Matrimony

In the first reading we see that at the beginning God created Adam, the only human being. Adam didn’t need anybody else because he was with God. But God thought he needed a companion to begin to generate other human beings. And then, transforming Adam, he created Eve, and marriage began. In the book of Genesis God reminds us that in marriage men and women become one flesh. From the beginning we were created to become one with our spouse and bring children to the world. Human love is beautiful and great, but we cannot forget that it is a reflection of divine love, the real love we are created to experience here on earth, and for ever in heaven. To go through this life we need the support of friends and relatives, and specially in marriage, the help of a spouse.

Marriage is designed to become one, body and soul. It is easy to become one, physically, but it is not easy to become one spiritually. Sometimes it takes the whole life to achieve this goal. In marriage spouses give themselves to each other. It means that you don’t belong to yourself, but you belong to the other person. From then on you need to think in plural, asking this question: What my spouse wants me to do? When both spouses think in this way, marriage is great. The problem appears when one or both are still thinking in the singular, when they think what the other can do for me. This should be the goal for everybody who loves another person and wants to get married.

In the Gospel Jesus reminds us that marriage is till death do us part. What God has united, men cannot break it. Society doesn’t think in this way. When you know that marriage is for life, you work to protect your marriage, to defend it against all its enemies. Modern life has many enemies against the unity of matrimony. Why is marriage for life? When people want to get married they think it is for life, but many times they change their minds afterwards. We should have two marriages, A for life, and B temporarily. But people don’t want to have option B when they get married. Marriage is for life because of two reasons: for the children and for the good of the spouses. Children need a stable environment to grow up happily. It is good for the spouses because they help each other, specially during old age.

Nowadays we have forgotten that sex is creating children. We emphasise a lot what is good for spouses, but we have left the children behind, and this makes marriages break up. Both are the two ends of marriage, and both are interrelated. They are the two sides of the coin. Children will enrich their marital relationship, and the love of the spouses will benefit their children.

The other quality that is very much threatened in marriage today is fidelity. It is one of the most difficult things to live nowadays. It is too easy to be unfaithful. Lack of fidelity breaks marriages. We think we can play with fire, but sooner or later we get burned. Let us pray for our marriages, the foundation stone of our families.

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