Transcript

Let me just offer a quick prayer.

Lord Jesus, thank you so much for the privilege of being able to gather together in your name and to think about how you have and are acting in history.

And we ask your blessing on this time of sharing.

Please help us to have greater insight into What has gone before so that we can know where we are in the stream of history and where you want us to help take history.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

A priest came into a second grade class and he wanted to know what they were learning.

And so he said, can anyone tell me what Jesus said about marriage?

And there were sort of furtive looks down at the floor and to the wall, and all of a sudden a little boy shot up his hand and he said, oh, oh!

And the priest said, yes, what did Jesus say about marriage?

He said, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do.

Out of the mouth of babes.

There seems to be an ongoing challenge to understanding marriage.

We can say it's true of our time.

We can say it was true at the time of the Reformation.

Many, many people seem to have tried to mimic Hollywood culture.

And as Desperate Housewives soars again to the lead, it really concerns me because I think there are an awful lot of people who take their clues from what they see in the media With more recent revelations of priests involved in scandal, we have wonderful, good, holy priests who are suspect just by walking around with a collar.

Father Benedict Groeschel told me that it was an unusual experience he'd never had before where he saw a child in the airport and he sort of reached out to tussle the child's head and the child was clutched by the mother.

As to keep him away from him.

And certainly we've got the absurdity of states even thinking about redefining marriage.

Why is there so much confusion?

I do think in part, in part, it relates to the reforms, if you want to call them that, that Martin Luther brought about.

He produced a revolution on both marriage and celibacy.

And we are experiencing effects of it.

First of all, I want to touch on the perennial teaching of the church, beginning with Genesis 1, 26-28. Then God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness.

And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.

So God made man in his own image.

In the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.

God, not because he was lonely, not because he was bored, created man and woman in his image so that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could share their divine life.

This communion of life-giving lovers and life-loving givers calls man and woman into creation, making us in their image and likeness And then giving them a blessing which is both a blessing and a command.

And God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion.

It was both a blessing and a command.

And we see it again in Genesis 2, this response of Adam when he first sees his beloved.

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit The family calls man and woman to imitate, to image, to reflect.

And they get an opportunity to do that by being cooperators with God, co-creators with God in making new life.

Now after the fall, if you read it carefully, you go through all the things that bring us up to the flood.

And on the other side of the flood, in Genesis 9, we have the exact same blessing command God calls men and women who are married to be open to life.

Marriage is God's idea.

In fact, in the prayer, and I think this is so beautiful, this is one of the prayers that you can have, a blessing you can have in a Catholic wedding, it says this, quote, Father, by your plan, man and woman are united, and married life has been established as the one blessing that was not forfeited by original sin or washed away in the flood.

Isn't that beautiful?

Notice also, if you read carefully, And the prophets really bring this to bear, but many other passages in the Old Testament bring this to bear, especially the Song of Solomon.

God portrays himself as husband of Israel.

He pursues her.

He woos her.

And she's a harlot.

She commits adultery.

She goes after other gods.

And yet over and over and over, God is that covenantal, faithful husband pursuing his people.

He is faithful even when she is not.

Now during the time after the second fall of Israel, through the book of Deuteronomy, Moses, for the hardness of the heart of the Israelite people, permits divorce.

It's a protection for women who otherwise could simply be sent away, that they have to have a bill of divorce written up.

But it was not intended to be this way.

Jesus makes that very clear, and if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Matthew chapter 19, 3 to 9. Now, the Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?

Now understand, the Pharisees were not coming saying, you have so much to teach us, Jesus.

They're really trying to trap him.

They're trying to make him look bad.

But Jesus never falls for that.

Secondly, you need to know that there were two different mindsets among the rabbis.

Some thought that a bill of divorce could be written for any reason, and others thought it needed to be very restricted.

And here's his answer.

Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said for this reason, A man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

Now realize what he's saying to them.

Here are the doctors, the theological doctors of the day.

And he's saying, hmm, did you ever cover the ABCs of marriage?

Why don't we just review?

Can you say Genesis?

Good, good.

And how is it that God set this up?

We already read that passage from Genesis 2.24 that Jesus is quoting.

And then he goes on in verse 6, So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

This is very critical.

This has always been the Catholic Church's teaching that it is not simply the words spoken between husband and wife, but God seals Their words with his word, his covenant.

They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?

Moses never commanded it.

He allowed it.

He permitted it.

He said to them, for your hardness, your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for in chastity and marries another commits adultery.

Jesus is saying this is an indissoluble bond.

The two have become one flesh.

And just as we said earlier that the two becoming one may be so real that it comes nine months later to be another person.

So what part of a child can be separated out when a husband and wife decide that they will not remain married.

The child embodies, embodies that indissoluble bond.

What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

The catechism in 1639 speaks of God sealing the covenant with his word.

And Jesus is saying, I'm here to restore the original plan And in effect, I will be the cause of its success because I have grace to give you to make this happen.

Where does Jesus' first miracle take place?

It takes place at a wedding feast, exactly, the wedding of Cana.

This underscores the fact that marriage is good.

This is part of God's plan.

And secondly, it talks about, it witnesses to the presence of Christ.

At the wedding, he is the source of grace.

The Catechism in 1642 says this, quote, in the joys of their love and family life, he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb.

And of course, how is the end of time described?

It's a wedding feast of the Lamb.

We're heading to a wedding feast.

Okay, St. Paul picks up on this, and he speaks in Ephesians 5, Verses 31 to 33. For this reason, he's quoting Genesis 2.24 again, for this reason a young man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is a profound one, and I'm saying it refers to Christ and the church.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

When he uses the word mystery, the Greek word is mysterion.

The exact same word translated into Latin is sacramentum.

I'm saying to you, this is a mystery.

It is a mysterion.

It is a sacramentum.

Again, the Catechism in 1617 says this, quote, Christian marriage is in its turn an efficacious sign.

The sacrament of the covenant of Christ and the Church Since it signifies and communicates grace, marriage between baptized persons is a true sacrament of the New Covenant.

That is profound.

That means in our own individual marriages, as simple as they are, as flawed as they can be, we are a witness to the world of the relationship between Christ and the Church.

And you see how divorce does not play into this.

How many wives does God have?

He has one bride, the church.

So it is essential that in our marriages we reflect this truth.

There is one father for my children.

One wife, one husband for life.

Now the Corinthian people lived in a culture that was known for its sexuality.

It probably was somewhat similar to a Las Vegas of their time.

And there are a number of sexual issues that St. Paul addresses in both 1st and 2nd Corinthians, but I want to read just a couple of verses from the 7th chapter of 1st Corinthians.

We'll read verses 1 to 9 first.

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is well for a man not to touch a woman.

But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to the husband.

For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does.

Likewise, the husband does not rule over his body, but the wife does.

Do not refuse one another, except perhaps by agreement, for season.

That you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again, lest Satan tempt you through lack of self-control.

I say this by way of concession, not of command.

I wish that all were as I am myself, but each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

To the unmarried and the widows, I say it's well for them to remain single as I do.

If they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

The church has always taught that marriage is a good remedy for concupiscence.

It is not the only reason people marry, but it is a valid one.

And St. Paul is talking about the beauty and gift that it can be to be single for the Lord.

In the issue of self-control, it could be better for someone to be married.

On down in verse 32 to 35, he talks a little bit more to try to give clarity on why the single state is such a good and helpful state.

I want you to be free from anxieties.

The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord, but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs.

How to please his wife, and his interests are divided.

And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit.

But the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband.

I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

You see, someone who is single is unencumbered with so many of the concerns that naturally come with marriage and family life.

And that's part of why he goes on in verse 38 to say, so that he who marries his betrothed does well and he who refrains from marriage will do better.

Marriage is good.

Single for Christ is even better.

That's not something that needs to offend any of us who are married.

I have not missed God's will For my life, because I'm married.

I'm actually grateful that we became Catholics on the other side of the issue because I know Scott and I would have wrestled very deeply individually about being single or married.

And since we're married, I know God's will is that I be married.

The point is, in my life, God's highest call is marriage.

I haven't missed God's plan.

But I can still acknowledge the fact that if Someone can be single-heartedly devoted to Christ.

That is an objectively better state.

Marriage is a sign of this present age, a witness to the world of the relationship between Christ and the Church.

A celibate person is a witness of the world to come in which there will not be marriage or giving in marriage.

Now, St. Augustine clearly states these biblical conclusions when he writes about marriage.

He talks about marriage as a sacrament, a means of grace for each other and for the children.

Secondly, he speaks about it being an indissoluble bond.

And he addresses the pastoral concerns when there is great animosity in a marriage or a difference in cult that becomes unbearable.

But he clarifies that the church's position is the only thing you could do is a permanent separation.

Divorce and remarriage would not be an option.

And then he speaks about the benefits of marriage.

The possibility of having children, the assistance with chastity, and the relationship of a permanent union.

A permanent union.

And this is affirmed over and over by the Church, by St. Thomas Aquinas and many others.

And when we get to the Council of Trent, which met in part in response to the Reformation, all of this is codified in the Code of Canon Law.

In fact, at that point, addressing pastoral concerns, we begin to be able to read about annulments.

Now this is not divorced Catholic style.

And that's what my family tends to throw in my face.

Oh, you've got divorced, you just call it by a different name.

An annulment is, it's intended to be a very thoughtful process where you realize that a true marriage did not occur.

Not because you didn't feel like it occurred, it has to be something objective.

And the objective criterion include either Free consent was not there, either by pressure from parents or authorities or even your intended spouse.

And there can be impediments, and I won't go into the list.

But there were specific reasons.

Now, in Luther's day, there were priests and bishops who misused that, who had a criterion set up, but somehow or another, if money changed hands, problems went away.

There were objective principles, but there were people who were not correctly applying them.

They were not being faithful to what Christ had called them to be.

Secondly, there were many priests and bishops who had concubines, who had illegitimate children.

On the one hand, they're speaking about the glories of celibacy, and on the other hand, they are not living it.

This created great angst in many Catholics People needed to be called to be faithful to their vocation.

There were also a number of people who were not marrying, but simply living in sin together.

And there were people who were marrying and having affairs.

So both fornication and adultery abounded.

It doesn't sound a whole lot different in some ways than today.

And in the midst of this cultural confusion, Martin Luther not only challenged and then abandoned the Catholic faith, But found himself in a position where he needed to rethink the theology of marriage.

He himself had taken a vow of celibacy, which he abandoned, and he assisted a nun and a group, actually she was one of a group of nuns, in fleeing a convent and he eventually married her.

Now I'm going to speak briefly on six different areas that he wrote and spoke about marriage.

He said, since marriage was intended from the beginning, it really falls into a natural state rather than a supernatural state.

And therefore, the prince, not the pope, should be setting up regulations.

And so he empowered Protestant states to regulate marriage outside of the bounds of churches.

He said, we want God to bless marriages, but it's a civil matter.

Secondly, he denied that marriage had a sacramental character.

It was a contract.

It was a contract.

Third, since God created man and woman to be married, there is, quote, no higher office, estate, condition, or work than the estate of marriage.

In other words, not only is celibacy not higher, well that I'll actually get to the next one, But marriage needs to be proclaimed as the highest state.

Fourth, in fact, everyone should be married who possibly can be married.

Quote, for it's not a matter of free choice or decision, but a natural and necessary thing that whatever is a man must have a woman and whatever is a woman must have a man.

In other words, you need sex.

I mean, how much do you hear this mentality today?

Everybody's got to eat, everybody's got to drink, everyone's got to have sleep, and everyone has to have sex.

We need to be able to look people in the face and say, no one ever died for not having sex.

We all need love.

You could die without love, but love and sex are not necessarily equivalent.

The act of marriage is an expression of love.

But there are many, many ways in which people who choose celibacy can give and receive love that is not sexual.

This is not a need.

We are not having priests do things that are wrong sexually because we're denying them a wife.

And I have heard many Protestants say that to me.

that if you wanted to clear up the difficulties, allow marriage.

I can tell you that among Protestant pastors, you have at least as the same percent, maybe higher, of affairs and abandonment of spouses and divorce.

Fifth, what about celibacy?

Luther said it was an impossible ideal.

In fact, quote, chastity is not in our power.

All are created for marriage.

God doesn't permit that anyone be alone.

A woman is not created to be a virgin but to conceive and bear children.

With single men one can have neither hope nor confidence but only constant fear.

What a twisted and distorted view that does not take into any regard what St. Paul has written in 1 Corinthians 7. For a man to say that he abandons the Catholic Church because the Church has abandoned Sacred Scripture and then turn around and fundamentally deny what is very clear in Sacred Scripture shows what very shaky ground he was on.

So in his thinking and in his teaching and great influence of others, celibacy was unbiblical, And it was unnatural.

Now, how do we live chastity?

We're all called to be chaste within our vocation.

It's by the grace of Christ.

It's by the grace of Christ.

St. Paul says in Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ.

When God calls you to be single, He can give you the grace to remain in that state in a chaste way.

When God calls you to marriage, you can remain faithful in that marriage.

When God calls you to consecrated life, He can give you the grace of that state to be chaste as a celibate man or woman.

That's a quote.

On the one hand, he said the act of marriage was never without sin.

And then he offers this, quote, God excuses it by His grace because the estate of marriage is His work and He preserves in and through the sin all the good which He's implanted and blessed in marriage.

In other words, every time you enter into the act of marriage and marriage, you're sinning.

But this is His understanding of grace.

God's just going to overlook it because bottom line is the best that there is, there's goodness in it and so He'll just bless it anyway.

Again, what a perverted and distorted view.

Now, it is certainly possible for us to do anything with some sin.

We can parent in a way that's not giving honor and glory to God.

We can embrace one another in the act of marriage and act in a way that is inappropriate and could be sinful.

But the act itself in the bonds of marriage is not a sinful act.

And in fact, Thomas Aquinas, now this is not a quote, this is a person who was speaking about Thomas Aquinas, so it's not his words, but it is a Dominican scholar, said, quote, provided the right conditions for holy matrimony, the act of marriage is a virtuous and meritorious act.

It's a gift, one person to another.

It's a beautiful act, ordained by God.

Now, some of the reformers' concerns were addressed by the Council of Trent.

Concerns that needed to be addressed.

First of all, priestly celibacy was affirmed.

Of course, if you have taken a vow of celibacy, you are to be faithful to that.

Secondly, parents should never and could not justify forcing their children to choose either celibacy or marriage.

Both had to be entered in freely.

by children.

And third, rather than seeing celibacy as a rejection of marriage the way Martin Luther cast it, they present Christ as the model of celibacy for the kingdom.

And so Jesus is both bridegroom to the church and obviously celibate.

Jesus affirms marriage.

He's the one who elevates it to the level of a sacrament.

And yet, he lets us know that heaven is not about being married and given in marriage because there is greater intimacy than we can even have in marriage between ourselves and our Lord.

The Catechism says this, Virginity for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is an unfolding of baptismal grace.

Esteem of virginity for the sake of the kingdom and the Christian understanding of marriage are inseparable.

they're not one versus the other, they're inseparable, and they reinforce each other.

I honestly wonder that if we would not have such a crisis on the issue of openness to life in Catholic families, would we not see many, many more vocations to the priesthood and religious life?

This comes from a generous spirit that as children are raised in a family Where the spirit is generosity, will they not also desire, in whatever way that is, and that most certainly can be in marriage as well, holy matrimony, to be generous themselves to God?

Now, what about infidelity?

How did the reformers respond to that?

Well, there were different responses.

They actually went the full gamut of either sending someone away who had committed adultery, or publicly flogging them, possibly even executing them.

But they also permitted divorce and bigamy.

Luther himself preferred bigamy to divorce.

When the prince, Philip of Hesse, wrote to Martin Luther saying that though he was married, he frequently committed adultery and he wanted to be able to take a second wife, Luther asked Melanchthon to write back to this man.

Melanchthon wrote, Luther and five other reformers signed it and it included this sentence, quote, We declare under an oath that it ought to be done secretly.

It is nothing unusual for princes to have concubines and this modest way of living would please more than adultery, end quote.

Of course, that's only if you define adultery as being outside of a number of marriages.

When it became public, Langston, this is the description, he said he was, quote, sickened almost to death with remorse, end quote.

But that's not Luther's response.

Luther basically said to the public, say no, privately say yes.

And then Luther said this, quote, I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives for it doesn't contradict scripture, end quote.

Again, for the hardness of heart, There were princes in the Old Testament who had more than one wife, and in every case you see all of the calamities that come from having numerous wives.

Jesus and then St. Paul clarify that from the beginning it was not to be so, but one man, one wife, indissoluble bond.

Luther also tried to address the problem, what if you have a spouse who is unable to have children?

His solution was a secret additional marriage.

That way she can be satisfied because it's not right for her not to be satisfied, and they will have children to raise.

Bigamy required, quote, exceptional tolerance for the incapacitated person.

And if that person lacked that kind of charity of spirit, charity of spirit to permit, when you know that you cannot have a child, to permit your spouse to marry another, to have children that you will in some way call your own, if that person lacked charity of spirit, the healthy spouse should flee to a place where he or she would not be persecuted for bigamy, which would actually mean a Muslim land.

Because it would have to be outside of Christian lands.

In other words, it would be better to abandon an impotent spouse who won't allow you to go ahead and have sex with another person than to remain faithful.

This is only one individual who was forming Protestant thought on this, but he was very influential.

The Catechism speaks so beautifully about a couple experiencing the pain of infertility.

In 1654, the Catechism says, quote, their marriage can radiate a fruitfulness of charity, of hospitality, and of sacrifice.

That is the Roman Catholic response.

Not, oh, ditch the guy, ditch the girl.

What about divorce?

The Reformers couldn't agree on that either.

They really didn't agree on hardly anything.

Luther thought it should be justified for infidelity, for impotence, for life-threatening hostility, for one partner refusing to have marital relations, and for desertion.

Melanchthon limited it just down to infidelity and desertion.

But Martin Busser, who was an early reformer, said there was only need for mutual consent.

In other words, no-fault divorce.

No-fault divorce.

We'll just have a parting of the ways and we'll pick someone else.

Now, in the area of children, The Reformers actually did stand with Catholics in opposition to contraception and abortion.

In fact, there's an interesting book written by a man named Charles Provan called The Bible and Birth Control, where he documents with quotes from Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, and many, many others, and also key religious leaders among Protestant circles all the way up to 1930, Where there was a unanimous agreement with the Catholic Church, the contraception was intrinsically evil and immoral.

However, one of the dangers and why I think in part the Protestants were unable to, in a sense, hold the line as the sexual revolution revved up from Margaret Sanger early in the 20th century all the way up to the present, It lacked the balance of the Catholic teaching.

Here's just one of Luther's quotes.

Even if women bear themselves weary or ultimately bear themselves out, in other words, die, this is the purpose for which they exist.

Now, the Catholic Church would not say that women are supposed to have babies until they die.

And they would not say abandon your spouse if you're unable to have children.

So today, in our country, which has been mostly influenced by Protestant thought, civil law regulates marriage, divorce, and remarriage.

There is no Protestant consensus.

I don't know how many denominations converts in this room could represent, but I can guarantee we would have quite a diversity of opinion.

And yet, because there is such a diversity of opinion, there is no authority on which to understand marriage.

There are even those today who think they can redefine it.

Since 1930, I am not aware of a single Protestant denomination that continues to say that contraception is intrinsically evil.

And in most denominations, almost all, Even abortion is permitted.

What do we have in the Catholic Church?

We have the deposit of the faith on marriage.

We are being taught through our catechism of the Catholic Church the same teaching that was around when our great-great-grandparents were here.

And we can know that it's the teaching that our great-great-grandchildren who will come after us, whom we may not meet on this side of heaven, they will get the same teaching.

I don't know if you caught it in the newspaper, but the newspaper reported in Steubenville that when the Senate of Bishops met in Rome recently, shockingly, they reaffirmed priestly celibacy.

So many leaders in our culture do not get it.

It is not up to us to change it.

It is but for us to be faithful in proclaiming the truth we've received and then passing it on.

Catechism in 1661 says this, the sacrament of matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the church.

It gives spouses the grace to love one another with the love which Christ has loved his church.

The grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life.

If you are married, your vocation It is in marriage.

It is to that specific individual and he plays a role or she plays a significant part of your way to heaven.

Real grace is received.

That is a quote in the Catechism from the Council of Trent.

That is the teaching given at the time after the Reformation.

It is the teaching we receive through the Catechism and it will be said over and over Now, one of the challenges.

How do we help more Catholics understand this?

How do we help call all who have taken the vow of celibacy to be faithful to it?

At the time that G.K. Chesterton was Alive in England and writing.

Someone had a kind of contest.

It wasn't a contest.

It was a... I guess it was a kind of contest.

I don't think there was an award, but anyway.

They wanted to know people's opinions about how do you summarize what's wrong with the world.

And so people would write essays, and they were printing them, and then G.K. Chesterton wrote, and he said, I am G.K. Chesterton.

What does that mean?

It means that I begin with me.

It begins with my fidelity to my spouse.

It begins with my fidelity to Christ's spouse, the Church.

We must witness to the truth with our lives, putting our bodies on the line.

The Catechism in 2365 says the sacrament of matrimony enables man and woman to enter into Christ's fidelity to the Church.

Jesus is the faithful one, according to Psalm 89.1. Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit.

I was in an English class at Grove City College, and the professor said one of the most crazy things I ever heard.

He said, you will know if you have a good marriage If you're free to let your spouse have an affair.

He said, and I would go further, I would say, if you've been married five years and your spouse hasn't had an affair, you don't have a healthy marriage because you're too restricting, you're too controlling.

And I went up to him after class and I said, Dr. Kaufman, I think you are completely wrong.

I said, with all due respect, I'm a Christian.

And I have the Holy Spirit.

And I'm going to marry someone who's a Christian, and I believe he'll have the Holy Spirit.

And it's not that we couldn't fall.

But one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is faithfulness.

And I believe that God wants us to be faithful.

And he's going to give us the strength to be faithful.

On our own, we can't do it.

On our own, we live exactly in the same kind of times the New Testament writers talked.

We live in an evil and adulterous generation.

You flip through the channels.

Find a show that doesn't in some way either have people cohabiting or people having affairs and getting your heartstrings to pull for the wrong person because of how good they are at their craft.

What are we to do?

First of all, we must embrace the lifelong commitment of our marriage.

This is our path to holiness.

Lord, give us the grace to be faithful.

Christ will never abandon his bride.

We must not abandon our spouse.

How is it possible?

that Catholic marriages, the percent that go into divorce court, is really the same amount as Protestants or Pagans.

How is it possible?

Second, we must embrace fidelity by guarding our marriages, by truly Giving ourselves to each other.

I met a woman once who, you know, sometimes I think people don't have to deal with the issue of contraception because they're not making love anyway.

And I made the comment, in all these beautiful parallels between the act of communion and the act of marriage, and I have a whole chapter on it in Catholic for a Reason I would love to have you read, and I said, you know, we're encouraged for frequent communion.

I think there's an encouragement for frequently sharing our bed and expressing our love physically one to another.

It is a way of ministering to each other.

It's a way of caring for each other and meeting each other's needs.

And one woman came up to me afterwards and she said, I told my husband once a month, and that better do it.

What an antagonistic kind of relationship.

I had one college kid Tell me that he went to a wedding and he overheard someone say, huh, now they're married, there goes their sex life.

I want to say, I wish I could shout it from the rooftops.

So many of the people I hear interviewed on TV have no clue what sex is about.

They have no idea.

My parents have been married 49 years and my dad said it gets better every year.

Every year, because he said, I love her more.

I know her better.

I'm loving her.

Our bodies change shapes.

What a shock.

Why is the ultimate compliment that a woman looks like she never had a baby?

Why is it that when you look at the ads, you look at women in their 20s and 30s trying to look like they're prepubescent teens?

I don't personally think that men find that attractive.

I think, I don't know who's running the ads.

There's nothing wrong with being curvaceous.

There's nothing wrong with having a body that says that you bore a baby.

And I tell you, if women felt the conviction that men were really, really, really going to stay around, that this was an indissoluble bond, you would see more couples risking having more children.

One girl told me she came to college and the reason why she was getting her degree according to her dad.

Now this is a Catholic dad to a Catholic daughter.

Honey, you're going to Franciscan University to get an education because when your husband leaves you, you have to be able to support your children.

Can you imagine that was the seed he chose to plant in her heart?

Third, we embrace our spouse in generous fruitfulness.

In generous fruitfulness, we take the risk to say, God, I'm going to trust you to provide for this family.

I'm not saying you turn off your brains and you don't think, but the way our culture approaches it, it's like you have to prove on a credit-debit sheet of accounting how you can justify having another baby.

Total strangers will come up to you and say, are they all yours?

Oh gee, one slipped in, didn't notice.

Or don't you know what to do?

Absolutely, that's why we've got six.

I think one of the best things you can do if you have teenagers is have a baby.

I really do.

I was talking to a woman who was having her ninth baby.

She was 45. And she said, you know, I go to the abortion clinics and I try to help the women.

And I see women and their daughters come in and I give them the news that she's pregnant.

And I watch their reaction and it's kind of strange.

She said, they're upset, but they're not really upset.

I've tried to understand.

She said, I think that the mothers For grandparenting, I'm really looking forward to that.

We're not quite there yet.

The girl is okay with it because Even though she's having the baby, she knows there's a lot of help at home, and it's more like a sibling.

She said, I think teens are having babies because their parents won't. Not just aren't, won't. Been there, done that.

I'm over the diaper thing.

Okay, I want to tell you, and I'm not trying to dictate to any family, but I want to tell you there are sweet blessings to having a baby when you have older children that you can't know apart from having it.

When I delivered our last, my oldest was 16, and he drove the kids to the hospital.

Very weird experience.

And my two oldest were over six feet tall when they walked in the room, and they held this little, tiny baby.

And Gabriel, who's my second, came over and tenderly took my hand, and he said, Mom, how will I ever find the words I don't know of a person who, when they were dying, said, I wish we'd had one less.

Now is the time to give God permission to make in your marriage a true reflection of the relationship between Christ and the church.

Can you fathom the church turning to Christ and saying, I'm done baptizing, I'm done catechizing, I'm not having any more?

We have rich, rich theological truth to live in the most nitty-gritty way, and that's in this vocation of marriage, to reject our culture's promotion of divorce, to reject our culture's obsession with adultery, and to embrace the children they want us to either not have or should be dead through abortion.

And finally, we've got to pray with our children every day for holy and worthy vocations to the priesthood, religious life, and holy matrimony.

All three.

All three.

And we need to plant that seed in their heart that whatever God's call on their life, He will give them the grace for fidelity.

He will give them the grace for faithfulness.

We need to pray together For an increase in those vocations.

And that God, He wants to use us.

He wants to change us.

He wants to make our marriages a sweet testimony.

He really does, and He has the grace to do it.

Let's close in prayer.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Oh God, we know We know the ways that we fail.

Where we go to confession again and again and repeat the same sins, it's so hard at times to even see the progress.

But you have called us into these marriages.

You have called us to the vocation that you have set before us, and you will not call us to do something you refuse to give us the grace to do.

And so we implore you, please open us up to everything you have for you, everything you have for us.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

You strengthen us, Lord.

You do it.

And to you be all of the honor, glory and praise.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

God bless you.