminate, for woman to play the man. They are not

made to resemble each other but to complement each other.

Let man keep the department of masculine forcefulness and

let woman keep the department of necessary refinements.

Woman has probably failed at times in fidelity to her

essential feminine vocation. Her game of imitating man

whether attempted through perversity or thoughtlessness

goes contrary to the plan of the Most High. God does well

what He does. If He created Eve after Adam, it was not that He

might have upon the earth only Adam and Adam.

Man too does not want to see just himself again in woman.

Just because he has enough of being himself only, he desires

something else. If woman presents nothing but an extension

of masculinity, he has nothing but that to go on. He becomes

completely himself only when a woman who is truly a woman

comes to join him according to the plan willed by Providence.

Let women take on men's work, if need be, during difficult

times which call men to arms; they but do their duty and we

extol them for it. Aside from such an emergency, let them

keep to their own field, the exercise of womanly functions,

and leave to men the functions of man.

SOME FEMININE TRAITS

THE Bible clearly reveals the role designed for woman by

Providence. Formed from a living person rather than from

slime, her lead in the home is to be spiritual; drawn from

close proximity to man's heart she is to rule by loving

devotedness. Created as man's complement, she is not to

become his rival but his helpmate.

It is worthy of note also that the first woman was imposed on

Adam. The first man did not have a choice among several

women. Eve formed by God from Adam's own being was given

to Adam by God.

Ever after, aside from the periods in history when woman was

nothing more than a slave or when she was given in marriage

without her consent, she would be chosen by man in order to

enter into marriage. As a consequence, woman has a double

characteristic--an innate genius for adornment and, in regard

to other women, a jealousy that can be inflamed by a mere

nothing.

She has a genius for adornment. She must please. And that is

right. No one need reproach her for striving to do so. "The

pheasants are preening their feathers," Saint Francis de Sales

humorously commented in answer to Saint Jane Frances de

Chantal's letter expressing worry over her daughters' newly

evidenced concern about their dress. It is excess that is

blameworthy.

Charles Diehl, in the first volume of "Figures Byzantines" tells

us that political reasons did not always direct the marriages

contracted by the emperor of Byzantium. When the Empress

Irene wanted to marry off her son Constantine, she sent

messengers everywhere to find the most beautiful girl in the

empire; she herself set the requirements as to age, height,

and personal appearance of the candidates.

A fig for nobility! The basilissa needed only to be beautiful.

That alone qualified her to be considered sovereign; the

marriage would follow. It was not therefore as wife of the

emperor that she received power but rather as a sort of

choice by God indicated by her beauty. . .

How many women at that time must have hoped to become

empress.

And how many women since the Byzantine era as well as

before have counted on their "beauty" to come into power and

acquire a husband. Provided that she stays within her bounds

when capitalizing on her real or supposed beauty, woman

does not depart from her role.

She does however depart from it when concern for her looks

becomes her sole interest or when she gives herself up to

jealousy of actual or possible rivals.

Her aim should be to keep within the plan of Providence and

never go beyond it.

MARRIAGE AND THE BIBLE (2)

II. The Law of Procreation.

God did not create love and marriage only for the mutual

pleasure of husband and wife. The purpose of their union

goes beyond union. From the married couple's intimate union

a third person will issue, and if the marriage is fruitful a

series of thirds, a progeny which will be the glory of the

parents.

Increase and Multiply. God could have multiplied the living

without using his creatures as instruments. Adam and Eve

were directly created. God needed no one. So true is this, that

in the creation of the soul the Most High uses no

intermediary. He reserves to Himself the power to infuse the

soul into the child whose body the parents cooperate in

producing.

As far as the body is concerned God permits and even desires

that there should be an intermediary cause, and that

constitutes a great marvel. God imparts to His creatures a

share in His creative power. The parents are united in the

physical expression of their conjugal love and from this

bodily union, provided nothing bars the way, life will be

born. For the soul there is to be no human agent. For the body

a human agent shall exist. It is through the instrumentality of

the parents that the body of the child will be born. But God

reserves to Himself the power to put the soul into that body

by a direct act of creation.

That is the basis for the sovereign beauty of fatherhood and

motherhood . . . At the birth of her first born son, Eve,

transported with joy, exclaimed, "I have gotten a man through

God."

There is a double law in marriage--the law of chastity and the

law of fecundity. The law of chastity permits the husband

and wife to regulate according to their desire the frequency

of intercourse. Should they by mutual consent decide to live

for a time as brother and sister, say during Lent or Advent, or

at some other times in their life together, for any just and

noble reasons, they may do so provided they run no risk of

sin.

The principal application of the law of chastity for the

married is this: If they decide either by explicit or implicit

agreement to perform the marriage act, they may do nothing

to prevent conception.

Let them petition God for the desired grace to practice the

restraints and continence they recognize as helpful or if it is

not advisable for them to abstain from physical union, the

grace to do nothing counter to duty.

CONJUGAL DUTY

THE demands of married life emanate above all from the

Natural Law; in other words, right reason left to itself would

reveal them to conscience. Even if Christ had never come, if

Revelation had never been given, these requirements would

be what they are. The Church, keeping to the doctrine of

Christ merely upholds them with her supreme authority; she

does not institute them. She reaffirms the law, explains its

application, clarifies the ideal every time someone attempts

to obscure it.

To that end we have various encyclicals of the popes as

Maximum illud by Leo XIII and Casti Connubii by Pius XI and

also pastoral letters issued periodically by bishops as the

need arises.

One of the most complete of such letters on conjugal duty is

the one written by Cardinal Mercier. Reminding the people of

his diocese of the true doctrine on marriage, he explains the

Christian concept of the conjugal life:

"The original and primary reason for the union of man and

woman is the foundation of a family, the beginning of

children whom they will have the honor and the obligation to

rear in the Faith and in Christian principles.

"It appears, therefore, that the first effect of marriage is a

duty which the married may not avoid . . .

"How far from truth are those who present marriage as a

union whose sole purpose is physical love.

"The attraction to conjugal intercourse is legitimate, beyond a

doubt. But such satisfaction of the sexual appetite is

justifiable only in the function for which it was destined and

which it was meant to ensure.

"How grave then is the sin of those who circumvent the divine

law in this matter. A mortal sin is committed every time that

the conception of a child is prevented by a deliberate

positive act."

Deliberately, before, during or after intercourse to take

precautions destined to prevent conception constitutes a

formal and seriously unlawful act.

The insidious propaganda on birth control that is being

spread about through pamphlets, lectures, and

advertisements is nothing but an effort to make an attack on

life a lawful act. Cardinal Mercier condemns doctors,

pharmacists, or mid-wives who betray their social mission.

It is forbidden to attack life, even in the generative act itself,

that is to say, at the very point of origin. And those who dare

to kill the living one being formed in the womb of its mother,

are punished by the Church with censure reserved to the

bishop. That means that the priest who absolves them must

obtain from the bishop special authorization to do so,

although he need not mention their names.

How the thought of all the souls sacrificed through marriage

frauds ought to incite me to pray for holiness of family life

and general observance of conjugal duty. War is not the

scourge which kills the most people. It is lust.

MOTHERHOOD

THE writer who said, "Man conquers and woman gives

herself," was correct. Such indeed is the difference between

man and woman in their attitude to life. His is an active

heroism; hers a passive heroism. For the grown man, life is

but a series of conquests; he goes from one victory to the

other, carried along by the zest of it until he fails. Woman

makes a gift of herself to life; she spends herself to the point

of exhaustion for her husband, for her children, for those who

suffer, for the unfortunate. But this gift of hers in its fullest

significance is childbirth, a supreme act of passive heroism.

Giving birth to a child is not a purely physical achievement. A

mind, a soul come to life and uniting with the foetus form,

without the mother's awareness, a man--a miracle indeed.

What is the most wonderful is the blossoming and growth of

maternal love in the woman from the very moment of her

child's conception, through its birth, and throughout its

whole life, but particularly during its baby days.

In a certain sense, every woman from her earliest years has

the makings of a mother in her. As a little girl she plays with

her doll, and the game holds her interest only because her

imagination transforms the rag doll or china doll she clasps

in her already expert arms into a living child. So true is this,

that even virginal souls who consecrate themselves to the

service of the neighbor may be called mother; that they really

are for their poor, their orphans, their sick . . .

But it is quite evident that at the time of actual maternity, of

physical maternity, a special creation is effected in the

woman. At the same time that milk mounts to her breast,

maternal love takes possession of her soul, a love of a very

special quality which does not precede but which follows

childbirth. Before the child appears, there can be expectation,

yearning, vague tenderness like the dawn preceding day; it is

not yet maternal love in the strongest and strictest sense of

the word.

The child is born. The woman, even though she had been

extremely lazy, manifests an astonishing energy for all that

concerns her baby. Though she had been previously most

shiftless now she becomes ingenious, attentive, watchful and

almost anxious. No one need tell her that her tiny babe can

do nothing for itself and that it is exposed to danger of death

at almost every instant. She anticipates its needs, its desires

and a frown appears at the least cloud that passes over the

cradle. No trouble daunts her. As a young girl and young

woman she grumbled over sacrifice and became irritable;

now she is eager in sacrifice--hours of watching, getting up at

night; if not able to nurse the child, she makes minute

preparation of formulas, and even later, pays careful

attention to the kinds of food the baby may have. It all seems

to come to her naturally; it seems to be second-nature. But

even if she has acquired her knowledge through training and

study in special courses which she may have taken with no

particular relish, now she carries it out with special zest and

warmth of feeling.

If her baby is well formed, beautiful, healthy and lively, she

rejoices. But if, unfortunately, it is deformed, weak, listless,

her love increases. It is as if she wishes to shower him with

love to make up to the little one for all he lacks as if by

clasping it more tenderly to herself she can supplement its

life.

Should her child later become a prodigal, she will have for

him an astonishing partiality; if she believes him to be a

hero, it is her prejudice in his favor! Marvelous contradiction

in which maternal love reveals itself!

How eagerly she desires the father's love for the child. Then

again she is afraid that the father will not be sufficiently firm

and will give in to him too easily. Now the warmest caresses,

now the height of disinterestedness born of maternal love!

IS BIRTH CONTROL PERMISSIBLE?

To LIMIT procreation by the practice of contraceptive devices

without foregoing sexual union is forbidden. No one has the

right to suppress life. To do away with a living adult is

homicide; to do away with the living child in the course of its

development within the womb of its mother is the crime of

abortion; to destroy the seed of life, in the very generative act

itself so as to prevent possible conception is Onanism, so

called after Onan in the Old Testament who indulged in this

practice.

No one has the right to place any act which by its nature is

productive of life, and on his own authority, frustrate the

effects of that act which is the generation of a life. Nature

must be allowed to take its course. However, if for some

reason decreed by Providence, conception does not take

place, that is God's act. The individual has not on his own

decision killed or sought to kill human life.

It has already been said that to limit procreation by

abstaining from intercourse is within the right of the husband

and wife.

There is however another method of birth control which has

been much discussed and about which it is essential to have

clear ideas. May the married couple profit by the wife's cycles

of infertility, as suggested by the Rhythm theory, limiting

their sexual union to such periods as seem less likely to

result in conception? The answer to that question ought to be

qualified.

To adopt this practice temporarily in order to space births

somewhat without having to deprive themselves of each other

is certainly different from making the practice habitual in

order definitely to avoid having any children or to avoid it at

least for a long time.

Certainly graver reasons are needed to justify the second

instance than to justify the first. Are the reasons for it purely

selfish? Then the married partners are at fault. They do not

by their conduct violate the law of chastity in marriage, that

is true, but they do violate the law of charity, or to put it

more graphically, the law of fruitfulness.

The plan of God for married persons in this matter of

fecundity is not that they have the largest number of children

possible. Rather it is that they should have the largest

number that they are capable of rearing well considering the

position in which Providence has placed them or in other

words taking into account the health, the economic status of

the family, and other such considerations. It is a problem of

honesty.

It is up to each individual to face himself squarely on this

problem, if it is his, and examine himself sincerely on the

complete honesty of his manner of acting. Then such a one

will be ready to meditate often upon the reasons that argue

for peopling the cradles.

WHY HAVE A LARGE FAMILY

WE HAVE seen that the practice of Rhythm, above all if it is

only temporary, is legitimate and reasonable. But, even in

that case, particularly when it concerns those just starting

out on their marital life, it is advisable to call attention to

some vital considerations to be taken into account:

--The harm it can do by separating the idea of sexual pleasure

from the idea of fatherhood and motherhood.

--The harm it can do by overemphasizing the carnal side of

life together at the expense of the tender and spiritual aspect.

--The harm it can do by causing inordinate abandonment to

the senses during the infertile periods.

Rather than seeking out the means--even legitimate means--of

limiting the offspring, what is really important for the

married couple is to discover the reasons for having many

children.

There are reasons of charity:

1. Toward children who depend upon the parents to be called

or not called to life--to eternity.

2. Toward Christian society to which they should seek to give

as many baptized souls as possible and, if God permits,

priests and religious for a world that needs them so much.

3. Toward their country for whom they may rear citizens who

will bring her life and prosperity.

How beautiful are such reasons!

Consider these young chosen ones in perspective. It depends

on me--on us--with just a little generosity on our part, to dare

to bring them forth from nothingness, to call them into being,

to life.

That will mean greater glory for God; it will mean for them an

eternity of happiness. It is up to me--to us--to open for them

the book of life, the Book of Life; for a life in its fuller sense is

not merely a period of time, it is part of a life which will

never end. In bringing forth children, parents are fashioning

citizens of eternity.

It is not enough to consider the Church triumphant and how

to help the greatest possible number to enter into it; we can

and we ought to consider the Church militant. Are the number

of baptized souls bent on living their baptism sufficient in

number? Where can they better increase, develop and aid in

the Christian renewal, that is, the baptismal renewal of the

world than in Christian families? Are there enough priests? . .

. War has mowed down a great number of them. Even before

the war there were not enough for the work to be done. Now,

the need is tragic. Bishops can only ordain . . . The priesthood

depends mainly on marital holiness. If parents do their duty,

if they are generous, there will be priests; otherwise, the

Church will weaken.

As for our country, its beauty is proportionate to its men, to

its men of valor. The recent wars showed the tragedy of a lack

of manpower. These are of course temporal reasons, but

spiritual interests are closely linked with them.

Reflect on all this . . . Let life live!

THE BELL OF LIFE

IN 1935 there was a project on foot to install a bell of life and

a dial of death in the heart of the city of Berlin. The plan may

have fallen through. A large bell was to boom out every five

minutes; in the interval a smaller bell was to ring nine times

announcing to the neighborhood that nine children were

being born in Germany during that time. Then an hour glass

was to indicate to the passersby that in the space of five

minutes, seven Germans had gone to their graves.

Whether realized or not, the project was worthwhile. To

announce the increase of life is helpful; to call to mind the

work of death more helpful still, but not the least important

is to point out the triumph of life over death.

Today's meditation is to dwell on this last thought. It is not so

important now to contemplate the end of life and the

responsibility to be faced at that dread moment as to

welcome the new cradles of life and to determine whether I

am increasing for my country as I should the chiming of the

life-bell.

In November 1939, a leader of a heavy artillery division at

the Maginot line wrote in a letter: "I have eighteen men in my

sector. They are between thirty and thirty-five years old; all

except a few are married; all of them together have only eight

children!"

If, as good Political Economy points out the average number

of children per family for a country which does not want to

die out is three--two to replace the father and mother and a

third destined to fill the void caused by infant mortality--then

those eighteen men should have had at least fifty-four

children among them. They had eight. The deficit then: Forty-

six.

There is of course no moral law that requires the married to

have three children. The example given here is simply a

social or national aspect of the problem. It has already been

pointed out that the moral law is determined not by the

country to which one belongs--although there might be a duty

to give it a thought--but by the law of chastity in marriage on

the one hand and the law of fecundity on the other.

It might be well here to come back to these points. The law of

fecundity expects the parents to have as many children as

they are capable of rearing in a human and Christian manner.

As for birth control, the law of chastity sets the rule: nothing

may be done artificially to frustrate conception.

But to return to the social viewpoint--my country's future,

society's need: Of what good is it to cry out Long live my

country! if my only contribution is to her death?

More cradles than tombs! That should be our motto. How

great is the disaster when the contrary is true! Does not such

an argument which possibly has no force with weaklings or

those too wrapped up in themselves bear weight with me? It

is not the most decisive argument to encourage large

families, but it is not a negligible argument.

Patriotic duty does not belong to morality in war time only. It

exists and binds conscience in peace as well. In another way

perhaps but just as imperatively.

Do I love my country? Do I love her enough to be willing to

give her children? Certainly not primarily for the time of war,

but for peace-time equally. The more valiant hearts and arms

there are, the more prosperous is the country. The true wealth

of a people is their wealth in men.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF HAVING CHILDREN?

WE HAVE seen clearly that it is a "serious matter" to prevent

conception by any voluntary positive act and if full

knowledge and complete consent of the will are present it

constitutes a mortal sin. If the marital act is performed, then

God may not in any way--by the opposition of the parents--be

hindered from creating a soul.

--But we cannot, considering our burdens, increase the

number of our children!

--That may be, responds the Moral Law; such a case is far

from being imaginary. But you do not enter upon marriage

only for enjoyment. In the plan of Divine Providence,

pleasure is the accomplishment or the result of duty fulfilled.

To separate the pleasure from the duty, to seek the first while

evading the second is to go counter to the divine plan. Sexual

pleasure presupposes the normal exercise of the generative

function, the acceptance of the resultant burdens for which it

is, as Cardinal Mercier expresses it, "the providential

payment."

--But when you consider the intimacy of life together, how

can we refrain for any length of time at all without giving

ourselves to each other?

--There is every reason to believe that, without prayer and

recourse to the sacraments, you are right. But what is your

supernatural program? What are you doing to rise above the

senses, to moderate the flesh?

--Can't we choose those times when fertility is least probable?

--Yes, if you have a sufficient reason, as you seem to have.

And the necessity of having to practice prudent and

courageous continence several days each month will in itself

force you to a certain and meritorious generosity.

--Even that is not possible for us; for then we would have to

renounce marital intimacies.

--Of course. But nowhere has it been said that marriage is a

state where one can allow himself every liberty suggested by

his caprice without exercising any judgment.

That is said nowhere; at least, not in any sane and honest

books on morality. Married persons are too quick to think

that, because they have not chosen "the state of perfection"

in absolute virginity, the great virtues are not for them.

Even in granting themselves what they may legitimately

permit themselves, the husband and wife have a large field

for detachment. They ought to be willing to profit by the

opportunity and not reject it on the plea of moral or

physiological impossibility when it is really because of their

lack of stamina, of Christian spirit, and the will to self-

control.

How will such married persons aenemic in their spiritual life

and accustomed to denying themselves nothing, even when

the cost is not too great, deny themselves when a serious law

binds them?

One must learn to will in order to know how to will. And if one

falls he must not excuse but accuse himself.

You are the Judge of my past, O my God. I offer You all its

efforts and its weaknesses. Give me the grace to be generous

in the future.

THE ONLY CHILD

THERE is, as we have seen, a double duty involved in the

marital bond:

--The duty of chastity: In no way to attack the law of life.

--The duty of charity or fruitfulness: To do one's best for the

production of life.

It is impossible--and that is self-evident--to set a definite

figure as the gauge of duty in procreation. A very competent

authority on this subject, Father P. Boisgelat, S. J., has this to

say:

"Who keeps below his minimum possibilities fails in the duty

of his state of life and sins through selfishness. Who strives

for his possibilities and realizes them does his duty. Who

exceeds the maximum of his possibilities sins by imprudence

and intemperance."

As for this level of possibility about which he speaks, it must

be determined by each one's conscience without selfishness

and without imprudence.

"One must on his part confide in God, abandoning to Divine

Providence the possibility of unforeseen misfortunes, such as

the unexpected and early death of the father, a possible lower

economic status in the future, war. . .

"Duty obliges us to foresee only what is foreseeable and

likely; all the rest must be confided to God."

There are couples who eagerly desire one child but not

several children. They want the one either to have a tangible

proof that they have made a fruitful marriage or to create a

precious and living bond between them. They desire only the

one because they do not want to be encumbered; they do not

want to limit the regular tenor of their lives, the quality and

variety of their wardrobe, and they are afraid to run the risk

to their health that every new birth might bring; they dread

the crying and the inconvenience caused by very little

children. These reasons and others just as selfish are worth

nothing. Serious reasons are necessary to dispense from

serious duty.

The idea of limiting the family in order to give to the one (or

to the very small number) resources which will eliminate the

necessity of working or assure the whole benefit of the entire

fortune is not in itself selfish on the part of the parents. It is

extremely harmful however. We are not born to avoid work

here below. Each one is obliged to contribute his maximum

effort to the welfare of society. We are not here to reign, but

to wrestle.

Parents do not manifest much esteem for the fruit of their

blood if they do not deem it capable of gaining, by its own

power, a place in life whenever it so desires.

Then, too, is there not always the danger that the only child

will receive too soft a training, that he will be spoilt and be of

an inferior character?

Should this only child die young, what anguish for the father

and mother! They themselves become the very first victims

of their damnable birth control.

CHRIST AND MARRIAGE

OUR LORD did not come to destroy but to fulfill the law.

Marriage was to remain exactly what it was in the Natural Law:

the exchange of two wills for the purpose of procreation. Our

Savior who knew very well the difficulties of the marital state

made a sacrament of this mutual exchange of wills, a rite that

imparts grace. Each of the two in becoming united to the

other will enrich that other one with an increase of

sanctifying grace. Both should be in the state of grace before

the marriage takes place since it is a sacrament of the living,

which means that its purpose is to intensify the divine life

already existing in the soul. By their gift of themselves to

each other they also obtain for each other a gift of new

growth in the divine.

Because marriage is fundamentally a contract--a double yes

giving to each of the two complete right to the other--it has

this special feature that there is no other minister than the

two concerned. Sometimes people say, "That's Father So and

So; he married us." The expression is incorrect. It is not the

priest who marries the bride and groom; they marry

themselves. They themselves are the ministers of the

sacrament which they receive at the same time. The priest is

there only in the capacity of a witness representing the

Church; as the witness required for the validity of the

marriage; but a witness only.

What eminent dignity therefore has the sacrament of

Matrimony! What eminent dignity have the bride and groom!

They are for each other transmitters of the divine.

The bonds which they contract bear upon two points: the

oneness of the couple, the indissolubility of their bonds. Our

Lord, who made of marriage a grace-giving rite, also stressed

the double obligation of unity and indissolubility.

Oneness: They form a single unit. They shall be two in one

flesh, says Genesis. But due to human grossness, forms of

polygamy were introduced. Our Savior forbade them, and the

Church has always taken care to require the observance of

the law. Love itself demands it. Marriage is such an intimate

reality. To live it with several individuals at the same time is

condemned by natural feeling itself. Divine law merely

reaffirms this basic requirement. Furthermore, family

stability as well as the happiness of the children militate

equally in favor of oneness.

Indissolubility: Marriage creates a oneness forever; a oneness

that can be dissolved only by the death of either partner. The

encyclical of Pius XI, "Casti-Connubii" reminds the world of

this:

"For each individual marriage, inasmuch as it is a conjugal

union of a particular man and woman, arises only from the

free consent of each of the spouses; and this free act of the

will, by which each party hands over and accepts those rights

proper to the state of marriage is so necessary to constitute

true marriage that it cannot be supplied by any human power.

"This freedom, however, regards only the point whether the

contracting parties really wish to enter upon matrimony or to

marry this particular person; but the nature of matrimony is

entirely independent of the free will of man, so that if one

has once contracted matrimony he is thereby subject to its

Divinely made laws and its essential properties."

MARRIAGE AND BAPTISM

CHRIST came to restore to us the divine life lost by original

sin. He instituted baptism as the practical means of entering

upon the supernatural. The baptized person is not only a soul

and a body, but a soul in which God lives.

According to one of the Fathers of the Church baptism is a

marriage between God and the soul; he goes so far as to call

the soul Spirita Sancta the feminine form for the Holy Spirit

(Spiritus Sanctus). Without this marriage of God and the soul,

the individual can have no spiritual fecundity. It is

impossible: The most noble human act performed by one in

mortal sin has no value at all for heaven.

What then is the marriage of two beings of flesh and bone?

It is the image on an earthly plane of a union which is more

beautiful although invisible--the union of God and the soul.

Baptism, marriage--two sacraments of union--and the second

will always be but a symbol of the first. Union of God with the

soul, union of husband and wife. Two sacraments of union;

two sacraments of fecundity. Without God, the soul can do

nothing fruitful for heaven; without each other, husband and

wife cannot beget children. And just as Saint Paul could call

all sin adultery since it is deliberate divorce from God, so

every break in the marriage bond is blameworthy and true

adultery.

Both baptism and marriage then are sacraments of inviolable

union. A rupture of the union whether a divorce from God or

a divorce from one's partner in marriage can in either case be

called adultery.

What better guarantee have the wedded couple of their

reciprocal fidelity than their common life in the state of

grace! Each of the two refusing to be divorced from God is

thus more sure of the other. United as they are by the same

promise, by conjugal embraces, they are likewise united with

each other by the same Holy Spirit who forms the Bond

between them. Any husband or wife who denies this is

already committing an offence against the integrity of the

gift of self. Each of the two must live the truth of Tertullian's

definition of a soul in grace. "What is a Christian?" he asked.

"A Christian is a soul in a body and God in that soul." To give

to one's partner in marriage only the first two elements and

refuse the third is not to give all, not to give the best. Truly it

is a plunder, a plunder which injures husband and wife. Is it

possible not to realize this? It remains profoundly true just

the same: Indeed, it is a double betrayal. For who can say that

one who has been coward enough to betray God will not be

just as likely to betray the partner of his life?

So true is this, that only fidelity to God can give

completeness to marriage.

RESPECT IN LOVE

COMPLETE fidelity in marriage is essential. It is however only

a minimum. To treat each other as living tabernacles of God--

that is what marriage between two baptized persons

demands.

Know you that the sacrament of Christian initiation

transforms a person into a living temple of the Most High?

You know.

Well then, behind this more or less attractive human

silhouette which is the person of the marriage partner, body

and soul, there is God dwelling within and living His Divine

life in the depths of the soul. Consequently when poor health

or advancing age cause husband or wife to grow less

attractive exteriorly, that is not a reason for love to wane.

How many know that when husband and wife in the state of

grace embrace each other by conjugal privilege, they clasp

the Holy Trinity, who unites them even more closely than

their human embrace? Far from coming between them, what

supernatural intimacy and what magnificent dignity does it

give to their union! How it elevates, and idealizes what in

itself is good though still carnal and therefore capable of

easily becoming earthy and, for some, difficult to consider as

something noble.

It is rare to find Christians who truly have faith at least faith

in the fundamental mystery of the life of the baptized. Father

Charles de Foucauld wrote to his married sister who was the

mother of a family:

"God is in us, in the depths of our soul . . . always, always,

always there, listening to us and asking us to chat a bit with

Him. And that is, as much as my weakness will permit, my

very life, my darling. Try, that more and more it may become

yours; that will not isolate you, nor draw you away from your

other occupations. It only requires a minute; then, instead of

being alone, there will be two of you to fulfill your tasks.

From time to time lower your eyes toward your heart,

recollect yourself for a mere quarter of a minute and say:

"You are there, my God. I love You." It will take you no more

time than that and all that you do will be much better done

having such a help. And what help it is! Little by little, you

will acquire the habit and you will finally be always aware of

this sweet companion within yourself, this God of our

hearts... Let us pray for each other that we may both keep this

dear Guest of our souls loving company."

If husband and wife were equally convinced of the living

splendor their souls actually present, how the marital act, so

holy to begin with, would become for them an act of divine

faith, an act penetrated by the highest supernatural spirit.

I want to meditate often on my baptism, and the mystery of

the divine life in me. I want to become accustomed to treat

myself as a living tabernacle of my Lord, to regard the

companion of my life as the thrice holy shrine of the

Divinity, for I know this to be a reality.

The just live by faith. I want to live by faith.

MARRIAGE AND THE MYSTICAL BODY

CHRIST came to restore the divine life lost to us by sin. But

how? He did not save us only by some act external to Himself

as one might lay down a sum of money to ransom a slave but

by incorporating us in Himself, by making all of us with Him

a single organism. "I am the Vine, you are the branches."

Christ is the Head, we the members and together we are the

whole body, Christ. The aggregate of all the members, all the

branches united constitutes the Church joined by an

unbreakable bond to Christ, its Leader and Head.

And Christian marriage will be . . . and will only be . . . but the

symbol of this union of Christ with His Church, of the Church

with its Head Saint. Paul at the end of his Epistle to the

Christians at Ephesus gives no other rule of love and of

security in their union to the married than the counsel to

copy this union in their life. He says to wives. "Let women be

subject to their husbands as to the Lord: because the husband

is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the Church

being Himself Savior of the body. But just as the Church is

subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all

things."

Then addressing himself to husbands, he continues:

"Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the

Church and delivered Himself up for her." This is the way

husbands ought to love their wives and recalling the words of

Genesis. "They shall be two in one flesh," Saint Paul concludes,

"This is a great mystery.... I mean in reference to Christ and to

the Church."

Is it possible to imagine a divorce between Christ and the

Church, between the Church and Christ? By the same token, it

should be impossible to conceive of a divorce between a man

and woman in Christian marriage, the man being but a

double, an image of Christ; the woman a double, an image of

the Church.

This is but a negative aspect . . . not to be disunited. The

union of Christ with the Church which baptism symbolizes

invites the married to have for each other the most profound

and entire consecration to each other. It is this entire

consecration to each other which Saint Paul demands.

It is not without reason that the liturgy of the nuptial mass

contains this particular epistle of Saint Paul. Unfortunately

how few understand something of the significance of these

texts!

How much more fitting would it be, at the time of the

marriage, to profit by the marriage discourse to explain to

those concerned the sublime meaning of the ceremony and

the obligations which will ensue instead of handing out just

so much twaddle and bestowing so many compliments!

The whole difficulty is that it would necessitate touching

upon the profound Gospel spirit and, for the majority of

persons, the Gospel is a dead letter. As a consequence,

everyone keeps to the low level of hackneyed themes

understandable to all.

I shall come back often to this Epistle of my nuptial Mass; it

will help me to deepen my Christianity.

MUTUAL DEVOTEDNESS

THE emphasis upon the duty of reciprocal devotedness of

husband and wife is evident in the previous quotation from

Saint Paul. So that the Church may remain intact, beautiful,

and immaculate, Christ is lavish in His care of her. In return

the Church leaves nothing undone to bring glory to her

Divine Spouse.

That is how husbands and wives should treat each other. The

husband must be another Christ, a faithful copy of Christ. He

ought to neglect nothing for the honor and the welfare of his

wife; he should even be ready, if the need arose, to shed his

blood for her. She, on her part, ought to do everything to

revere her husband. It must be a mutual rivalry of love.

Just as there exists between Christ and the Church, in perfect

harmony with their mutual devotedness, a bond of authority

on the one side and of submission on the other, so too in the

home, the husband is entrusted with the lead in their advance

together and the wife joins her efforts to his in sentiments of

loving submission.

The wife's duty of subordination to her husband does not

arise from woman's incapacity but from the different

functions each of the two are to exercise. When each fulfills

well the proper function, the unity of the home is assured.

The wife is not a slave; she is a companion. On essential

points there is no subordination but necessary equality.

The man has no right to come to marriage sullied and yet

demand that his wife be still a virgin. The man does not have

permission to betray the home, and the wife the obligation to

remain faithful. And when it is a question of the marriage

right, the duty is conjugal, equal for each: When the husband

asks the wife to give herself to him she must grant the

request. But there is a reciprocal duty. When she makes the

same request of him, he too must grant it.

The duty of subordination holds only where the direction of

the home is concerned. It does not give the husband the right

to impose any of his whims upon his wife. In fact, should he

go so far as to make demands contrary to the law of God, she

has the duty to resist him with all gentleness but also with

the necessary firmness. Rightly understood, then, the wife's

submission to her husband is not at all demeaning. Moreover,

to obey is never to descend but to ascend.

Let husband and wife strive not so much to equal each other

as to be worthy of each other. Let the husband put into the

exercise of his authority the reserve and prudence which win

confidence and let the wife strive to be an accomplished

woman not masculine but feminine.

The interesting character of the home is not a man, a woman,

but the couple; not an individual, but the family, the

harmonious development of the family cell; not duality as

such but the advance in common of the two.

WOMAN'S SUPERIORITY

IN HIS book "Il Sangue di Cristo," Igino Giordani pronounces

this judgment:

"Even when he is good, man always reminds one a little of a

heron; he stands on one foot and assumes poses. He turns to

the right, then to the left, and what concern he shows for his

appearance!

"The Christian woman fulfills the more obscure domestic

tasks, services humble and hidden. The woman is to be like

Mary. She will become familiar with the tasks that require

abnegation. Is it not perhaps easier to ascend the pulpit than

to watch at the bedside of the dying? There are plenty of such

examples. Saint Augustine wrote stacks of books but who

made a confessor of the faith out of this professor? His

mother--with her tears.

"More women than men enter religion; yet they do not have

the satisfaction of the priesthood. It is perhaps because of

these interceding and retiring women that all does not go up

in the smoke of vanity's fireworks."

Men might perhaps retort that on the score of vanity, women

do not yield to them a point. If they, the men, know how to

pose to advantage, and women, just to win admiration, also

do their share of strutting, and with an earnestness worthy of

a better cause. Would they be such slaves to fashion if they

did not have--and how much more than men--the mania for

excelling their rivals and gaining notice?

Certainly in self sacrifice and above all in the daily humble

hidden devotedness which the tasks of the home require,

woman is in the lead. That does not mean that man, in his

profession, does not know how to sacrifice himself for the

one he loves. Would he spend himself as he does if he did not

know that a smile would reward him in the evening and a

gentle voice would sing his praises? Nevertheless, in general,

the opinion of Giordani can be accepted as well as the proofs

he gives for it.

We need not consider religious life now. It has no point here.

All we need do is look to the Christian home to find without

difficulty numerous and sometimes touching examples of

devotedness which nothing can exhaust. Here is a wife; she

has a husband who gets beside himself with rage; he has real

fits of temper, the blood rushes to his head and he is

practically on the verge of a stroke. Will the woman let him to

his fate and punish him for his violence by depriving him at

least for a time of her attentions? Not at all!

Wasn't it Shakespeare who gave us this delightful scene: A

sheriff is enraged against his wife. She leaves the room.

Perhaps she has gone off to pout because she is away for a

while. But no! Here she comes, her arms loaded down, and

sets about preparing mustard packs for her husband's feet

and cold packs for his head to avert the ill effects of his

moments of fury.

It might be just an episode in a play but it is none the less

symbolic.

That is woman for you!

THE BOSS IN THE HOUSE

AFTER a meditation on his duty of ruling his future home,

Maurice Retour wrote the following ideas to his fiancee: "In

all the families I have visited, the husbands want to appear to

rule their wives while the wives quietly claim that they rule

their husbands. I eagerly desire to have influence on your

soul to help you ascend; but I desire just as eagerly to have

you exercise a great influence on mine. Let us leave to others

such petty behavior and thank God in all humility that He has

enlightened us."

In another letter he came back to the same idea "I wish to be

master before the law, I even want to be responsible to God

for the morality of our home, but for all the details of our life

there is no master. I have never had greater disdain for

anyone than I have for a married man who presumes to

dominate his wife. I have seen some husbands grow actually

stubborn over some detail so that they do not have the

appearance before others of giving in to their wives. I think

such husbands are idiots." Then as a reason for his opinion

he adds, "Two persons living together necessarily have an

influence upon each other, but I promise you never to try by

any subtlety to hold you under my dominion. We shall live

side by side without a thought for such notions.

I want to believe that we can belong to each other in order to

enjoy life but with a love that will bring us ever close to

God.... God must always be foremost and He must be our goal

even in our love, now and always."

All husbands are not of that calibre. In a novel by a German

author, a certain baron gives his idea on how women should

be treated.

"They must be made to feel their inferiority otherwise they

will be spoiled.

"If you get married, do as I do. Never tell her beforehand

about a trip or a horseback ride. Just lead in your horse.

'Where are you going, my dear?' she will ask the first or

second time. Give no answer, but continue putting on your

gloves. 'Are you going to let me alone like this?' she will add

stroking your cheeks. You seize your riding whip quickly and

say, 'Yes, I have to go to town. I have this and that to do.

Goodby. And if I'm not back at nine o'clock for supper, don't

wait for me.' She trembles, but you don't pay any attention.

She runs after you, but you signal with your whip for her to

go back. She runs to the window, leans out and waves her

handkerchief crying 'Adrien!' But let her white banner wave

and don't bother. Dig in your spurs and get going! I swear that

that's the way to keep women respectful. By the third time,

my wife asked no more questions and God be praised, the

wailing has come to an end."

A mere comparison of these two different attitudes makes the

right one stand out clearly. There are some husbands who are

blackguards; others who are gentlemen.

My choice is made.

MARRIAGE AND THE EUCHARIST (1)

A YOUNG lady before her marriage wrote to her future

husband asking him to go to Holy Communion with her as

often as possible; "The Eucharist is the sacrament of those

who are engaged to be married because it is the Sacrament of

Love." So impressed was the young man by her thought and

so much good did he derive from it, that he engraved the

sentence on her tombstone when she was taken from him by

an early death.

Marriage and the Eucharist. . . how true that they are both

sacraments of love.

What does love require?

Love expresses itself by these three needs: the need of the

presence of the beloved, the need of union, the need of

exchange of sacrifices. Each of the two sacraments satisfies

this triple need.

Need of presence. In the Eucharist: "This is My Body." God

present in us in His divine nature by sanctifying grace

received at baptism found the means to unite to Himself a

human nature: "The Word was made flesh." He was certain

that under that new form He would find a way to make

Himself present to humanity. Therefore, the Eucharist.

In marriage: Needless to mention the yearning the couple

have to be together. If they talk, it will only be to tell each

other how glad they are to be near each other. They may say

nothing, but then in the deep silence which envelops them

their souls will be knit together, they will commune and

exchange the best of themselves. Silence between lovers is

often more eloquent than words; the following advice of a

Chinese sage to a young girl considering a proposal of

marriage evidenced judgment and experience:

"If he tells you, "I love you more than all the world," turn away

your head and nonchalantly fuss with your hair. If he tells

you, "I love you more than the golden rod in the temple,"

adjust the folds of your dress and reproach him laughingly as

if amused at his impiety.

"If he passes beneath your window on a white horse to say

goodby because he prefers to die by a thrust of the sword

than to despair, give him a flower and wish him a happy trip.

"But if he remains beside you, numb as a slave before a king

and clumsy to the point of spilling tea on your blue

tablecloth, then smile at him tenderly as you would for the

one whom you wish to accept for always."

Even though at the beginning of marriage, being together is

unalloyed joy and there is no need to urge cohabitation upon

the newlyweds, it can happen that in the long run

unpleasantnesses arise; the charm of being together wanes

perhaps because faults show up more readily than in the past

or because the couple's concept of marriage was overly

romantic, not preparing them for the possible flaws in each

other or simply because a man will never be anything else

but a man and a woman never anything else but a woman,

that is, two limited beings who can not avoid discovering

their limitations sooner or later.

No one is obliged to marry. But once married, cohabitation is

a duty. Canon Law states: "The spouses must observe the

community of the conjugal life." Saint Alphonsus says even

more specifically, "The married are bound to cohabitation in

one house to the sharing of bed and board." Separation

regarding the last two points can for just reasons, be

permitted in certain cases. Grave reasons are necessary to

dispense husbands and wives from living under the same

roof; there is always the danger of scandal to be feared and,

under the stress of temptations which may arise, also the

danger of transforming simple separation of bodies into real

divorce.

MARRIAGE AND THE EUCHARIST (2)

LOVE, which thrives on the mutual presence of the two who

cherish each other and yearn for each other, also seeks

physical expression.

It is true for marriage; it is true for the Eucharist.

That physical expression is a need of love, both experience

and the most elementary psychology more than amply prove.

Doesn't a mother often say to her baby whom she is

smothering with kisses, "I could just eat you up," as if she

vainly dreamed of being able to reincorporate it?

What is impossible to the mother is possible to Our Lord. He

wanted to give Himself to us as food not so much that we

might incorporate Him in ourselves as that He might

incorporate us in Himself. In the case of ordinary food, it is

the one who eats who assimilates. In the Eucharist, it is the

Living Bread which assimilates us in Itself: "Take and eat, this

is My Body; take and drink, this is My Blood. If you do not eat

the Flesh of the Son of Man, you shall not have life in you. He

who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood shall have life

everlasting."

The Eucharist requires that we take it and consume it. The

Host is not made for the eyes, to be seen, but to be eaten. It is

not enough to look and to adore; we must receive and

assimilate: "Take and eat." The Real Presence is already a

great gift and to be present at Benediction of the Most Blessed

Sacrament a precious exercise which the Church praises. But

that is not the whole significance of the Eucharist. The

Eucharist demands communion, the common union . . . and

what a closely bound community . . . of two beings who love

each other, Christ and the Christian.

Because love is the ideal basis for the sacrament of

matrimony, marriage in its turn dreams of physical

expression.

Since it is concerned with uniting not angelic but human

natures, that is, spirits within bodies, marriage, while it

involves a union of souls, also normally involves a union of

bodies which should facilitate the union of souls. It is the

entire being of the one which seeks to become united with

the entire being of the other.

It can then readily be understood how in view of the

particular intimacy sought through bodily union, delicacy

claims privacy. It is a good act without question and willed by

God who by His nature can permit not even the shadow of sin.

The Church, in the course of her history, condemned those

overly severe moralists who wanted to oblige the married to

go to confession before receiving Holy Communion if they

had previously had intercourse.

There is no question about the couple's right to all those

marks of affection and tenderness which normally

accompany the generative act. Still, between Christian

husbands and wives, a wise modesty, not in the least fearful,

but decently reserved, will be the rule.

The strict right by which sin is measured is one thing; quite

different is the domain of perfection or even of imperfection

which extends far beyond that and which is properly the

course of Christian refinement.

STRANGE PROFANATION

MARRIAGE as a sacrament which should be based on love,

looks to the conjugal act as an expression of love. And since

this embrace is in the nature of the closest of intimacies,

everyone understands that it demands unity of the couple.

We have spoken of that before. But it is essential to be

convinced of it on account of the objections that come up

frequently in conversations and the arguments advanced by

certain modern authors like Blum, or Montherlant or

Lawrence. This last mentioned writer gives us a scene like the

following:

Jack who is married to Monica by whom he has several

children makes advances to Mary:

"Oh, Jack! You are married to Monica."

"Am I? But she doesn't belong entirely to me; she has her

babies now. I shall love her again when she is free. Everything

in season, even women. Now I love you after going for a long

time without ever thinking of you. A man is not made for a

single affair."

"O God," she cried. "You must be crazy. You still love

Monica."

"I shall love Monica again later. Now I love you. I don't

change, but sometimes it is the one, sometimes it is the

other. Why not?"

Yes, Why not? Simply because the rule as regards marriage is

not the mere caprice of man and the satisfaction of his

sensual desires; because woman has a right to respect and to

the pledge that has been given her; because marriage is made

not for the individual but for the family, the social unit, and

to carry on in such a fashion is the break down of the family.

But Jack--or rather Lawrence--hears nothing of all that.

"Mary, all alone, was incomplete. All women are but parts of a

complete thing when they are left to themselves . . . They are

but fragments . . . All women are but fragments."

Where does such a theory originate if not in the unbounded

sensuality of man? But Jack listens to nothing. What do

judgments other than his own mean to him? As he said, "He

hated the thought of being closed up with one woman and

some youngsters in one house. No, several women, several

houses, groups of youngsters; a camp not a home! Some

women, not one woman. Let the world's conventions be

ignored. He was not one of those men for whom one woman

was enough."

Why doesn't the logic of sensuality accord woman what man

so brutally claims for himself? Are there two Moral Laws?

Here is another character, Helen. She is a doctor's wife and

his most devoted assistant. But she divorces him for a snob

whose life is all race horses and receptions. There she is,

soaked in worldliness. She gets another divorce to marry a

young poet, the latest rage, and transforms herself into an

intellectual . . . Marvelous richness of the feminine soul! Says

your sophisticate, she is like a fountain of glistening water

which catches its coloring, green, red, or blue according to

the men she chooses in turn!

Are we dreaming? That's the kind of thing we are likely to

hear in certain gatherings and cocktail parties.

What a profanation of love!

Complete oblivion of the significance of the conjugal act! It is

not only two distinct physical acts, but, through the medium

of the body, a most ineffable exchange between two souls.

MARRIAGE AND THE EUCHARIST (3)

MARRIAGE as a sacrament that should be based on love in the

beginning and that must foster love in those who receive it

together expects the mutual presence of a respectful and

devoted cohabitation. From the very nature of marriage there

devolves the duty of union and of procreation.

Marriage requires still more . . . mutual sacrifice. And here

again its similarity to the Eucharist is remarkable.

Our Lord instituted the Eucharist not only to give us His

Presence, not only to provide us with the benefits of Holy

Communion. Rich though these benefits be, they do not

constitute the culminating benefit. What is the great wealth

of the Eucharist?

On Calvary, Our Lord offered Himself all alone to His Father.

But by His sacrifice He merited for us the grace to be grafted

on Him. Stretched upon the bloody Arbor of Calvary Christ's

Hands and Feet and Side were cruelly notched; through the

benefits of these divine openings we have gained the

privilege, we wild offshoots since the time of Adam, branches

deprived of divine life, to be set, to be grafted to the single

Vine, the only Possessor of sanctifying sap.

Made other Christs that day, all Christians . . . Christiani . . .

received the power, each time that the Lord Christ Jesus

would repeat His sacrificial oblation of Calvary through the

hands of His priest for the glory of the Father and the

salvation of the world, to offer it with Him. This repetition of

that offering is the Mass. Jesus, the divine Mediator, assumes

again His attitude of Mediator; held between heaven and

earth by the hands of the priest, He reiterates the

dispositions of the complete immolation of Calvary.

On Golgotha, He was alone to carry through the sacrifice, the

bloody sacrifice. Having been made that day by Him into

Christ, we, since we are inseparable from Him except by sin,

have the mission, whenever Christ renews His oblation, to

offer it and to offer ourselves to Him. Effective participation

in Mass is to be united with the Divine Head and all members

of the Mystical Body in the intimacy of the same oblation

renewed.

Jesus brings to us the benefits of His very own sacrifice; we

bring to Him the offering of our own sacrifice. It is this part

of the offering that the martyr's relic in the altar stone and

the drop of water into the wine at the Offertory represent; the

union of two sacrifices in the unity of the same sacrifice.

Marriage will have to reach heights like that to succeed in

satisfying the utmost demands of love. The husband must be

ready to sacrifice all for his wife; the wife must be ready to

sacrifice all for her husband. From these conjoined sacrifices,

love is made; love likewise demands these conjoined

sacrifices.

What shall I do to show my wife that I love her? What fine

deed can I accomplish, what prowess display, what humble,

noble act perform? That is the spirit of chivalry.

And the wife: What shall I do to make my husband happy?

What will give him pleasure?

This is the nourishment and the condition of love, the relish

for mutual sacrifice.

MARRIAGE AND SACRIFICE

IT IS not only the highest Catholic doctrine which requires

the spirit of sacrifice of the married couple but more

immediate common experience.

To live mutually in the closest proximity, in constant

forgetfulness of self so that each of the two thinks only of the

other requires something more than mere human attraction.

"Do not believe those who tell you that the road of love offers

only the softest moss for your feet to tread. There are some

sharp pebbles on the trail blazed by Adam and Eve."

The married woman who wrote those lines in verse, said the

same thing in prose, a prose strangely poetic:

"To enter into marriage with the idea that someday they will

be rid of self is like putting a moth into a piece of wool.

Whatever may be the embroidery, the gold threads, the rich

colors, the piece of wool is destined to be eaten, chewed with

holes and finally completely devoured. It would be necessary

for two saints to marry to be sure that no bitter word would

ever be exchanged between them; even then it is not

predictable what misunderstandings might crop up. Did not

Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas have to separate because they

had too many altercations? Then, can these two unfortunate

children of Adam and Eve destined to struggle in life with all

that life brings in our days of recurring difficulties expect

never to have any temptations to wound each other and never

to succumb to such provocations?"

If marriage is difficult even when the husband is a saint and

the wife is a saint, how can we estimate the sacrifices it will

require when the couple are to put it briefly but "poor good

Christians."

Here however we are discussing the case of two who are

sustained by dogma, morals, and the sacraments. But

suppose one of the couple is a sort of pagan, or if baptized,

so far removed from his baptism that nothing recalls any

longer the mark of the children of God. What a secret cause

for suffering!

Such was the suffering of Elizabeth Leseur who was happy in

her married life in the sense that her husband was completely

loyal to her but unhappy in her home because on the

fundamental point for union, there was disunion, a separated

life, the wife being Christian to the degree of astonishing

intimacy with God and the husband remaining perfectly

satisfied with the superficial life of so-called society.

Even when souls live in closest harmony, there will always be,

even in the best of homes, a hidden cause for mutual

suffering, which one author calls, "the eternal tragedy of the

family, due to the fact that man and woman represent two

distinct worlds whose limits never overlap." For woman love

is everything. For man it is but a part of life. The woman's

whole life rotates about the interior of the home, unless

necessity forces her to work to earn a livelihood. The

husband lives whole days much more outside the home than

in it; he has his business, his office, his store, his shop, his

factory. Except for the early days of his married life, he is

absorbed more by ambition than by love; in any case, his

heart alone is not busy throughout his days, but also and

frequently more often, his head.

Sometimes the wife suffers from not having her husband

sufficiently to herself; the husband suffers because he

appears not to be devoting himself sufficiently to his wife.

Over and above other causes of tragedy, here is the eternal

and hidden drama. Much virtue is needed by both to accept

the suffering they unwittingly cause each other.

A MYSTIC MORAL BOND

ASIDE from the helps of Faith, two things especially can aid

the married couple to practice mutual forbearance and to

accept the sacrifices inherent in life together.

The first is the fact of their mutual share in the birth of their

progeny.

Saint Augustine speaks beautifully of the two little arms of a

child which draw the father and mother more closely together

within the circle of their embrace as if to symbolize the living

bond of union the child really is between them.

Even when one's choice of a marriage partner has been

perfect, when ardent tenderness is evinced on both sides,

there can still develop a period of tenseness and strained

relations. Who can best reconcile the two souls momentarily

at odds, upset for a time, or somewhat estranged?

The child.

Someone has said it well: "Life is long, an individual changes

in the course of ten, fifteen, twenty years shared with

another. If the couple that has a had a fall out, has known

love in its fullness. I mean by that the love of hearts and

souls above all..., if the two have the noble and deep

memories which constitute our true nourishment during our

voyage on earth, if they are above all bound together by the

children that their love has brought into the world, then there

is a good chance that even though they are caught by the

undertow of passion, they will emerge safe and sound."

In addition to having children . . . that bond of love between

the father and mother even in the greatest stress and strain . .

. what most contributes to a speedy reconciliation after the

clashes that eventually arise or the misunderstandings which

set them at odds is the thought that they must endure, they

must remain together.

What is to be thought of the following practice which is

becoming quite customary? In the preparation of the

trousseau, only the bride's initial is engraved on the

silverware or embroidered on the linen. Does it not seem to

be a provision for the possibility of a future separation?

By the constant repetition of the idea that man is fickle and

that "her husband is the only man a woman can never get

used to," the novel, the theater, the movies, set the stamp of

approval on the "doctrine" of the broken marriage bond as

something normal, something to be expected.

"On the contrary," says Henriette Charasson, who is a married

woman and an author quoted before, "if husbands and wives

realized that they were united for life, if they knew that

nothing could permit them to establish another family

elsewhere, how vigilant they would be not to let their

precious and singular love be weakened; how they would

seek, throughout their daily ups and downs, to keep vibrant,

burning, and radiant, the love which binds them not only by

the bond of their flesh but by the bond of their soul."

We must thank God if He has blessed our home by giving us

many precious children; thank Him also for the Christian

conviction which we received formerly in our homes,

convictions which will never permit us to consider the

possibility of the least fissure in our own family now.

A FATHER'S ANSWER TO HIS DAUGHTER

IN THE book "My Children and I" by Jerome K. Jerome, which

is as full of humor as of common sense, a young girl tells her

father that she is frightened at the possibility of love's

brevity.

"Love," she says, "is only a stratagem of nature to have fun at

our expense. He will tell me that I am everything to him. That

will last six months, maybe a year if I am lucky, provided I

don't come home with a red nose from walking in the wind;

provided he doesn't catch me with my hair in curlers. It is not

I whom he needs but what I represent to him of youth,

novelty, mystery. And when he shall be satisfied in that? . . ."

Her father answers, "When the wonder and the poetry of

desire shall be extinguished what will remain for you will be

what already existed before the desire. If passion alone binds

you, then God help you! If you have looked for pleasure only,

Poor You! But if behind the lover, there is a man (let us add a

Christian); if behind this supposed goddess, sick with love,

there is an upright and courageous woman (again let us add

Christian); then, life is before you, not behind you. To live is

to give not to receive. Too few realize that it is the work

which is the joy not the pay; the game, not the points scored;

the playing, not the gain. Fools marry, calculating the

advantages they can draw from marriage, and that results in

absolutely nothing. But the true rewards of marriage are

called work, duty, responsibility. There are names more

beautiful than goddess, angel, star, and queen; they are wife

and mother.

Marriage is a sacrifice.

In order to live these four last words, "Marriage is a sacrifice,"

it is not enough to have started off on a good footing, to be

enthusiastic about fine ideals, to put all hope in mutual

tenderness.

Since marriage calls for more than ordinary sacrifice, it will

be necessary in order to remain faithful to the habit of

sacrifice, to have more than ordinary helps.

We have already meditated on the similarity between the

Eucharist and marriage; we have seen that not only is there a

bond of resemblance between these two sacraments but that

there is in the Eucharist, above all in participation in the

Eucharistic sacrifice and in Holy Communion a singular help

for the married.

Prayer together must also be a help. Someone has rightly

said, "The greatest sign of conjugal love is not given by

encircling arms in an embrace but by bended knees in

common prayer.

In his "Confessions," Saint Augustine describes his last

evening with his mother at Ostia. It is worth quoting. When a

husband and wife have reached such a degree of soul-union

in God, they can face all life's tempests without trembling.

"Forgetting the past and looking toward the future, we

pondered together in Your Presence, O my God, the living

Truth, on what the eternal life of the elect would be like. . . .

We came to this conclusion: The sensible pleasures of the

flesh in their intensest degree and in all the attractiveness

that material things can have, offer nothing that can compare

with the sweetness of the life beyond, nor do they even

deserve mention. In a transport of love, we tried to lift

ourselves to You there...."

I must understand more clearly than in the past how essential

it is to be rooted in prayer and if possible in prayer together.

I will meditate on this again.

TRANSPORTED TOGETHER

WE ARE not considering the word "transported" in its

emotional and rapturous sense, not as a paroxysm of

exaltation, but rather in the sense of an ascent in a vehicle

toward a determined destination.

Marriage is a trip for two. A trip. They travel ahead, enjoying

mutual happiness on earth even as their destination gets

nearer; and farther on, over there, up yonder, they shall both

have the happiness of paradise.

Do I have my destination, our common destination,

sufficiently before my eyes . . . sanctity here below, then

death; then in the next life, the reward for our mutual efforts

on earth?

How quickly we slip along hardly noticing our advance; I am

scarcely aware of having started on the way. How distant the

end seems; it escapes my sight; I am all taken up with what is

right before me; I can't see the forest for the trees.

Am I advancing? In sanctity? In union with God? In patience?

In purity? In charity? In generosity?

How many questions? Am I really asking them of myself? And

if I am, how must I answer them if I want to be honest?

But I am not alone. This is a trip in company with others. We

are several; we are two not counting the children.

How do I conduct myself toward this company, my co-

travelers?

How do I act toward the partner of my life?

A recent "before and after" cartoon gave a series of pictures

indicating changes in attitude toward one's life companion:

During the engagement period, the young man is holding the

umbrella very solicitously over his fiancee's head with no

regard for the rain pouring down on him. Shortly after

marriage, he holds the umbrella between them so that each

receives an equal share of the raindrops. A long time later in

marriage, the husband is no longer concerned about his wife;

he holds the umbrella over his head and lets his wife get

soaked to saturation.

Is that a reality or only an accusation? Selfishness so quickly

regains its empire. It is not always bad will; inattention,

perhaps, plain and simple. Yes, but isn't even that too bad?

What happened to all the little attentions of courtship and the

honeymoon days? Those countless delicate considerations?

The constant thought of the other?

There is the root of much suffering especially for the wife

who is keener, more affectionate, more sensitive; she thinks

she is cast off. She lets it be known on occasions. Oh, not

bluntly, but with that subtle art she has for allusions,

implications, and expressive silences. She might upbraid: "If

you were in such a situation, if you were with such and such a

person, I am sure you would be so obliging, so engaging, so

attentive. But it is only I. Consequently you don't have to

bother, isn't that so?" And, little by little, bitterness creeps in.

It was nothing at all to start with. They made something--

matter for friction.

I know a priest who wanted to preserve until he was at least

eighty all the freshness of his priesthood: "I shall never let

myself get used to celebrating Holy Mass." I should be able to

say the same thing in regard to the sacrament I have

received, the sacrament of marriage: "I will preserve my love

in all its freshness. I shall remain considerate, delicately

attentive. I shall do everything in my power to travel forward

together not only in peace but in light and mutual joy.

SINGLE THOUGH TWO

ANNA DE NOAILLES, a French poetess, summed up her

unhappy married life in the words, "I am alone with someone.

It is an expressive but sinister remark.

People marry in order to be two, but two in one, not to

continue to be alone, alone although with someone.

Aloneness for two can have a double cause:

1. Waiting too long to have children through a mutual

agreement at the beginning of married life.

2. Loving each other too much perhaps. Too much, selfishly

of course. Man and wife united, together, yes; and in this

sense, it is not the solitude of which Anna de Noailles spoke.

But if their union for two deserves rather to be called

selfishness for two, it is not a true union.

These are the reefs upon which many a marriage has been

wrecked.

Granted that if they do nothing to prevent generation, they do

not sin . . . at least not against the law of chastity for

marriage; but besides going counter to the law of fecundity,

they are running the risk of sterility.

If they wait too long to have their brood, the nest hardens,

loses its softness and adaptability. They get so accustomed to

being only two that the presence of a third, even though the

fruit of their union, does not seem desirable. There will

always be time later, later! Let us enjoy each other first.

Selfishness for two: conjugal solitude. And let us add, a risk

for later on. The wife will probably suffer from not being able

to be a mother; the husband gets used to seeing in her only a

wife. "It is in springtime," the proverb picturesquely says,

"that the father bird learns to do his duty." The wife is very

imprudent if she lets her husband prolong unduly a sort of

bachelorhood; let her teach him how to assume his duties

without too much delay.

There can be another reason more harmful still for this being

alone though two and that is born of opposition of characters.

Generally it does not appear in the first years of married life.

Everything is marvelous then, sunshine and moonlight.

Though there may be exceptions, they are rare.

But there comes a time when tension creeps in, more or less

restrained, then hidden resentment, finally opposition if not

with weapons at least by tongue lashings, sullen silences,

disagreeable attitudes. There is in every man, even a married

man the stuff of an old bachelor; in every woman, even a

married woman, something of . . . well, a person shouldn't

really use that word to speak of unmarried women.

When husbands and wives notice their rising irritability, they

should take hold of their hearts with both hands so to speak

and refrain from words they will regret soon after. If they

have the courage, let them have an understanding with each

other as soon as possible. They should learn not to notice

every little thing; to forget with untiring patience all the little

pricks; to remember only the joys they lived through

together; to make a bouquet of them, not a faded bouquet

like dried out artificial flowers that are kept in a drawer, but

alive and fresh, beautiful enough to be put in full view on the

mantlepiece.

Everything that is typical of the single life is taboo. They are

united. They are to remain united. Two in one. In one: It is not

always easy; it is always necessary.

MARRIAGE AND THE PRIESTHOOD (1)

THERE is a greater resemblance between the sacrament of

matrimony and the sacrament of Holy Orders than is

immediately evident. The encyclical "Casti Connubii" of Pope

XI does not fail to point it out. Here are a few similarities:

1. Although the sacrament of matrimony does not like Holy

Orders impart a special character to the soul, it does

consecrate "ministers" appointed to communicate grace. The

priest is but a witness at the marriage. It is not the priest who

marries but the man and woman who marry themselves who

by exchanging their mutual "yes" give to each other more

divine life. A sublime dignity which we have considered

before.

2. Both marriage and Holy Orders give and sustain life. Holy

Orders, supernatural life; marriage, natural life. The object of

marriage, however, is not only the formation of bodies, but

also the education of souls; procreation is nothing if it does

not duplicate itself in education. It is up to the parents to get

their children baptized, to prepare them for their First Holy

Communion, to help in their religious formation, to assist

them to remain in grace, a ministry which paves the way for

the ministry of the priest, makes it possible and doubles its

value.

3. Marriage and Holy Orders are both "social sacraments";

they are not intended only and principally for the personal

sanctification of the recipients but are directed more

especially to the general good of the Christian community.

The priest is not a priest for himself; he is ordained for the

sheep entrusted to him; he is commissioned to work for the

flock the bishop designates for him. Parents are not married

only for their own good; they are married for the good of the

children who will be born of them.

When the number of priests decreases, what harm results for

the spiritual future of society! (Isn't today's terrible proof of

this a real anguish for the heart?) If marriage is not

undertaken by the fit, or the fit determined to fulfill its

obligations, what harm will ensue for the temporal future of

society!

4. Those who receive the sacrament of matrimony are vowed

just as truly as is the priest to the exercise of charity.

For the priest it is clear. A bishop is established in the state

of perfection by his very function which is to spend himself--

to the giving of his life if necessary--for the welfare of the

faithful. Because he is perpetually in the state of complete

charity, we say that he is in the state of perfection, perfection

consisting in the more or less extensive and permanent

exercise of charity. Priests share in this state of holiness of

the bishop. They must spend themselves for their sheep, be

ready day and night to bring them spiritual help, to do all in

their power to instruct them in the Word of God, to prevent

them from losing their souls, to lead them back to the fold if

they are tempted to go astray.

The married are, in their turn, and in a broad sense,

established to a degree in a state which can, if they live it as

they should, bring them to high perfection.

Ought not the husband exert himself with his whole soul for

the well-being of his wife and children; should he not work

and spend himself for love of them?

And what about the wife and mother? The pelican appears on

the chasuble of the priest to symbolize his duty to imitate

Christ by giving his very heart's blood for the faithful. Could

it not also be a symbol for maternal sacrifice?

MARRIAGE AND THE PRIESTHOOD (2)

PRIESTS receive Holy Orders at the foot of the altar, so too do

the bride and groom receive the sacrament of matrimony.

It is as if the Church appointed the same place for the

reception of both sacraments because she wished to

emphasize the relationship between matrimony and Holy

Orders.

Now that we have seen the points of resemblance between

them, we are ready to draw some profitable conclusions:

1. The two who are married are called to help each other in

the life of grace. Therefore the couple will become channels

in the communication of grace in proportion to each one's

own wealth in the divine life. What a long preparation the

priest must have for his priesthood--long years in the

seminary, the reception of minor Orders before admittance to

the priesthood, the retreats before each of his ordinations.

By contrast, how many enter upon marriage with no

preparation. Even when they do prepare for it and give it

thought, how superficial and brief their preparation is; how

easily lost are the effects by a flood of social events and

distractions. Strange conduct!

2. The two joined by marriage will have to propagate life, and

what is more, a life which will resemble theirs. A most

frequent comment made over a new baby, a comment which

is quite telling is "Why, he's his father all over," or "She's a

vest-pocket edition of her mother." What if this is to be true

morally as well? What am I, the father, like? Or I, the mother?

Do I really want this little one to resemble me? Oh, no! I want

it to be better, much better than I!

But am I free, as I go along, to weaken what I expect to

transmit and what I expect to keep for myself? No. I can

refrain from begetting children, but if I do have them, I must

know that they will resemble me. I ought not to have to say as

someone said, "My children will be like me, but you will have

to forgive them for it."

Is that not a thought that should move me strongly to

sanctify myself?

Since I am not only to beget children, but I must also rear

them, ought I not examine myself on the degree of my virtue?

Is it such that I can really contribute to the advancement of

other souls, to contribute to the growth of the Mystical Body

of Christ, to intensify the supernatural in the souls around

me--my partner in marriage, my children?

The Cure of Ars once asked a priest who was complaining

over his lack of influence on his parishioners: "Have you

fasted, taken the discipline, struggled in prayer?" In other

words, "Have you pushed your efforts in prayer, penance, and

sanctification to the highest point?"

Perhaps I complain of my powerlessness with one of the

children. Have I taken all the means to draw down God's

maximum graces upon me? Souls cost dearly. To be sure

there is always individual free will to contend with; it can

resist God; it can resist the prayer and the parents' striving

after holiness. I may not get discouraged. Have I not perhaps

been measuring out my generosity a bit too carefully? I shall

try to reach the heights. We cannot lift up unless we

ourselves are higher.

I should see, in the light of the parallel between the

sacrament of matrimony and the sacrament of Holy Orders,

the extent of my responsibilities. Like priests, I have a heavy

responsibility. A magnificent responsibility but a frightening

responsibility! If I am only so-so, I shall--according to the

logic of things and barring a miracle of God's grace--rear

souls who are only so-so.

Is that what I want?

Have I up to now measured how far-reaching my mission

actually is?

MASCULINE TREASON

WOMEN have their faults; while they are generally more

irritating than man's, they are less to be feared. Man more

readily betrays; he is more truly all of a piece; when he falls,

it is the whole way.

That should not cause a wife to be constantly on needles and

pins; it is harmful for the man and she does herself great

harm by so acting, for nothing will as quickly drive her

husband into another woman's arms as jealousy in his lawful

wife.

The knowledge of man's tendency should incite the husband

to watch over himself more closely to avoid imprudence that

might run into flirtation, then into a friendship, then into

adultery. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, above all

in the strong sex.

Even in cases where the quality of the person, the honor of

the family name, nobility of origin would seem to give every

guarantee of perseverance in good, we sometimes meet

lamentable examples of a man's infidelity to his home.

In the diary of Eugenie de Caucy, the second wife of Marshal

Oudinot, it is related that on Sunday of shrove-tide 1820,

there was a very spectacular showing of "Le Carnival de

Venise" at the Opera.

The Duke de Berry had left the theatre before the last act to

escort his wife to her carriage. Upon turning to go back to his

box he was mortally wounded by the anarchist Louvel.

He asked for a priest and then made another request: "I want

to see all my children." The people about him knew only of

Mademoiselle, the four year old daughter, the child of his

marriage with the Duchesse.

His wife, the Duchess, did not dare to understand his request.

He explained, "My wife, I admit, I have several children.

Through a liaison of mine in England I had two daughters."

He died shortly after, asking mercy for his murderer and

regretting from the depths of his soul, a little late to be sure,

his unfaithful conduct.

Many thoughts suggest themselves on hearing such a story.

First of all, think of dying in such a setting! Yet, there is

certainly nothing wrong with attending a play if the play is

morally good; we just have to remember to be always ready

wherever we are; death can strike us in society and even

while we are in the proximate occasion of sin.

Another more appalling thought is the wife's ignorance of her

husband's life. How can a man so betray the one to whom he

has pledged his faith? Furthermore, how brazen, to ask a

young girl to be his wife, the cherished companion of his life

after giving if not his heart at least his body to another

woman! Truly, man is not charming! Not that woman is

incapable of betrayal and of giving herself unlawfully, but we

should like to think that it happens more rarely.

Finally a third observation comes to mind--the picture of this

man lying in his blood, confessing his past and by this act of

humility, which is to his credit, trying to redeem the failings

of the past.

Thanks to God's grace, I have not similar failings on my

conscience. But are there not many thoughts, many desires,

certain types of reading, much imprudence even in act, and

unwarranted liberties of which I have been guilty? If those

about me knew what I really am, how would they judge me?

MARRIAGE AND THE COUNSELS (1)

IS IT possible to arrive at perfection without following the

evangelical counsels?

Put in this way, the question can have two answers depending

on whether the effective practice of the counsels is to be

understood or simply the spirit of the counsels.

1. Perfection consists in the exercise of charity as the duty of

one's state implies it. "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is

perfect" was said to all not just to priests and religious.

And again to all, "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy

whole heart, and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind

and with all thy strength."

The perfection of charity is commanded to all and not only

counselled.

That the evangelical counsels are a help to the exercise of the

virtue of charity for those who have elected to live by them is

certain; they are not the only means.

The Gospel makes it perfectly clear: There is the observance

of the Commandments--a necessity for all; there is the

observance of the counsels--for those who desire it; those

only would be obliged to adopt this second means who have

evidence that without them they could not attain their

salvation--a rare case indeed.

2. But it appears to be a very difficult thing to arrive at the

perfection of charity without adopting the spirit of the

counsels.

In fact there are three great obstacles to the perfect service of

God: excessive attachment to the goods of earth; the

tendency to seek purely selfish satisfactions where the

affections of the heart are concerned; finally the habit of

obeying not so much God's will for our life as personal

caprice and the false demands of the world.

From this it is evident that the pursuit of perfection

presupposes the spirit of detachment; it means using things,

as Saint Paul would say, as if we did not use them at all. That

suggestion is good not only for life in the cloister but every

bit as good if not more so, in view of the greater difficulty, in

the simple life of observing the Commandments. The spirit of

poverty in either case is essential.

The pursuit of perfection while living in the midst of the

world likewise calls for the spirit of chastity, the chastity of

the heart--not to the point of having to deprive themselves of

everything as those do who are vowed to the virginal state

but to the point of the privations necessary to meet the

demands of the conjugal state. Therefore, the spirit of

chastity is equally essential.

Striving for perfection in the midst of the world still allows

the individual entire liberty regarding many of the details of

life, the so-called good things of life as well as ideas,

companionship, dress. The soldier Ernest Psichari yearned as

he used to say "to be free of everything except Jesus Christ."

Strive for obedience to God alone who said "Seek ye first the

kingdom of God and all the rest shall be added unto you." I

must not let "the rest" take precedence over "the Kingdom."

Obedience to God should not be marked by formal passivity

but by vision and conviction. Let me measure the distance

from the place I am now to the summit of Christianity.

MARRIAGE AND THE COUNSELS (2)

THIS subject has too great significance for one meditation

only.

Before the Fall there was a triple harmony in man:

--Harmony between God and the soul: Adam and Eve

conversed familiarly with the Most High who used to walk

with them at twilight in Paradise; He often left His footprints

in the sands of their garden.

--Harmony within man himself between his body and soul:

The senses were active but they were submissive to reason

and will; concupiscence existed but it was just concupiscence

not evil concupiscence; the powers of desire were not

inordinate.

--Harmony all about man, between him and nature: The

animals were subject to him and were not hostile to him.

Inanimate nature did not refuse its secrets to his work which

was but a joyous extension of his activity and not as it has

become in part at least--fatiguing labor. "You shall eat your

bread in the sweat of your brow."

Then came the Fall. Immediately this beautiful balance was

destroyed. Man revolted against God. The result: Man's senses

rose up against right reason and will enlightened by faith;

nature and all about man turned hostile. There would be wild

beasts and venomous creatures among the animals; the earth

would resist his toil and the labor of generations to come,

revealing its treasures only with discouraging parsimony and

at the cost of fearful toil and sweat.

What should be most profitable for my meditation is the

consideration of the revolt in man himself, his lower powers

against his higher powers. From then on man would have to

struggle against the triple and fatal inclination which was

born in him:

--An inclination to take an exaggerated possession of the

goods of the earth, the fruit of concupiscence of the eyes:

Man will rush after all that glitters. How many crimes have

been committed because of an unregulated love of money!

--An inclination to seek after excessive carnal satisfactions

contrary to true discipline of the senses and the commands

of God. What crimes have not the follies of lust produced!

--An inclination to pride: Man, proud of his liberty, but not

sufficiently concerned about keeping it in dependence on

reason and the Divine Will, runs the risk of forgetting the

majesty and sovereignty of God and the prime duty of

obedience to the Master of all.

How can one struggle effectively against this triple and

dangerous inclination?

Do violence to self, declare spiritual writers with good

common sense. First and foremost among them in suggesting

this technique is Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Choose the

counterpart: poverty, chastity, obedience.

Religious men and women make it the matter of a vow. Their

lives serve as an inspiring example to draw forward those

whose lesser courage or less demanding vocation have kept

in the common way of life.

I shall hold religious life in high esteem. Although my

vocation is different I shall learn to live in a wise spirit of

detachment from created things, of chastity according to my

state, and of obedience to the Holy Spirit.

MARRIAGE AND VOWS

THE problem of personal vocation, as I have seen from my

meditations, is not a problem to be solved in the abstract, in

pure theory, but in the concrete, taking each particular case

into consideration. The best vocation in an individual case is

not the vocation which is best in itself but the best in fact,

that is the one which Divine Providence prepares for each

person.

I have recognized mine quite clearly. I have no worry on that

score.

Without wishing to belittle in the least the merits of those

who pronounce religious vows--for they are privileged souls--

can I not in a way compare my life with theirs and find a

resemblance between them?

In the writings of his mother which the poet Lamartine

published we find these lines:

"Today I attended the Investment of some hospital sisters.

The sermon which was addressed to them was beautiful: The

speaker told them that they had chosen for life a state of

penance and of mortification. A crown of thorns was placed

upon their heads to symbolize this . . . I greatly admired their

self-sacrifice; but I reflected that the state of a mother of a

family can approach the perfection of theirs if she fulfills her

duties.

"A person doesn't give enough thought to the fact that when

she marries she also makes a vow of poverty since she

practically puts her fortune into her husband's hands, and

that he has something to say about how she spends money.

"She makes a vow of obedience to her husband and a vow of

chastity inasmuch as she is not permitted to seek to please

any other man. She also dedicates herself to the exercise of

charity toward her husband and her children; she has the

obligation to care for them in sickness and to give them her

wise counsel."

Isn't there much truth in this comparison? Evidently in the

case of marriage, husbands and wives are largely

compensated for the sacrifices they have to make by the joy

that comes to them from life together. In the virginal state

there is no such human compensation. That is no reason to

underestimate the value of the married state. Because the one

state is more beautiful, it does not follow that the other is not

very beautiful.

It may well be that a certain father or mother who hesitated

before entering the married state because they felt called to

the life of consecrated virginity fulfilled God's plans for

religious vocations better by their marriage; God used them

as instruments for a series of vocations that would develop

among their offspring.

When Pius X was promoted to the bishopric of Mantua, he

paid a visit to his mother at Riese. "Mamma, look at my

beautiful episcopal ring." His eighty year old mother let her

wrinkled fingers pass over the ring thoughtfully. Then she

said, "It is true, Guiseppe; your ring is beautiful; but you

would not have had it, if I had not had this one," and she held

up her wedding ring.

THE SOCIAL IDEAL

YOUNG Maurice Retour found himself at the head of a textile

factory upon the early death of his father.

Shortly before his marriage, he wrote to his bride-to-be.

"To know that more than three hundred persons depend on

you for their daily bread, to be certain that with work,

intelligence, and patience you can make them earn more,

what else would you need to become inspired with the desire

to discover all possible improvements."

He let his fiancee know that he planned to have her share in

the furtherance of his enterprise. He added:

"To be a Christian, to have the happiness of knowing your

wife will one day work hand in hand with you, to feel that you

possess this sister-soul to help bring to success the noble and

beautiful ideal you dreamed of accomplishing is almost too

great a bliss; it's enough to make you beside yourself with

joy."

The young industrialist, in full agreement with his wife, set

himself to the duty of providing the desired improvements: a

free Saturday, a cafeteria for the workers, a benefit fund.

Naturally he was criticized by his fellow industrialists who

did not have a like Christian sense. But he held his own and

went even farther. Sometimes before some of his reforms

which had as their only purpose better conditions for the

workers, a number of the workers themselves either from

force of habit or ill-will evidenced displeasure. He still kept

to his plan, tried to win them over and was patient with them.

In spite of his firm principles, the exactness of his economic

and sociological knowledge, his good judgment, his Christian

spirit which guaranteed the usefulness of his efforts, he was

still eager to be supported in his labors; he told his wife his

difficulties and asked for her opinion and advice. He counted

on her either to help him to study and to grow in his

understanding of social problems or more often still to have a

part in his work.

In the fight against alcoholism, in the care of the workers'

children, in the visitation of the sick, in planning for big

celebrations, in organizing vacation camps, what a wide field

there was for the wife of an industrialist!

Maurice Retour did not believe in getting himself involved in

so many activities that he would neglect his factory; interest

in free schools, attendance at Saint Vincent de Paul meetings

were all fine, but they should not separate him from his

factory.

"We ought to think first of our workers, of their children, of

those who are in our direct contact in order not to scatter our

efforts in all directions uselessly. Let us try to sow a bit of

happiness about us . . . Let us give as much as we can to

others . . . We are responsible for the good we do not do . . .

All our life spent in this work hand in hand, united in the

same ideal, the same faith, the same great love would not be

too much."

From the Front in 1915, he often wrote asking for news: "Tell

me about our dear workers of whom I think so often."

What a god-send when a wife finds in her husband such a

magnificent social spirit; when an industrialist finds in his

wife someone who understands him and backs him up!