Living The Worthy Life: The Attack On The Family

Today Satan is attacking the Church through its most treasured asset- the family. Satan knows full well that no Church can exist without people.  Therefore, the best way to successfully attack the Church is through the people who go and the best way to do that is to break up the family unit.  

As marriage rates have fallen, the number of U.S. adults in cohabiting relationships has continued to climb, reaching about 18 million in 2016. This is up 29% since 2007, when 14 million adults were cohabiting, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.  At the same time, Church Attendance is dropping, the amount of people leaving the Church has risen dramatically and the amount of lapsed Catholics is larger today than there were numbers of Catholics in America in 1920.  

Marriage in the today's society is not like it was during World War II.  People are either marrying later in their life or not at all.    

• In 1940, men were 24.3 years old and women were 21.5 when they got married. 
• From the 1950s to the 1970s, men married around age 23 and women at 20. 
• In the late 1980s, men were 25 years old on average when marrying and women were 23. 
• In 2018, folks are taking their good old time with courting, with men marrying at the age of 29.8 and women at 27.8 

One of the reasons why is that over 50% of all marriages end in divorce today.  That number may seem a little high however what is strange is that does not appear to include two factors 

1. Fifty-five percent of all married couples have been married for at least 15 years, according to the census report, while 35 percent have celebrated their 25th anniversaries and a special 6 percent have made it more than 50 years. 
2. It’s estimated that 60% of all second marriages end in divorce, while 73% of third marriages will end in divorce. The bright spot in all of this is that overall, divorce rates in the U.S. are falling. 

With all of these problems going on all over the place maybe we should go back in time for very good advice on marriage.  One of the best books on the subject was written by Bishop Fulton Sheen- Three To Get Married. 

Bishop Sheen explained, The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament (CCC: 1660). 

12 Cardinal Principles of A Successful Marriage- Remember It Takes Three To Do This 

1. “In all human love it must be realized that every man promises a woman, and every woman promises a man that which only God alone can give, namely, perfect happiness. One of the reasons why so many marriages are shipwrecked is because as the young couple leaves the altar, they fail to realize that human feelings tire and the enthusiasm of the honeymoon is not the same as the more solid happiness of enduring human love. One of the greatest trials of marriage is the absence of solitude. In the first moments of human love, one does not see the little hidden deformities which later on appear.” 
2. “Love of self without the love of God is selfishness; love of neighbor without the love of God embraces only those who are pleasing to us, not those who are hateful.” 
3. “Those who do not yet love one another deeply have need of words; those who deeply love thrive on silences.” 
4. “How can one love self without being selfish? How can one love others without losing self? The answer is: By loving both self and neighbor in God. It is His Love that makes us love both self and neighbor rightly.” 
5. “It loves the other, not because of attractiveness, or talents, or sympathy, but because of God. To the Christian, a person is one for whom I must sacrifice myself, not one who must exist for my sake.” 
6. “Imagine a large circle and in the center of its rays of light that spread out to the circumference. The light in the center is God; each of us is a ray. The closer the rays are to the center, the closer the rays are to one another. The closer we live to God, the closer we are bound to our neighbor; the farther we are from God, the farther we are from one another. The more each ray departs from its center, the weaker it becomes; and the closer it gets to the center, the stronger it becomes.” 
7. “The more clearly a man understands anything, the more readily he can summarize it in a few words.” 
8. “the sadness it feels in attaining any happiness less than the infinite—all these constitute the mating call of God to the soul.” 
9. “The basic reason why erotic experiences outside of marriage create psychological strain is that the void between spirit and flesh is more closely felt.” 
10. “Remarriage, while the true partner is living, is a vain attempt to give respectability to dishonor by invoking a human law that overthrows God’s law:” 
11. “Each instinct and passion of man is amoral; it is only the abuse of these passions that makes them wrong. There is nothing wrong about hunger, but there is something wrong about gluttony; there is no sin in thirst, but there is a sin in drunkenness; there is nothing wrong with a man who seeks economic security, but there is something wrong with a man who is avaricious; there is nothing to be despised in knowledge, but there is something to be condemned in pride; there is nothing wrong with the flesh, but there is something wrong in the abuse of the flesh. Just as dirt is the matter in the wrong place, so sin is flesh in the wrong place. Sex has its place in that area of life designed for its fruition, but the misuse of it outside of that natural and supernatural bond is wrong.” 
    “The lover of God never knows the words “too much.” Those who accuse others of loving God or religion too much really do not love God at all, nor do they know the meaning of love.” 
    “One can yearn for another after knowing flesh unity, but it is impossible to yearn for another after soul unity.” 
12. “As life goes on, they become not two compatible beings who have learned to live together through self-suppression and patience, but one new and richer being, fused in the fires of God’s love and tempered of the best of both. One by one, the veils of life’s mysteries have been lifted. The flesh, they found, was too precocious to reveal its own mystery; then came the mystery of the other’s inner life, disclosed in the raising of young minds and hearts in the ways of God;”

 To many people, marriage is a union of two people.  Bishop Sheen successfully pointed out that this is plainly wrong. It is a union of two people and God.  Without God, in that union, the marriage will not be successful and the people involved will not be happy.  God is the reason for success and two people in union with God will raise their families in a happy home.  This sage advice has been proven successful now and forever. Amen.