Thanks. Have a happy 2011.
I guess in a sense I am objecting to what Christianity has always tought. It doesn’t seem fair. Why did God have to do such a shoddy job at creating us? He creates marriage, and human beings to desire marriage, and then creates humans so that marriage will actually interfere with their spiritual growth. It’s seems like a horrible Catch-22.
I don’t believe the idea is that marriage always, invariably retards spiritual growth. As you say, God created marriage, and Jesus reaffirmed its goodness. Marriage existed in Eden before the Fall, and now it’s a sacrament that gives us a foretaste of what union with God will be like.
Both Scripture and Church teaching seem clear that celibacy is the higher calling, but that doesn’t make marriage a bad thing. Both Jesus and Paul, in the same breath with their advocacy of celibacy, make it clear that not everyone is called to the unmarried state.
Like any earthly attachment, marriage can be a distraction from God, and undoubtedly that is what Jesus, Paul, and the Fathers warned against (just as they warned against attachment to money and property without requiring everyone to live in deliberate poverty). However, we also have the assurance from God and the Church that marriage can be a means of sanctification, the primary arena in which the majority of people will live out their Christian walks and learn to love others as much as themselves.
At different periods in history, Church writers have focused on different aspects of marriage. It does seem as though there was a period during which the positive aspects of marriage were downplayed, something that has happily changed. (It’s all too easy, when holding up one thing as “the best,” to fall into the trap of painting a contrasting thing in a bad light, even if the latter is itself good. Look at the cases on this board where Catholics arguing against
sola scriptura sometimes fall into the trap of downplaying or badmouthing the Scriptures themselves, rather than their misuse.) It’s even possible that the Reformers helped give the Church a needed push in that direction – they weren’t wrong about everything, and had they taken slightly different paths, they might have been numbered among the greatest Catholic saints of their age.
Remember that Jesus chose to be brought up by a married couple. St. Peter was a married man, and though he may have left his family for a time to travel with Jesus, later on Paul strongly implies that Peter took his wife along on his apostolic mission (and tradition says she joined Peter and Paul in martyrdom under Nero). Those and the large number of other married saints testify by their lives that marriage can promote sanctity.
You might ask around to see if Eastern Catholics have a different historical perspective on marriage. Augustine’s influence is greatest in the West, and saint though he was, the man had issues. Much like someone who quits smoking or drinking after a long struggle and immediately becomes a zealous crusader against the practice, Augustine’s personal history of sexual sin seems to have primed him to view even marriage with suspicion.
Usagi
I’m currently in Afghanistan. I’ll take a look to see if I can find a copy on the harddrive I brought with me, but if not I’ll have to send it to you after I get back…
