In the course of a conversation, I was asked this question by a rather disgruntled person sometime ago, "Why is the Church so rigid and outdated in its views on marriage? It’s cruel to force couples to stay together when things don’t work out. If marriage is an institution, I don’t want to be institutionalized."Institutionalized? That was the first time I ever heard marriage referred to in that way. It sounded almost like the metal bars of a prison cell shutting close. What is our response to something like that?
Well first of all, the Church does not force anyone to do anything. Faith and love are both actions that are either freely taken and embraced or freely rejected and scorned, in as much as the consequences of our choices do leave their impact on our lives.
Secondly, it isn’t outdated at all to emphasise the traditonal importance of marriage. Too many people undermine its sacred character and deprive themselves of necessary grace to either benefit from its holy effects, or know what a great calling it is to emulate Christ in His love for the Church.
When we sell marriage short as just an human institution, or perhaps just a natural progression of a relationship that has seen the days grow into months and years, then we fail to appreciate and respond to the great power that this Sacrament calls us to embrace.
A Christian marriage should mirror Christ's covenantal love for His Bride, the Church.
If the Body of Christ is not a visible community of believers with one Lord, one faith and one baptism as St. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4, but rather a mystical, loosely amalgamated version of different Churches with conflicting beliefs tied together in some generic confession of Jesus as Lord, that would certainly make Christ the mystical spouse of many different brides or Churches, with an army of bickering and disunited children, each laying claim to having been fathered by the same man - which unfortunately is what some Christian Churches resemble today.
In most civil societies, there is a name for someone like that; we call him a creep among other things. Instead, Jesus' fidelity to His one bride; the Church, is unquestioned and true. And his commitment to her is everlasting.
The Catholic Church imitates the example and authenticity of Her Lord and Master when she insists on the indissoluble sanctity of marriage.
After all, which other religion proclaims an unswerving fidelity to Christ’s teaching against divorce and remarriage?
Islam allows up to four wives. There are no distinct religious impediments to polygamy in Hinduism, Taoism or any other mainstream pagan religion. Traditional Buddhism is in itself more of a philosophy than a religion and it too tolerates polygamy in some parts of the world, or at least doesn't oppose it in writing. And who isn’t familiar with Solomon's army of concubines within the history of ancient Judaism?
Truly, western civilization and modern society takes its monogamous tradition from Catholic Christianity.
Even Protestantism doesn’t insist on monogamy when you think about it. Despite the teaching of Jesus, you can have many different wives and husbands. You just have to marry them one at a time, literally churning out serial polygamists through the practice of divorce and remarriage.
Sadly, even many secular Catholics today are jumping on the bandwagon, either going through civil divorces or seeking Church annulments or threatening to leave the practice of the faith if pastors seem insensitive to their longings.
Of course, there are serious reasons why some spouses should not stay together for the safety and health of the individuals or the children, but all in all, marriage has become an institution to be done away with, rather than a sacrament to be faithful to.
Whether it's religious life or marriage, both vocations mirror the commitment and sacrificial love of Jesus for His Church.
In a certain sense, marriage IS religious life!
After all, like all religious professions, we make a solemn and public declaration of our intentions and promises before God and His Church to remain faithful to our witnessing of Christian love and the gospel truth.
We take our vows before the altar as we call on the Holy Spirit to sustain our commitment to die to ourselves so that the other may live.
In the vows we take before the Lord, we promise spiritual "poverty" in our marriage so that the values and ambitions of this world may never supersede the simplicity and reality of what truly matters in life, namely heaven and each other.
We promise spiritual "obedience" so that our marriage may be founded upon the "Rock" of Church teachings and the promptings of the Holy Spirit, no matter how hard.
And we promise "chastity" so that not only will we remain exclusively true to each other in our sexual and emotional bonds, but that we will not reduce each other to objects of lust at the expense of our Christian dignity.
Marriage as an institution divorced from the spiritual and mystical calling of our Christian faith is a highway leading to self-obsession and disappointments.
Likewise, every religious calling to serve as a priest or a nun is a mystical marriage to the human family of God. It’s hard not see God’s beautiful plan in that.
But if Christian marriage embraces such high ideals, who among us can adequately answer that calling with confidence?
A dear friend of mine recently complained about how difficult it was to find a Godly partner in our day, having noticed in her own experience that many Christians, particularly Catholics, lack a deep desire for holiness in marriage.
She shared that even as she drew closer to God, it became increasingly frustrating to find a relevant soul mate to share this earthly pilgrimage with. And in a way, I can understand and empathise with her feelings on this subject, seeing as how many people who fall in love with the Lord, find the challenge of discovering a kindred soul in religion almost insurmountable.
The truth is, she is right in saying that it is hard to find a partner. (Well at least one that rises up to our hopes and dreams). Maybe that's why everyone seems to fall short of our expectations in some critical way.
It is interesting that St Augustine, after having lived a life of licentiousness, worldly ideals and promiscuity, once reflected on the eternal longing in his heart and quipped famously, "Our hearts were made for you O Lord, and we shall not find rest until we rest in You."
As much as most of us do not want to admit it, we unfairly seek divine satisfaction from poor struggling creatures like ourselves, and that can most certainly set us up for disappointment.
Somewhere between our intense passion for our faith and our human longings for love and companionship, the Christian virtues of charity, meekness, compassion and gratitude often get lost in translation.
It is almost as if we seek the perfection that we desire from our union with God in imperfect creatures, who fail miserably to give us that vision for which no man or woman is equipped to give.
There is obviously a reason why providence has arranged that we should never find the perfect partner.
In an ideal or perfect relationship, what need is there for patience, forgiveness, sacrifice and hope since all your personal ideals are happily satisfied? Where then shall we seek the means for purifying our desires and intentions? How then shall we attain holiness and heaven?
Remember that the athlete is made stronger by challenges and obstacles. That is why two people come to live together - to learn to love the right way with Christ as our example and inspiration. And learning suggests differences, disagreements and difficulties, but for those who persevere in Christian hope, the love of Christ will conquer all and seal our hearts in the charity of faith and sacrifice.
When Blessed Damien of Molokai first discovered that he had contracted the painful cross of leprosy, he said, "God knows what is best for my salvation. Fiat voluntas tua."
In the same way, putting aside our ideals for a “perfect” partner, we too should trust that God not only knows what is best for our souls, but also who is best for our salvation.
And it might come as a shock to us that the spouse He intends for us may indeed be lacking in all those things that we have inscribed in our hearts as our shallow formula for marital bliss.
Instead, God knows how best to bring us to the gates of salvation, and who best to help us reach that gate.
Often, it might just be someone with whom we need to labour hard in love, patience, sacrifice and forgiveness in order to win heaven. And although this person may not look anything like whom we imagined and hoped for initially, they may just be the one anointed to purify and teach us about Christian love, and so enable us to win salvation.
Now I am not suggesting we find the most offensively secular and unbearable person to romance but rather, the beauty and attractiveness of the soul may not always be apparent to us at first glance. Because of that, we will need the help of the Holy Spirit to divine for us the wellsprings of living waters in a person's soul, despite initial appearances to the contrary.
We need the grace of divine wisdom to see and appreciate the goodness beneath the surface, which in itself is a challenge since many of us are so conditioned by our mind's eye that more often than not, we can be blind to the vision of grace.
Where we look for angels, Christ our Lord sees our humanity and uses it. With Blessed Damien who saw the beauty of souls in the lepers of Molokai, we can also say with him, "Fiat voluntas tua" - Thy will be done Lord. You know who best to send me, open my heart and my eyes. It is in human beings; with all their grime, failings and poverty, that we will also find redemption and hope, although it make take us years of dedicated work to till this garden of grace, both for ourselves and for those whom God has entrusted to us.
But knowing the temptations of modern society and the frailty of our human nature, how shall we find the strength to commit ourselves to such a grand vocation of love and faithfulness when we are but children of Adam?
The answer lies in what Jesus said to His disciples when they lamented the disadvantage of marriage after learning that divorce was not an option. “With men, it is impossible. With God, all things are possible.”
One is never perfectly ready and sufficient to embrace a great calling.
Instead we can only make the effort to cling to the hand of our Blessed Mother, and ask her to imbue us with the awareness and appreciation of the mystical destiny and dignity that her Son so painfully died to give us.
Otherwise, no one person will ever enter the priesthood or embrace matrimony if they seek the perfect conditions for saying yes. It is the nature of our spiritual life that we shall always remain insufficient in our responses to Grace. All we can do is surrender our weaknesses and insufficiencies to God with love and confidence, trusting in Him whom St Paul says, we can "do all things in Christ who strengthens" us.
But to be aware of these things...(of the immense calling that marriage extends to the human family, to share in the life and love of the Holy Trinity, and to bring forth life in this communion)...is not just necessary but critical like the air we breathe.
To not be alive in our royal and princely dignity as sons and daughters of God is to exist as a petrified log of wood in a field of flowers. The majestic beauty and wonder of nature would be lost to us, who remain hardened to anything but the horrendous gnawing of insects and bugs beneath our stoic appearances, consuming us from within and painfully reminding us that we are often, more dead than alive.
Unfortunately these days, Christians hardly give a thought to the sacred calling of marriage, partly because this sacrament has been so secularised that people marry for a variety of reasons that are more illusory than real, only to find out later that the commitments and responsibilities that come along are all too realistically harsh.
Truly, can any of us aspire to a love more noble and higher than what secularism offers if not for the participation of the Holy Spirit?
It takes three to make a marriage work, according to Archbishop Fulton Sheen. It is God’s presence and reality in the hearts of a loving couple that binds them in charity and gives them hope and strength over adversity. And in this way, a young couple seeking holiness in love will certainly be better prepared to succeed in marriage than a mature couple steeped in the cynicism of our secular age.
After all, was the boy Samuel ready for God's call for him to be a prophet? Was Moses confident in accepting his role as the deliverer of Israel? Was Joseph ready to become father to the Son of God?
Scripture tells us that they thought otherwise, but God knew better.
Perhaps with most of us, it is the same.
We can only crown our life decisions with an abiding faith in the mercy and love of God and the wisdom of the Church, trusting in the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit in helping us choose wisely and righteously.
Can it be otherwise in our journey to the Promised Land?
All we can do is face our storms together bravely, holding hands, humbly confident in our love for each other...and God's love for us. Because in the end...“with God, all things are possible”.
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