On Marriage and Martyrdom By Regis Martin, S.T.D. In a very funny piece written a number of years ago, the late Erma Bombeck (she died in 1996), announced that with the possible exception of “We have lift off,” or “This country is at war,” there will never be another sentence in the language as sobering as, “I now pronounce you man and wife!” For far too many of us, however, we are not nearly sobered enough. Certainly not the newly married, who, moving through a thick honeymoon haze, too often haven’t a clue as to the meaning of the marriage they’ve just begun. Is it perhaps because, as T.S. Eliot reminds us, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality”? Or is it the fact that, like the soil of a nation’s literature requiring a great deal of history in which to grow, it takes an awful lot of experience to harvest even a little wisdom? And wisdom, well, it is not a dish one ordinarily finds on the buffet table following the ceremony. Indeed, to cite Mr. Eliot one more time, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire/ Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.” But this much I do know—that when it comes to marriage, to the happy outcome of the match, it will not matter a whit how radiant the bride looked, nor how handsome the groom. Because, at the margin, marriage is a matter of two people having an experience whose meaning and impact they will need a lifetime to absorb and distill. Until, that is, painfully repeated failure succeeds at last in conferring a kind of wisdom, to wit, the wisdom of agony. Yet we neither repine nor despair. Because sanctity, which is the holiness of life that all of us are meant to look for in the marital state, will invariably be found in the struggle to obtain it; which, to succeed, must last as long as the marriage itself. Such perfection, in other words, decisively depends on how resolute we remain, under the Mercy, to pick ourselves up and soldier bravely on. And if the forbearance we practice be both genuine and hard-fought, the marriage will succeed. Isn’t that, this side of the grave, the best that any of us can hope to have? In a world where no asymptotic curve can ever quite reach its base line, it is the intention to try and do so anyway that finally matters. Here is the real signature note of the Church’s sacramental life, that as often as we fall down, and for some the recidivist rate approaches Alcatraz proportions, our disappointments need never be fatal since God is ever ready to fashion us anew. In the encounter with Christ in the confessional, for example, what is required of us penitents could hardly be more simple: to carry all the broken pieces of our lives into that little box where, mustering as much hope and humility as we can, we ask God to forgive us. And never mind how often we return to ask for the same medicine of mercy; because in asking him over and over to put the pieces of our lives together, we give him reason to smile. Here is a wonderful discovery that I have made. In thumbing through a dictionary of Catholic Doctrine, I am continually struck by the proximity of two entries, “Marriage” and “Martyrdom,” each set down in paragraph after paragraph of the most fearfully exacting prose. That’s right, the one followed by the other. Might there be a connection here that young couples, eagerly presenting themselves before the Altar, ought not to miss? Or that older couples still married might need to be reminded of as well? What I’m getting at here is that in a relationship aiming to be faithful, fruitful, and forever—to sound the three great ends of Christian marriage—what is involved is a whole lot more than knowing whom to invite to the rehearsal dinner, what to serve them, or how to pay for it. It requires an intensity of attention to be paid to a very different and far more demanding set of exigencies. The passion of eros must learn to orchestrate its rhythms to something far greater than the fixations of the flesh, however insistent; indeed it must, in order to survive, submit to the higher law of love, of caritas, whose demands, while ultimately more satisfying, must nevertheless seem in a fallen world less immediate and imperious than the surge and swell of sweet desire. It is here, of course, that one bumps up against that other entry in the dictionary, which surely gives us all pause. It is the scary connection between a life, the future shape of which no married couple could possibly know or intuit, and the martyrdom to which they are nevertheless being called every step of the way to embrace. Putting it very practically, of all the skills needed to avoid this or that calamity along the way, nothing will prove more necessary or more difficult than a willingness to die to self for the sake of the other every day, all day. Oh, sure, there are other things they will need to learn as well such as communication and the art of conversation. That will surely keep the wheels of intimacy and trust turning. When couples cease to talk to one another, exchanging the daily bread of discourse for things that do not nourish over the long haul, their lives become empty and joyless. The act of conjugal love grows cold and sterile, lapsing more and more into the aimless copulation of the beasts. And until these instincts are anchored to gestures of real and selfless generosity, of service performed for the sake of the other, the marriage cannot but wither and die. For those who have chosen the way of marriage, the need for courage will, in some sense, be as great if not greater than that required of the martyr bloody whose struggle, having been but brief, catapults him into glory sooner than most. Because the way of perfection embarked upon by those who marry is neither brief nor easy. Yet is very much a form of martyrdom, a witness, whose duration can go on for years and years. But they are not alone in the struggle: they have each other, and they have God. Especially God, whose presence in marriage remains not merely necessary to its being, its defining feature, but indispensable to its continued and lasting fulfillment. Its success, if you will. There is a wonderful Jewish saying that, “If God lived on earth, people would break his windows.” Ah, but he does live on earth, and we’ve done far worse than to break his windows. In fact, he allowed us to break him in order that he might become our bread. The point is, he wants to be part of our life and, if we’ll have him, that life will carry us safely, triumphantly even, to him in the end. “All the way to heaven, is heaven,” St. Catherine of Siena tells us, “because Christ announce himself as ‘the Way’.” Our prayer, then, should be that we never forget God, who brought us all together, both brides and grooms, at the beginning, and now wishes nothing more than to ensure that we remain together till the very end, the final trumps. God alone is the guarantee of this, which is why we who are married need to remember his mercies, entreating him each day for a fresh and renewed outpouring. Regis Martin, S.T.D. has a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum in Rome where he graduate Summa Cum Laude in 1988. He is currently a Professor of Systematic Theology at the Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH, and the author of more than a half-dozen books including, most recently, Stillpoint: Loss, Longing and Our Search for God (Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN). He has written for the National Review, Commonweal, Crisis, Lay Witness, and Magnificat Prayer Book. He is married and the father of ten children and seven grandchildren.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 11:46:19 +0000
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