Honor thy Father and thy Mother

This noble and Divine command to honor our father and mother, given by God to Moses and the Israelites on Mt. Sinai, indicates the dignity and importance of the state of matrimony in salvation history.

          Our Lord Himself was present for the celebration of the wedding feast at Cana, and, at the suggestion of His most Blessed Mother, performed His first public miracle, all because neither wanted to see the bridegroom and bride embarrassed for lack of wine, displaying a very human trait of sympathy. 

          Our Lord also raised the wedding of man and woman in matrimony to that of a sacrament: an outward sign instituted by God for the conferring of grace.

          There have been numerous articles written about the Synod on the Family that took place recently in Rome.   What came out of that Synod was a hint that the Church should look more favorably on unnatural “unions” of two males or two females.  (Such an unholy relationship confers only death to the soul and scandal.)  This, of course, directly contradicts what the Church has always and everywhere believed and taught on Faith and morals down through the millennia.

          And then there is the recent announcement that the Archdiocese of New York will close and then “consolidate” parishes over the next several years, totaling one-hundred-twelve in all.  This is nearly one-third of all the parishes in the New York area.

          Why is this happening?

          The answer is simple, yet compelling: there are not enough people to fill the pews. 

          Again, the question is why?

          The contraceptive mentality that infiltrated the mindset of Catholics in this country and around the world has led to fewer babies bring born to fill those pews.   The population “replacement rate” has decreased dramatically, not only in this country, but also in most Western nations.  So the main reason for a man and a woman to enter the married state is further contradicted for the sake of convenience, which is nothing short of selfishness.  In other cases, the extreme method of “birth control” is the heinous act of aborting the developing baby in the womb of her mother.

          In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 19, 3-6, Our Lord elevated marriage, which God had blessed in creating Adam and Eve, to a holy sacrament “…the Pharisees came to Jesus to tempt Him and saying: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?  Who answering said to them, have ye not read, that He Who made man from the beginning, made them male and female?  And He said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.  Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh.  What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” 

          St. Paul echoes these same words in Ephesians, Chapter 5.  He uses the analogy of Christ and His Church to that of a husband and his wife.  Ge goes on to say: “… let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord; because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church: He is the Savior of His Body.  Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things.  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for it… So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.  He that loveth his wife, loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it; as also Christ doth the Church: for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” 

          There is no “wiggle room” here.  Marriage, elevated by Christ to a sacrament for the baptized, is the union made between a man and a woman for the purpose of bringing children into the world and rearing them in the Faith, for the salvation of these children, their own salvation, and for the greater honor and glory of God.  Husband and wife are co-creators with the Divine Creator.  Two males or two females, of course, can never co-create.  There is no “union,” never mind marriage.

          We know that man-made judgments – coming from an activist judiciary – have recently “blessed” the “rights” of the unions of two males or two females, but such judgments are null and void, as they contradict the Natural Law instilled by God in every human heart.  Such is the teaching of the Church and such is common sense.  Those politicians who dare to violate God’s law, sin gravely, especially so if they are “Catholic.”

          We read in the Catholic Encyclopedia: “Marriage is a contract and is by its very nature above human law.  It was instituted by God, is subject to the Divine law, and cannot for that reason be rescinded by human law.  Those who contract marriage do so indeed by their own free wills, but they must assume the contract and its obligations unconditionally.   Marriage is natural in purpose, but Divine in origin.  It is sacred, being intended primarily by the Author of life to perpetuate His creative act and to beget children of God; its secondary ends are mutual society and help, and a lawful remedy for concupiscence.  Human law certainly takes cognizance of marriage, but marriage, not having been established by man, its essential properties cannot be annulled by such law.  Marriage is monogamic and indissoluble; death alone dissolves the union when consummated.” 

          Also in the Catholic Encyclopedia: “In the Old and the New Testament, the love of God for man, and, in particular His relations with His chosen people (whether of the Synagogue or of the Church), are frequently typified under the form of the relations between bridegroom and bride.” 

          The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ.  Christ, the Head, is one with His members.  In heaven, the Church militant has become the Church triumphant, forever.  The Union is indissoluble.  So, too, therefore, in this life, the union of husband and wife, as a figure of the Church, is indissoluble, while both partners live.  Any power on earth that would dare to assume that it could abrogate this sacramental union, as the state attempts to do in sanctioning divorce, is in defiance of God Almighty.  

E. DeLalla.