THE SACRAMENT OF

matrimony





The Sacrament of

MATRIMONY

by Rev. Charles W. Harris, C.S.C.

AVE MARIA PRESS

Notre Dame, Indiana



NIHIL OBSTAT—John L. Reedy, C.S.C.

Censor Deputatus

IMPRIMATUR—gg Most Rev. Leo A. Pursley, D.D.
Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend

March, 1961

All rights reserved. This pamphlet may not he

reproduced by any means in whole or in part

without prior permission.

Second Printing, December, 1961

© 1961, Ave Maria Press

0SSdSdBfetf



Man and His Mate

When God had finished the work of

the visible creation and had seen that

it was good, He found one thing want-

ing. It was, in fact, a built-in need of

His masterpiece. “It is not good for man

to be alone ... let Us make him a

helpmate like to himself.” Someone who

was equal to him, someone who was to

help and assist him. And He added the

words “Increase and multiply” that they

might know that they, too, were to

share in some measure His own creative

activity.

In these few words God named the

purpose of this first family and of mar-

riage which constitutes it. I suppose

that, to Adam, Eve seemed surpassingly

fair—he had seen no other woman, and
she was obviously his choice for there

was no other to choose.

Time, of course, remedied this limi-

tation; and time preserved through the

vagaries of human development a sense

of the sacredness of this union, perhaps

because it touched so immediately upon

life. There was something special about

the choice of a helpmate. The union was

not to be haphazard but stable, and

3



even permanent, if they were truly to

help one another and their children.

There were departures from the ideal

God originally outlined, but something

of the ideal always remained and was

cherished.

What Is a Sacrament?

Our Blessed Lord restored the ideal

of marriage in all its original beauty

and gave it a new dignity. “It was to

suit your hard hearts that Moses wrote

such a command as that [that a man

put away his wife]
;
God, from the first

days of creation, made them man and

woman. A man, therefore, will leave
his father and mother and will cling to

his wife, and the two will become one

flesh. Why then, since they are no
longer two, but one flesh, what God has

joined, let not man put asunder” (Mark

10:5-10). And in restoring the ideal of

marriage, Christ raised this contract to

the level of a sacrament.

A sacrament is a special kind of
thing upon which we might reflect for

a moment. A sacrament has three char-
acteristics. 1) It can be sensed: There

is something that we can see or hear

4



or put our fingers to that indicates the

kind of grace it confers, e.g., in Bap-

tism the water poured and the words

“I baptize (wash) you,” etc., heard in-

dicate a cleansing (from sin). 2) The

sacrament produces or increases grace

automatically: Once the external rite is

performed the grace is conferred unless

blocked by the deliberate act of the in-

dividual. 3) The sacrament can have

been designed only by our Blessed

Lord: He alone could attach to these

things of sense the ability to serve as

instruments in our sharing the divine

life of grace.

Marriage Is a Contract

In Matrimony the element that is

sensed, that which externally consti-

tutes the sacrament, is the verbal con-

tract: the giving and accepting one an-

other as man and wife. Thus, the sacra-

ment is only as good as the contract. If

there is no genuine or valid contract,

there is no genuine or valid sacrament.

Since it is a contract a certain form

may be prescribed and certain condi-

tions demanded for its validity: In civil

law a valid contract cannot ordinarily

5



be made by one under 18 years of age;

a notary public may be required as an

essential witness for the contract’s va-

lidity. So, too, for the sacrament of

Matrimony. The contracting parties

must have a certain age for the con-

tract to be valid. It must be a genuine

contract, entered into freely, not by

force or fraud. Certain witnesses are

required—the priest and two others

—

for its formality. Frequently we hear

of a marriage between Catholics being

annulled. This means a declaration that

the original contract was null and void

because some condition was wanting.

And if there is no contract, there is no

sacrament, there is no marriage.

Unlike many contracts, the marriage

contract is already made up. It must be

taken as is. I cannot take Mary as my

lawfully wedded wife until such time as

she needs false teeth, or for six months.

The contract reads: “for better or for

worse . . . until death do us part.” “The

sublimity of the end [of marriage]

—

propagation of the human race—takes
away from the contracting parties the

power to lay down conditions of their

union.”

6



“I’ll Love You Forever”

Marriage is too important for its

structure to be determined by the whim

of man. We know too well the sad re-

sults when this has been attempted. So

God Himself has specified that the con-

tract must be entered into by deliberate

choice, between one man and one

woman, and must constitute a perma-

nent union. To those in love this per-

manency never seems a difficulty. We
always say, “I’ll love you forever,” not

“until half-past 12.” It is when love has

chilled or vanished that permanency be-

comes galling.

This is the kind of thing the sacra-

ment of Matrimony is. But the ingre-

dients need to be thought about more

that we may possess them for ourselves

in an intimate and personal way.

We may think of the sacraments in
a twofold way: There are those that heal

and nourish the divine life of grace

—

Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Euch-

arist. And those that consecrate—
Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders,

Matrimony— that is, they dedicate us
for a supernatural purpose and assign

7



to us a certain rank in the Mystical

Body of Christ. The supernatural pur-

pose of Matrimony is not diverse from

that indicated by God at the beginning

of time when He said “It is not good for

man to be alone” and “Increase and

multiply.”

Purposes: Basic and Final

Moral theologians frequently speak

of the primary purpose and secondary

purpose of marriage— the begetting of
children and mutual companionship.

This is a useful distinction for moral

theologians, who must be concerned

about the reason for actions being right

or wrong. But I do not like these words

“primary” and “secondary,” for when

we say a thing is secondary it seems

to imply being unimportant or second-

rate. I would rather like to use the

words basic purpose and final purpose.

The foundation is essential, basic, for

a house, but anyone who has sat on a

foundation during the rain has a strong

feeling that the roof, that which finally

completes the house, is mightily impor-

tant, too. And in the last analysis

8



neither the foundation nor the roof is

the house but a certain combination

of the two.

So, too, we will speak about the

basic and final purposes of marriage,

but we shall not imply that either is

adequate alone, only both taken togeth-

er. Even more accurately, there is only

one purpose of marriage with two

aspects. The basic purpose of marriage

is children: This simply means that the

difference between the sexes has this

fact basically in mind. This does not

mean that man and woman are to func-

tion as a kind of impersonal, co-opera-

tive machine for producing babies. Yet

one may get this implication if basic

and final purposes are divorced.

The final purpose of marriage is the

extension and development of the hu-

man personality through mutual love.

“It is not good for man to be alone”

implies a profound need to love and

be loved, if he is to be a good man; and

since God created woman to satisfy

this need, it is ordinarily through one

another that this perfection of person-

ality takes place.

9



What Is “Love”?

There are probably no two words

more distorted and misused in our lan-

guage than “love” and “sex.” The pass-

ing attraction, sentiment, infatuation

—

all have been called love. There are even

Ph.D. theses on the love-life of fish.

Love of its nature is a spiritual thing.

Only one who has some entree into the

world of the spirit can love: Human

beings can love, angels can love, God

is Love. But not fish!

Sex has come to have a highly re-

stricted meaning, essentially mating

and the mating instinct, whether it oc-

curs among people or rabbits. In this

narrow sense of the word it has become

an obsession of the American civiliza-

tion. Older civilizations wonder at our

fascination with the physical side of

sex. To them there seems something

immature and not quite grown-up about

this attitude.

Love between man and woman almost

inevitably involves sex; in fact, it is

love that imparts to sex its full mean-

ing and beauty. Lest this remark be

misunderstood, let us say right off there

are two kinds of love: love of self-in-

10



terest or with an angle, and unselfish

love or friendship. When the love of

self-interest is dominant, the person

loved is sought or desired because of

the pleasure or convenience that comes

to us. What is really loved is ourselves,

and the person is loved for our own

sake.

From Infatuation to Love

It’s somewhat like the kind of attrac-

tion a thing has for us. I like Haig and

Haig whiskey. It’s smooth. It relaxes

me. I don’t like Haig and Haig for its

own sake. I never ask whether it pre-

fers to mingle with soda, water or just

“on the rocks.” I like it for what it

does for me and I consult only myself.

When we love persons this way— and
most love begins this way— we call it
love of self-interest. Infatuation is this

kind of love. It is excessively bound

up with emotion and feeling and is the

kind of thing which may deteriorate

into lust. Then the person is exploited

for sheer physical pleasure.

The other kind of love, love of friend-

ship or unselfish love, prompts us to

love a person for his own sake, not for

11



what we get out of him. A young man

loves Sue or Linda or Mary, not because

she is beautiful, not because she is kind

or thoughtful, but simply and solely

because she is Sue. The direction of

this love is from ourselves to another,

and is so forgetful of self that it tends to

put self at the service of the one loved.

The young man now does things from

the sole motive of pleasing his Sue. He

goes to movies that he detests because

she likes them. He begins to eat raw

oysters because she does. This is love

for her as a person. Self has gotten

rather thoroughly out of the picture.

He may even begin to think of mar-

riage, wonder whether he is worthy of

her, whether she will have him. Love

begins to develop overtones of rever-

ence. This is deep, true love that takes

us out of ourselves and because it does,

enriches our personality immensely.

The Impulse to Give

Such is conjugal love, a love of friend-

ship, a love directed toward one an-

other precisely because of one another.

Each is wholly for the other; each seeks

to share not simply in the actions and

12



thoughts of the other but in the very

being of the other. Because the object

and basis of this love is the person and

because the person is indefinitely know-

able and lovable, this love persists, and

even grows and intensifies, long after

sensible attraction disappears. For this

kind of love is essentially a thing of

the spirit which engages the spiritual

part of man— intellect and will— at
its highest level. This is the love essen-

tial to marriage, for it has about it the

indestructibility of the spirit, not the

perishableness of matter.

Such a love, of course, is not divorced

from feeling or sentiment. In human

beings there is no intense engagement

of the will without accompanying emo-

tion. We love as human beings, not as
angels, and love, therefore, engages

the whole of us. Hence we find that

love tends to external expression, and

because love takes us out of ourselves

and toward the person, its natural

impulse is toward union and the gift

of self.

We find a young man and a young
woman hold hands, a symbol of union;

they kiss, a sign of devotion; they em-

13



brace, a sign of love. Ordinarily, the

natural impetus of love between man

and woman is to a complete donation

and self-surrender, to an ultimate, ex-

clusive and irrevocable gift of self in

marriage.

Marriage vs. Mating

Seen thus, there is about marriage

a dignity that lifts it as much above

purely animal mating as spirit is above

matter. For, as one Father Scheeben

put it, Christians “dispose of their

bodies as generative principle only with

the approval of Christ and according

to the mind of Christ. They belong to

Christ and they unite with each other

on the basis of their oneness with

Christ; the union of each with the Di-

vine Head is carried over into the union

which they contract with each other.”

Union means giving up one’s self,

and in marriage there is not only a

taking of possession but a surrender.

Sexuality implies not only attaining

satisfaction but giving something away.

Each surrenders himself physically to

the other as they have surrendered

themselves spiritually. When sex, there-

14



fore, is separated from the love it sym-

bolizes, there is evidently an element

of profanation. St. Paul is most em-

phatic about this. He writes to the

Christians in the dissolute port of Cor-

inth: “Have you never been told that

your bodies belong to the Body of

Christ? And am I to take what belongs

to Christ and make it one with a har-

lot? God forbid. Or did you never

hear that the man who unites himself

to a harlot becomes one body with

her?” (I Cor. 6:15-17).

Love Is Creative

As the marriage act by which hus-

band and wife become one principle of

life is the exterior symbol of their in-

terior union, so, too, the fruit of this

act is a new life in which each discovers

both himself and the other as the con-

crete manifestation of their common

union. Love is both unifying and cre-

ative, and one cannot divorce from the

act of love its creative implication. So

perfectly, therefore, do the basic and

final ends of marriage complement one

another that the marriage act cannot,

ordinarily, remain an act of love or con-

15



tribute to the growth of love, if its

creative aspect is positively excluded.

The form a sacrament takes suggests

the grace it confers; if the sacrament

consecrates, it suggests as well the

spirituality of that state. The form of

the sacrament of Matrimony is that of

a gift, offered and accepted, and the

ministers of the sacrament are the par-

ties entering into this union. Because

they form the contract and the contract

is the sacrament, they are ministers of

the sacrament as well. The priest is

there, not to make the marriage holy,

but because it is holy and to demon-

strate that holiness.

Marriage, a Symbol

In the very first moment of their

married life husband and wife become

instruments of grace for one another,

and this is indicative of what their

entire married life should be— a con-
stant sanctification of each other

through the selflessness of their love.

That is why marriage in its sacramen-

tal form has been set as the symbol of

the fundamental mystery of Christian-

16



ity, the relationship between Christ and

His Church.

“The man is the head to which the

woman’s body is united, just as Christ

is the Head of the Church, He, the

Saviour, on Whom the safety of His

Body depends. . . . You who are hus-

bands must show love to your wives,

as Christ showed love to the Church

when He gave Himself up on its be-

half. . . .

“That is why a man will leave father

and mother and will cling to his wife,

and the two will become one flesh.

Yes, these words are a high mystery

and I am applying them here to Christ

and His Church” (Eph. 5:23-33).

The responsibility, then, of the Chris-

tian marriage is to serve as the symbol

of the union of Christ with the Church,

to be the visible reminder of the in-

visible union with Him. Husband and

wife unite with each other in Matri-

mony for the purpose which Christ

pursues in His union with the Church,

the growth of His Mystical Body. It

is a growth both intensive and exten-

sive: intensive in so far as husband and

17



wife help each other to love God more,

extensive in so far as they co-operate

with God in bringing into the world

new members of the Mystical Body

whom it is their privilege to form to

the image and likeness of God. Again,

Father Scheeben says, . . the Chris-

tian marriage bond is more than an

image of the mysterious union between

Christ and the Church; it is also an

organ of this union and has to co-

operate for the attainment of the same

supernatural end, the propagation of

God’s children. Thus Christian mar-

riage possesses a supernatural conse-

cration by its very nature. The mar-

ried couple are consecrated to God in

a special way, and accordingly enter

into a special union with Christ and

His life of grace.”

Toward Heaven Together

Ultimately, Christians marry to make

their way to heaven together. It is a

difficult way and most of us find a need

to share difficulties with others. We
cannot stand loneliness; we want some-

one who understands us, sympathizes

18



with us, who instinctively knows how

we feel, the encouragement we need.

The strength of one sustains the weak-

ness of the other, and more and more

each finds himself fulfilling the voca-

tion to which he is called— to sanctify
one another in the bond of love.

As this wedded love grows more ma-

ture it should be permeated by tender-

ness. Tenderness attaches to every love

which attains a certain excellence. It

is a special form of love’s free outflow-

ing, serene and bright as love itself.

Distinguished by a freedom from con-

straint, it is marked by thoughtfulness

and gentleness, is ever sensitive to the

mood of the one loved, ever ready to

adapt to the need of the beloved. As

union grows, as each comes to know

and understand the other, tenderness

becomes characteristic of a love that

never takes one another for granted,

that each day finds something new to

love, finds new reasons to serve one

another.

Unfortunately, wedded love does not

always grow this way. We can become

used to persons. We take them for

19



granted, and the sensitive delicacy

that is the joy of love disappears.

With its disappearance is experienced

the difficulty of living so close to each

other, of fitting in with each other.

The original attractiveness seems gone.

Love Must Grow—or Die

Modem advertising would suggest

that a new tailor or a new beauty treat-

ment is the remedy. But even if the

original attractiveness is regained, it

may no longer be attractive. We don’t
think much of what we’ve gotten used

to. Two years after marriage a wife

may be as radiant as on her wedding

morning and still fail to distract her

husband from the sports’ page. It’s

not that the riches of each other have

been exhausted. It’s that we have stop-

ped exploring.

Then the first child is born and some-

thing new discovered. In his wife the

husband sees the beautiful mystery of

motherhood and she sees him as father.

The joy and happiness of the first days

of marriage reawaken. As new de-

mands are made upon them, new re-

20



sources are revealed. To the children

they must open the world of faith:

teach them to pray, to walk in the

presence of God, to grow up in habits

of self-denial and generosity. Since one

cannot give what one hasn’t got, these

responsibilities are incentives to their

own growth in virtue. To perfect their

children they find a need to perfect

themselves. In drawing closer to God,

they draw closer to each other and ex-

perience how truly they love one an-

other who love God. As the children

grow into maturity, father and mother

see themselves as sculptors in the great

quarry of humanity, carving living

stones and compacting them together

into the temple of God. In them the

whole mystery of the union of Christ

and His Church shines forth and in this,

their vocation, is their happiness.

Obedience with Love

“Wives must obey their husbands as

they would obey the Lord. The man

is the head to which the woman’s body

is united, just as Christ is the Head of

the Church, He, the Saviour, on Whom

21



the safety of His Body depends; and

women must owe obedience at all points

to their husbands, as the Church does

to Christ. You who are husbands must

show love to your wives, as Christ

showed love to the Church when He

gave Himself up on its behalf. He would

hallow it, purify it by bathing it in the

water to which His word gave life; He

would summon it into His own presence,

the Church in all its beauty, no stain,

no wrinkle, no such disfigurement; it

was to be holy, it was to be spotless.

And that is how husband ought to love

wife, as if she were his own body. . . .

That is why a man will leave his father

and mother and will cling to his wife,

and the two will become one flesh. Yes,

those words are a high mystery, and I

am applying them here to Christ and

His Church. Meanwhile, each of you

is to love his wife as he would love him-

self, and the wife is to pay reverence

to her husband” (Eph. 5:23-33).

St. Paul here not only sets forth the

ideal of the Christian marriage but

also sketches how husband and wife are

specifically to realize it. Each has a

22



different function, each different quali-

fications. Their holiness will in great

measure depend on how these functions

are fulfilled and how each adapts to the

other in this fulfillment.

Head of the Family

It is the divine order that man should

be head of the family, its protector, its

strength. Since he is to wield authority

he tends to be more sure of himself;

since he must lead he tends to be more

decisive, more self-sufficient. He pro-

ceeds by reason and, once convinced,

acts on this conviction without further

reassurance. Man is trained from early

youth to control his emotions and is

less influenced by them than by reason.

His very qualifications, however, may

become his defects.

He inclines to be not only self-suffi-

cient but self-centered, not only authori-

tative but forgetful of the rights of oth-

ers, not only decisive but lacking in

consideration. At times he may lack

sympathy and tenderness, convinced

that his support of the family is suffi-

cient evidence of his sentiments. His

23



reasoned approach and attachment to

principle may be a drawback in dealing

with individuals: Specific differences

may be ignored and he may demand of

human action an exacting uniformity

not adapted to varying personalities.

Because man is self-centered he may

fail in understanding others, especially

his wife. A man acts as if a woman’s
reactions were the same as his own. He

reasons with her when he should appeal

to her emotions. He would resolve her

troubles by a logical analysis instead of

sweeping her into his arms and giving

her a kiss. And when reason and argu-

ment fail he sings in frustration, “Why

Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man”?

Heart of the Family

But, as Pope Pius XI said, “If the

man is the head, the woman is the heart

and as he occupies the chief place in

ruling so she in loving.” God has, there-

fore, endowed her particularly with

gentleness, devotion and intuition. A
woman’s heart and feelings influence

her understanding much more than

does her reasoning. She can put herself

24



in the place of others and can appre-

ciate their sentiments and wishes. That

is why she is so gracious, so readily

puts others at ease, knows best what

approach to take to each of her chil-

dren. Because she is sympathetic she

may sometimes twist principles to suit

individuals. She dislikes one man be-

cause of his whiskers and is charmed

with another because of his darling

mustache. With the children she finds

it difficult to implement principle by

punishment and readily excuses their

shortcomings.

She attaches much importance to

what men call trifles and will give more

time to buying a pair of earrings than

to a hundred shares of stock. But, then,

she has to wear the earrings. She must

consider not only how they look in

themselves and on her, but with what

dresses they will go, at what events she

can wear them, how her husband, and

even her children, will like them. These

trifles are invested with meaning. They

become symbols, and if the symbol is

ignored that for which it stands is, too.

She will spend an hour and a half dress-

ing for a dance. Every bit of make-up,

25



each line of her dress is calculated to

impress. She arrives looking perfectly

radiant, and all her husband is think-

ing of is how late they are. The new

hairdo and the new dress are completely

ignored and she is crushed. She did

it all out of love; the whole ensemble

was just to please her husband, and she

feels that if this is ignored, so is her

love.

Pursuer and the Pursued

Woman loves to be pursued and to

play hard to get, simply because the

ardor and effort of pursuit testify to

love. And woman not only wants to love,

she wants to be loved, has a much more

profound need of it than man because

she is less self-sufficient. And this love

needs to be often expressed. Perhaps

this is why St. Paul sums up the hus-

band’s responsibility to her in: “You

who are husbands must show love to

your wives.”

Intrinsic to happiness and holiness

in marriage is respect for the divine

order and the specific qualifications of

each other. Yet it is an order that

seems increasingly disregarded in the

26



progressive surrender of masculine

leadership to feminine domination.

Feminine domination is not ordinarily

due to feminine aggressiveness, but to

masculine inertia or to the excessive

pressure of business and competition

that exhaust the father and leave him

little time or energy for the family.

Once the chase is over and she has

been captured, woman prefers to sub-

mit and to be led. But if leadership

in the family is lacking she will assume

it. The family cannot be without lead-

ership; even a bad policy is better than

no policy at all.

Family Spirituality

The husband is the spiritual head of

the family, so much so that in some

tribal religions he is also the priest. He

is to imitate Christ, the Head of the

Church, Who is the source of its life
and vitality. From him must come the

spiritual initiative of the family. Yet

it is here that the man frequently ab-

dicates. Does he go to the sacraments

only when his wife urges him to do so

or does he set an example for his wife

and children? Does he lead grace be-

27



fore meals or is he halfway through the

soup when his wife says, “Dear, we

ought to pray.” Does he insist on fam-

ily prayer and do the children grow

up with him praying in their midst or

do they find him on his knees only

when he is looking for a lost quarter?

For this leadership the husband has

a particular grace since he has this re-

sponsibility. If he fails, the family will

suffer. Momism, the particular term

for feminine domination, has received

much study in recent years: Lack of

courage, initiative, leadership, disci-

pline, resourcefulness are too apt to

characterize the children of such a

family. The growing boy, in particular,

must be made to suffer privation, face

danger, endure pain, overcome diffi-

culty, meet competition; and this will

seldom happen under the direction of

his mother. Women are wonderful to

bind up wounds but it takes men to lead

to war.

Equal—but Different

The obedience which wives must

show their husbands is not that of a

serf. They are equals— God made her
28



like to him. The authority of the hus-

band, God-given, is neither a mark of

excellence nor a sign of personal worth

but a necessity for his social function.

The husband will not drive but lead.

Husband and wife will plan together,

and the direction of one and the obe-

dience of the other will be sustained

by their mutual affection. In obeying

their husbands wives will obey as the

Church does Christ, not reluctantly in

submission to power but freely in sub-

mission to love.

Like all authority that of the hus-

band has as its aim the common good

of the family, not his personal advan-

tages. Realizing this the good wife will

encourage the authority of the husband

and assist him in his weakness so that

a loving respect and reverence be ac-

corded him. This does not mean that

the wife is without influence. She is

the heart of the home, making it hu-

man and livable, and what is so influ-
ential as love. Her function demands

of her great love and great self-efface-

ment. But a wife who generously gives

of herself is the happiness of the home,

its interior light, its joy.

29



“A man who has found a perfect wife

has found a rare treasure. . . . Bound

to her in loving confidence, he will have

no need of spoil. Content, not sorrow,

she will bring him as long as life lasts.

Does she not busy herself with wool

and thread, plying her hands with ready

skill. . . . From early dawn she is up,

assigning food to the household, so that

each waiting woman has her share. . . .

Ripe wisdom governs her speech, but

it is kindly instruction she gives. She

keeps watch over all that goes on in her

house, not content to go through life

eating and sleeping. That is why her

children are the first to call her blessed,

her husband is loud in her praise”

(Proverbs 31:10-31).

Joseph’s Example

Christ had no human father in order

that it might be abundantly clear that

in no way did the human nature He

received from His mother lessen the

divine nature that was His from His

Eternal Father from all eternity. Yet

to Him was given one who on earth was

His foster father and of that Family

was truly the head. From the time

30



Joseph took Mary to wife we read of

no more communications to her from

God. Henceforth, it is to Joseph that

God sends His message. Joseph is told

to name the child, Jesus. It is to Joseph

the message is given: “Fly into Egypt”;

to Joseph: “Return to Nazareth.” It is

from him that the Boy learns in a hu-

man way how to drive a nail, to plane

the wood, to shape the furniture and

the tools that a sleepy mountain village

needs.

Between Joseph and the Boy must

have developed a great intimacy and a

close companionship, for when Jesus is

30 years old and Joseph long dead the

townsfolk still refer to Him as the car-

penter’s Boy, as if the sight of Jesus

still brought back the memory of Jo-

seph. Leading without domineering,

strong yet mindful of weakness, direct-

ing Jesus and Mary with deepest rev-

erence of their great dignity, he realizes

ideally and practically the vocation of

husband and father, as Mary does that

of wife and mother. May from them

come the inspiration to realize the

riches of grace in this great sacrament.

31



PRAYER OF A HUSBAND

AND WIFE FOR EACH OTHER

May God the Father bless us.

May Jesus Christ keep us safe.

May the Holy Ghost enlighten

us. May the Lord look upon us

and have mercy on us. May the

Lord turn His gaze upon us

and give us peace, filling us

with every blessing and for-

giving our sins, that we may

come to life eternal. May He

give us peaceful days, health

of mind and body, joy in the

blessing of children, and, after

the labors of this life, bring us

happily to the companionship

of the holy angels.

32



There are eight pamphlets in this

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