Matrimony is the nursery-ground of Christianity, destined to fill the earth with believers, and complete the number of the elect in heaven." - Saint Francis of Sales
In the following article, the paragraphs in italic type are from the "Michael" Journal.
We presently live in a century of moral decay. There is an unprecedented assault on the family; the news media exalts divorces, adultery, and the most ignominious vices. People have lost the sense of values, the importance of Christian marriage. In the province of Quebec, 54% of the children last year were born out of wedlock. (It is the worst rate for any province, the average rate for Canada being less than 25%. Perhaps it is one of the reasons why some people want to call Quebec a "distinct society"!)
Pope John Paul II wrote in 1981, in his apostolic exhortation "Familiaris Consortio," on the role of the Christian society in the modern world:
"It is a fundamental duty of the Church to reaffirm strongly, as the Synod Fathers did, the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. To all those who, in our times, consider it too difficult, or indeed impossible, to be bound to one person for the whole of life, and to those caught up in a culture that rejects the indissolubility of marriage and openly mocks the commitment of spouses to fidelity, it is necessary to reconfirm the good news of the definitive nature of that conjugal love that has in Christ its foundation and strength."
The Catholic Church, invested by God with the mission of teaching and defending the integrity of morals, has always spoken out to keep the chastity of the matrimonial bond, in order to protect the Christian family. Let us study together the teaching of the Church on matrimony.
In November, 1958, in a letter consecrated to the family, the Canadian Bishops urged the faithful to respect the holy laws of matrimony:
"The Christian idea of marriage is exposed to so many assaults, and family life is so often jeopardized, that it is important to repeat that marriage has been instituted by God Himself. It is the Creator who has put in the heart of man the aspiration for married life. Christ not only repeated the precept of the Creator in the first days of the Creation; He also raised the union of a man and a woman to the dignity of a sacrament. He thus gave the spouses the means to achieve sanctity in their station of life.
"And as our first parents received from the Almighty the formal order of propagating, through their union, the human race, so the human family itself has its origin in God, the procreation of children and their education constitute the primary end and the supreme blessing of marriage. Hence the divine design about marriage and family cannot be contravened, either by the whims of man, nor any human law. Even more, civil society itself must respect in all the true nature of the matrimonial union and the sacred rights of the family."
From "The Catechism Explained" of Rev. Francis Spirago
Christian marriage is a contract between man and woman, binding them to an undivided and indissoluble partnership, and conferring on them at the same time grace to fulfill all the duties required of them.
Marriage is therefore not merely a contract; it is at the same time an act by which grace is conferred. This contract is not concluded in the presence of a minister of the Church solely for the sake of obtaining the ecclesiastical benediction upon the betrothed couple, but in order that they may be truly united together before God in wedlock. It was this covenant, entered into in presence of a minister of the Church, which Our Lord raised to the dignity of a sacrament. The contract and the sacrament cannot be separated (Pius IX, August 22, 1852); if one is missing, the other is also missing. Marriage contracted without the solemnities required by the Church is invalid and null (Council of Trent, 24, 1). There is no marriage when the marriage of Christians is not a sacrament.
Matrimony is a type of the union between Christ and the Church (Eph. 5, 32). As the Church, the Bride of Christ is one, so the man has but one wife. As Christ and the Church are inseparably united, so the union of the married is perpetual and indissoluble. As the union of Christ and the Church is a covenant of grace, so also is the union of husband and wife... Christ never abandons the Church, and the Church can never be unfaithful to Christ; so married couples must never be unfaithful to one another.
Pope Pius XI wrote, in his encyclical letter "Casti Connubii" (Dec. 31,1930): "For, as the Apostle says in his Epistle to the Ephesians (5, 32), the marriage of Christians recalls that most perfect union which exists between Christ and the Church:'This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church;'which union, as long as Christ shall live and the Church through Him, can never be dissolved by any separation. And this St. Augustine clearly declares in these words:
"This is safeguarded in Christ and the Church, which, living with Christ who lives for ever may never be divorced from Him. The observance of this sacrament is such in the City of God... that is, in the Church of Christ, that when for the sake of begetting children, the faithful contract marriage, it is wrong to leave a wife that is sterile in order to take another by whom children may be had. Anyone doing this is guilty of adultery, just as if he married another, guilty not by the law of the day, according to which when one's partner is put away, another may be taken, which the Lord allowed in the law of Moses because of the hardness of the hearts of the people of Israel; but by the law of the Gospel.""
Pope John Paul II's recent "Catechism of the Catholic Church" (n. 1661) states: "The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It give spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life."
And Pope Pius XI wrote, again in "Casti Connubii":
"Nevertheless, since it is a law of Divine Providence in the supernatural order that men do not reap the full fruit of the Sacraments which they receive after acquiring the use of reason unless they cooperate with grace, the grace of matrimony will remain for the most part an unused talent hidden in the field unless the parties exercise these supernatural powers and cultivate and develop the seeds of grace they have received. If, however, doing all that lies with their power, they cooperate diligently, they will be able with ease to bear the burdens of their state and to fulfill their duties. By such a sacrament they will be strengthened, sanctified and in a manner consecrated."
Excerpts from Spirago's Catechism
Civil marriage is to be distinguished from Christian marriage, inasmuch as it is no sacrament, and consequently, in the sight of God no true and real marriage for Catholics.
Civil marriage may be said to have originated with Luther, for he prepared the way for the State to legislate concerning marriage. What he began, the French revolution completed; for marriage was then declared to be a civil contract, concluded before a government official. Civil marriage is obligatory or compulsory when, as is the case in some countries, the marriage is otherwise not recognized by the State; it is optional, when the parties are free to choose whether the ceremony shall be civil or religious...
Civil marriage is not a sacrament, because it is not contracted in the manner ordained by God and the Church; it is nothing more or less than a legal form, which must be gone through in order that the marriage may be recognized by the State, and Catholics must submit to it, if there is no other means of having their union recognized by the State. They should, however, see that the ecclesiastical ceremony takes place as soon after as possible; for until their marriage has been solemnized by the Church, they are bound to live apart, as in the sight of God they are not really husband and wife.
According to the ordinance of Christ, Christian marriage consists of the union of one man and one woman only, and it is indissoluble; that is to say, neither husband nor wife can contract a second marriage during the lifetime of the other.
The principal object of matrimony is to provide for the proper bringing up of children, an object which could not be attained if the nuptial tie were dissoluble. What would become of the children if the parents were free to separate at their pleasure? Our Lord strictly forbids any one to marry again as long as the partner of his or her first marriage is living (Matt. 5:32; Mark 10:11).
Under the law of Moses, the Jews were, it is true, permitted under exceptional circumstances to put away their wives; but this was only by reason of the hardness of their hearts, and to prevent worse evils (Matt. 19:8). Christ withdrew this permission; He says expressly: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" (Matt. 19:4- 9). Hence the Popes have never allowed one of two lawfully married persons to contract a second marriage during the lifetime of the other party. Not even for the sake of averting the most serious calamities could they consent to such a thing.
It is well known that King Henry VIII, of England, could not wring from the Holy See permission to divorce his rightful wife, and marry another. That even in consideration of the services he had rendered to the cause of religion, and of the fearful consequences which would ensue upon the introduction of the Lutheran heresy into England could Pope Clement VII be prevailed upon to give any other reply than this: "Non possumus; I have no authority to set aside the divine law."
"Matrimony," says Saint Augustine, "is an iron chain." A man can sell a house which he has bought if it does not suit him; but once married, he cannot get rid of his wife. The soul can separate from the body sooner than the husband from the wife. And if either party should contract second marriage while the other is still alive, he or she commits a mortal sin, and the marriage is invalid.
It is, however, possible for a married couple to be separated, provided there are sufficient grounds for separation. If either party is guilty of adultery, the separation may be for life, since by the violation of a contract the rights conferred by that contract are lost...
Pope Leo XIII wrote in his encyclical letter "Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae", Feb. 10, 1880:
"Jesus Christ, who restored our human dignity and who perfected the Mosaic law, applied early in His ministry no little solicitude to the question of marriage. He ennobled the marriage in Cana of Galilee by His presence, and made it memorable by the first of the miracles which he wrought; and for this reason, even from that day forth, it seemed as if the beginning of new holiness had been conferred on human marriages.
"Later on He brought back matrimony to the nobility of its primeval origin by condemning the customs of the Jews in their abuse of the plurality of wives and of the power of giving bills of divorce; and still more by commanding most strictly that no one should dare to dissolve that union which God Himself had sanctioned by a bond perpetual. Hence, having set aside the difficulties which were adduced from the law of Moses, He, in character of supreme Law- giver, decreed as follows concerning husbands and wives, 'I say to to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and he that shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery.'(...)
"In like manner from the teaching of the Apostles we learn that the unity of marriage and its perpetual indissolubility, the indispensable conditions of its very origin, must, according to the command of Christ, be holy and inviolable without exception. Paul says again: 'To them that are married, not I, but the Lord commandeth that the wife depart not from her husband; and if she depart, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.' And again: 'A woman is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband die, she is at liberty.' It is for these reasons that marriage is 'a great sacrament'; 'honorable in all,' holy, pure, and to be reverenced as a type and symbol of the most high mysteries."
In his same encyclical, Pope Leo XIII wrote:
"Since, then, nothing has such power to lay waste families and destroy the mainstay of kingdoms as the corruption of morals, it is easily seen that divorces are in the highest degree hostile to the prosperity of families and States, springing as they do from the depraved morals of the people, and, as experience shows us, opening out a way to every kind of evil-doing in public and in private life.
"Further still, if the matter be duly pondered, we shall clearly see these evils to be the more especially dangerous, because, divorce once being tolerated, there will be no restraint powerful enough to keep it within the bounds marked out. Great indeed is the force of example, and even greater still the might of passion. With such incitements it must needs follow that the eagerness for divorce, daily spreading by devious ways, will seize upon the minds of many like a virulent contagious disease, or like a flood of water bursting through every barrier."
Excerpts from Spirago's Catechism
The unmarried state is better than the married, because those who do not marry have far more opportunity for attending to their spiritual welfare, and can attain a higher degree of glory hereafter.
It is better and more blessed to remain in virginity or in celibacy than to be united in matrimony (Council of Trent, 24, 10). The state of virginity surpasses the married state in excellence as much as angels surpass men. It is far above matrimony as the heavens are above the earth; it is as much superior to it as the soul is to the body. Marriage is honorable, but virginity is far more honorable. Such is the opinion of the Fathers. The heathen entertained a great respect for those who voluntarily embraced a life of celibacy and chastity; witness the reverence shown by the Romans for the vestal virgins. The richer and nobler the bridegroom, the more a bride is congratulated upon her espousals. How much the more ought those to be deemed happy, who by the practice of chastity have chosen Christ for their Spouse; and for His sake, like St. Agnes of old, despised every earthly suitor, however wealthy and powerful. The unmarried are more free to study the concerns of their soul; St. Paul says: "He that is without a wife is solicitous how he may please God; but he that is with a wife is solicitous how he may please his wife; and he is divided" (1 Cor. 7:32-34). The unmarried also can attain a higher degree of glory. St. John beheld a multitude "before the throne, who sang a new canticle, that no man could say but those a hundred forty and four thousand; for they were virgins" (Apoc. 14:1-5).
The increase in divorces leads society to ruin. This catastrophic plague has also stricken Christian nations. The news media, civil laws, and atheistic schools contribute to the destruction of the family. One must deepen the teachings of the Church on Christian marriage and work for its implementation within families, which are little sanctuaries or "domestic churches". Then the restoration of the Christian family, the first cell of society, will be possible. We would like to end this article with excerpts from a prayer of Pope Pius XII:
"Lord, God of goodness and mercy who, in the world of evil and sin, has offered to the society of redeemed souls, like a most pure example of piety, justice and love, the Holy Family of Nazareth, see how the family is attacked today from all sides, and how everything conspires to profane it, by destroying faith, religion and morals.
"Come and bring new defenders of the family. Bring apostles of new times who, in Your name, thanks to the message of Jesus Christ and the sanctity of their lives, remind spouses of fidelity, parents of the exercise of authority, children of obedience, young ladies of modesty, the minds and hearts of everyone of esteem and love of the home blessed by You.
"May the Christian family, restored in Jesus Christ, following the example of the divine model of Nazareth, find its true face again; may every family become again a sanctuary; may the flame of the Faith burn again in every family, to help them to welcome adversities with patience, and prosperity with moderation, and may this Faith arrange everything in order and peace."