Always Advent

Just an article link again today:

Will Europe Resist Islamization? by Daniel Pipes

Very interesting!

Couple of quotes from B16 about what he calls “anarchical freedom”:

Here’s the first one:

I would like to glance briefly at perhaps the most radical philosophy of freedom in our century, that of J.P. Sartre, inasmuch as it brings out clearly the full magnitude and seriousness of the question. Sartre regards man as condemned to freedom. In contrast to the animal, man has no “nature.” The animal lives out its existence according to laws it is simply born with; it does not need to deliberate what to do with its life.

Anarchic freedom, taken radically, does not redeem, but makes man a miscarried creature, a pointless being. (Pope Benedict XVI, from Truth and Freedom, 1996 http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/TRUEFREE.htm)

And the second one:

…the various forms of dissolving marriages today, as well as the free unions and the ‘trial marriages’, including pseudo-marriage between people of the same sex, are, rather, expressions of an anarchical freedom, which passes itself off, wrongly, for a true liberation of man. Such pseudo-freedom is based on making the body banal, which inevitably includes making man banal. (Pope Beneict XVI, 6 June 2005, at the Ecclesial Congress of the Diocese of Rome on “Family and Christian Community: Formation of the Person and Transmission of the Faith”)

Anyone read any of the books by Tom Grace?

National Catholic Register reviewed The Secret Cardinal recently:

The Secret Cardinal is a deft blend of fact and fiction, but the author is careful to separate both at the book’s end. For example, a key character — Cardinal Malachy Donoher — heads something called the Vatican Intelligence Service. Grace makes clear that no such entity exists.

Although Grace is an excellent storyteller, The Secret Cardinal exceeds its entertainment value by raising awareness of China’s persecuted underground Catholic Church, which has been illegal for more than a half century.

The book also scores points for recognizing Church teaching on human life in its account of why Kilkenny and his late wife postponed treatment of her cancer until after their child could be safely born. Grace weighs Kilkenny’s fidelity to his faith against the loss he suffers by letting it play out in a conversation between Cardinal Yin and Kilkenny.

Here, readers are given a compassionate picture of the Church as Yin, no stranger to suffering for doing the right thing, is able to offer manly comfort and counsel to Kilkenny: “You and your wife made a decision based on faith and hope, yet still suffered a great tragedy. I believe God is aware of this tragedy. …” This is refreshing stuff in a novel from a secular publisher.

Grace’s latest work is representative of his previous novels, in which sex and profanity are used sparingly in comparison to other books in this genre. Even so, some of the descriptions of torture are somewhat graphic, and may be too much for sensitive readers. Overall, however, this is a fine read that lends a Catholic presence to popular literature in the secular culture.

full review here:
review of The Secret Cardinal by National Catholic Register (review by Judy Roberts)
http://ncregister.com/site/article/7282

Published by Vanguard Press

Yesterday Catholic Exchange had a good article about credit cards:

Studies repeatedly show that we generally spend more freely when using credit cards than we do with cash and swelling card balances are on the increase. According to recent data by CardTrak.com, the median (middle number) amount of credit card debt carried by Americans is about $6,600 while the mean (or average) credit card debt load is nearly $9,900.

The “sweet spot” for most credit card companies comes from consumers who carry high balances, consistently make the minimum payments and occasionally make late payments where penalty fees are incurred. Those of us who pay off our card balances on time monthly are affectionately known in the industry as “deadbeats.”

Complete article here:
Warning! What’s in Your Wallet May be Hazardous to Your Health!

Just a reprint today: an excellent editorial from the National Catholic Register last year. Enjoy!

Six Myths of Atheism
http://ncregister.com/site/article/7279

Six Myths of Atheism

BY THE EDITORS
November 18-24, 2007 Issue | Posted 11/13/07 at 1:28 PM

In one respect, it’s good that Golden Compass, a book by a prominent atheist children’s author, is being made into a movie. It could lead to a wider discussion of atheism. It is easy to be a quiet atheist — but much harder to remain an atheist when you actually have to explain your position. Here are a few common myths about atheism that discussion can help dispel.

Myth: Atheists are more logical than believers.

A myth that is kin to this one is the myth that believers are more logical than atheists. In fact, the reasons people become believers or become atheists are rarely reducible to logic. Rather, a number of experiences, observations and emotional states together push someone toward belief or unbelief. The idea that there is an almighty God is terrifying to many people. Rather than be in the power of such a being, they flee him. Others, perhaps, have been so wounded by believers that they reject their beliefs and not just their behavior. Logic is brought in to comfort the atheist with rationalizations. On the other hand, the way we come to believe in God isn’t through a syllogism, either. It’s through a personal encounter with Christ, or with one of his proxies: beauty, truth and goodness.

Myth: The burden of proof is on the religious.

Atheists often say that the default position of mankind should be lack of belief, since there is “no proof” of God’s existence. Others say agnosticism should be the default position of mankind: We should start out by saying “We’re not sure,” and work from there. Anthony Flew, the prominent atheist who recently converted to a position of belief in “the God of Aristotle” said that the default position of mankind should be belief, since, after all, the universe and its complicated laws exists, and you have to deny the obvious to say that there is no creator. Flew saw three irrefutable proofs that there must be a god in the laws of nature, life with its singular organization and the existence of the universe.

Myth: Science makes God obsolete.

There is a widespread assumption that somehow the progress of science has challenged, or will challenge, the reasons that previous generations had for believing in God. But why should it? Imagine if human beings were the size of microbes and lived on a tuna noodle casserole instead of our current size on the earth. Imagine we became so scientifically advanced, we identified all the different constituent parts of the casserole we lived on, and even started to explore the vast kitchen outside the casserole. It would be ridiculous for us to claim that, since we know the ingredients so well, there must not have been a cook.

Myth: Science is a reliable guide for us.

In fact, if you look at the history of science, you don’t see the history of an infallible learning method slowly but surely widening our understanding of the universe. Science is an excellent instrument for fact-finding, but one that has been wrong about fundamental things at every point in its history. Theories of spontaneous generation seemed entirely reasonable at the dawn of science. Paul Ehrlich’s theories expecting mass famine due to overpopulation seemed plausible at the beginning of the 1970s. What theories of today will prove just as false? Scientific knowledge at any stage of its history is merely tentative, and new discoveries are continually refining or discarding previous theories.

Myth: Religion and science are incompatible.

Often, fans of this myth will cite Galileo as proof that religion and science are opponents in a contest that often appears to be a death match. The Galileo incident is actually a good example of the real relationship between science and religion. Search for Galileo at Catholic.com, to learn how the incident is widely misunderstood. Galileo’s theory that the earth travels around the sun and not vice versa was not unique to Galileo. Others held it, and the Church didn’t suppress the idea. Instead, Galileo’s personal animus toward the Pope forced the two into a showdown. The moral of the story? Real religion and honest science are certainly compatible: Religious people and scientists, however, sometimes fail to be.

Myth: Religion has led to violent intolerance.

Undoubtedly, far too many religious people have been violent and intolerant. But if you look at the facts about such notorious incidents as the Inquisition and the witch hunts (look them up at Catholic.com), you’ll find that the crimes of the Church have been greatly exaggerated. Meanwhile, atheist communists in the 20th century killed more people than the Church was ever even accused of killing. Killed were some 65 million (and counting) in China; 20 million in the Soviet Union, 2 million (and counting) in North Korea, 2 million in Cambodia, 1.7 million in Africa, 1.5 million in Afghanistan, 1 million in Vietnam, 1 million in communist Eastern Europe and 150,000 in Latin America.

Catholics should be aware of the threats to faith posed by movies like The Golden Compass, but we shouldn’t be afraid of them. The Church has faced far fiercer and cleverer opponents for more than 2,000 years, and we’re still here to tell the tale.

How are we able to come out ahead so consistently? That’s easy. It’s because there really is a God.

Lovely article here from Zenit last year: a summary of some things Pope Benedict XVI said about Heaven, the narrow gate, friendship with Christ, etc:

Get Your “Passport” Ready for Heaven, Says Pope
http://www.zenit.org/article-20341?l=english

-
by Clare Siobhan

Fasting simply means going without food for a time. Many people have undergone a fast for medical reasons, such as before getting a blood sample drawn or before surgery, or for other health reasons, and in these cases the rules are clear: “No food or water after midnight the night before,” for example.

The Catholic Church also prescribes a fast for our spiritual health, on two special days during the year: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Here, too, the rules are clear:

No meat. Only one full meal that day. Two smaller meals that together do not add up to one full meal. No food between meals.

This is the minimum penance required by the Church, and even then it is not binding if it impairs your ability to work or otherwise perform your duties on those two days. Fasting is not dieting; it is a spiritual practice.

The Church encourages us to do more, though, if we can, and make regular fasting and penance part of our lives, year-round. If you’re old enough, and if you’re not expecting or nursing a baby, and if your health permits it, try one of these fasts:

• Observe the old-fashioned Catholic custom of eating no meat on Fridays even when it’s not Lent. Many people are unaware of the fact that we are really expected to abstain from meat on all Fridays, even outside of Lent. However, church law says we may eat meat on Fridays if we substitute some other form of penance.

• On Wednesdays and Fridays, consume bread and water only. This is a popular fast, promoted by the Marian devotion movement.

• On Wednesdays and/or Fridays, consume nothing except water all day. (Or black tea only, which the Irish called a “black fast.”) Break your fast with your family at dinnertime. If you want to extend the fast, begin it the night before by passing up dessert and eating no snacks that night. And if you’re skipping breakfast, no fair sleeping in: get up at the regular time and spend that time in prayer.

• Eat three meals a day as usual, but consume nothing between meals and skip all desserts or other sweets.

• Follow the rules of fasting normally observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday: partial breakfast, partial lunch, full dinner, no snacks, no meat. Poor Clare nuns, following the practices of St. Francis and St. Clare, fast like this every day: 365 days a year. Try fasting like this for the 40 days of Lent.

• Resolve not to have a second helping of anything. To make this even more penitential, have someone who doesn’t know you’re doing this load your plate for you, so you’re not tempted to give yourself a second helping at the front end.

But why would anyone want to do this? Yes, fasting is a form of penance and reparation for sin, but how does going without food help us grow closer to Jesus? What do I mean when I say that fasting is the “bat phone” to the indwelling Holy Spirit?

Here are a few things I’ve experienced and learned from fasting:

The self-control learned from fasting spills over into other areas of life. If you can learn to control your appetite for food, you can also control your other appetites.

When I haven’t eaten all day and I’m hungry and tired, I feel a greater unity with the poor and a greater desire to help them, because they often must fast not by choice but because they have no way to get food. Jesus is very close to the poor.

When I’m so hungry that even birdseed begins to look appetizing, I have a greater understanding for people who chase after all the wrong things in order to satisfy their spiritual hunger. If my body starts to complain after only a few hours without food, imagine the many souls who are suffering deeply after going for years without Jesus, the only true spiritual food.

I realize that sometimes I eat mindlessly, out of boredom, or to comfort myself. Fasting teaches me to make use of food and other comforts more mindfully and with greater appreciation. Fasting empties us out so that God can fill us up.

If a fast is going well (not by my own efforts but by God’s grace), my body stops complaining and a spiritual awareness kicks in. My desire for food disappears, in fact. I become interiorly docile and peaceful, and my body and my mind become aware of what my spirit lives daily—longing for the day of perfect union with Jesus. “My soul yearns for you in the night. My spirit within me keeps vigil for you.” (Isaiah 26:9)

Just as often, a fast won’t go so well, and I arrive home from work hungry and irritable. That is the time to humbly accept my human weakness and break my fast so that I can contribute to a peaceful, happy atmosphere in my home and not make my penance a cross for the people I live with.

Fasting is definitely worth doing. If you have trouble persevering in a fast, try offering it up for a particular intention or for a particular person who needs your prayers. Use your fast to make reparation for a specific fault or sin—one of your own or one of the “societal” sins, such as abortion, sins against chastity, pornography, gambling, and so on. God will honor every effort.

(This article originally appeared in the Family Centered Faith Formation News, volume 4, issue 6, February 2007, produced by the Holy Trinity Office of Religious Education, Westmont IL)

Here is part 3 of 3 in a series by Melinda Selmys called “Catholics and Divorce”:

Link:
Part 3: Seven Sanctifications for Spouses
http://ncregister.com/site/article/6282

Part 3 quoted in full:

Seven Sanctifications For Spouses

Catholics and Divorce, part 3
BY MELINDA SELMYS
October 14-20, 2007 Issue | Posted 10/9/07 at 10:48 AM
National Catholic Register

For the last two weeks, we’ve been examining the problem of divorce, its nature and it’s causes. Last week, we looked at “7 Worldly Wisdoms.”

Today we will seek out the cure.

1. “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47).

A heavy weight of grudge, complaint, injustice and remembered wrongs can sink any marriage. Wrongs remembered in times of anger are fuel thrown on the fire. Take time in prayer to recall old wounds that you haven’t healed and set them before the cross. Everything in marriage should be brought to God — whether it is something as trivial as laundry left undone, or something as serious as adultery.

Real forgiveness, like real contrition, expects no recompense: If you have forgiven, you will not be bitter about being the one who had to forgive. Rejoice. Marriage gives us many opportunities to cash in on God’s promise that we will be forgiven as we forgive.

2. “Love issues from a pure heart” (1 Timothy 1-5).

Be chaste in thought and in deed. If you rehearse adultery in the theater of your mind, you will find it difficult to resist temptation when it comes. Pornography, prurient entertainment and steamy romance novels all replace your real spouse with a figment, a sexual automaton who possesses no personality or needs beyond your own.

If your spouse is involved in these behaviors, be gentle and patient: They may be compulsive, and quite humiliating.

3. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Work together, play together, relax together, fight together — and make sure that you make separate time for each of these activities. We are often inclined to try to do the wrong things at the wrong time. If you want to rip your husband’s head off and eat it with ketchup, it isn’t the time to fight. Go calm down, then go for a walk in the park, or take the kids to the zoo.

When you’re getting along again, then it’s the time to talk about the problems in your relationship and get them resolved. I suspect that most divorces are the result of couples littering the floor with each other’s emotional entrails when angry, and then trying to keep a tight-lipped peace when they’re not.

4. “Pride goes before destruction” (Proverbs16:18).

No divorcee is ever responsible for the divorce. If they committed adultery, it was because their husband was distant and emotionally abusive. If they asked for the divorce, it was only after years of putting up with their wife’s frigidity. Marriage requires the humility to admit that you are wrong. Say, “I’m sorry,” and don’t add a “but …”

Remember that pride is the invisible vice; you can see it easily in others, only with difficulty in yourself. Frequent the sacrament of confession and get into the habit of knowing your own faults.

5. “The measure you give will be the measure you get” (Mark 4:24).

Money is always a means to an end; people are ends in themselves. It is therefore a severe perversion of the moral order to allow money to undermine a relationship. Put first things first.

If you tithe, give alms, lend to those who cannot repay you, and invest your treasure in your faith and your marriage instead of your property, then God will provide you with everything that you really need (and often with much more). Have faith in divine Providence, and there will be no need to fight or worry over money.

If your spouse cannot do this, don’t fight, and don’t worry. Discuss it reasonably and charitably and let them have their way. Better to lose your house and gain your marriage than to surround yourself with baubles and lose your spouse.

6. “Whoever would save his life will lose it” (Matthew 16:25).

If you cling to your spouse, and try to hold him captive with threats of private detectives, or with the latest tricks from the magazines at the grocery counter, you will suffocate your marriage.

Be faithful, and trust your spouse to be faithful. It is much more difficult to disappoint someone who loves and trusts you than to defy someone who holds you on a leash.

7. “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

Be open to filling your house with children. A child is an incarnation of your love for each other. They confirm that love, and each one is an incarnation of a different aspect of your union.

If this has not proved true in your marriage, spend more time really interacting with your children (i.e. not watching television or playing video games with them, or watching them inertly over a frazzled cup of coffee). You will find in them a reflection of the spouse you fell in love with, and they will find in you an image of God’s unconditional love.

Melinda Selmys is a staff writer at vulgatamagazine.org.

Jennifer Roback Morse writes and blogs extensively on this subject:
http://www.jennifer-roback-morse.com/

My article on my experience of divorce:
A Word That Means Divorced

Retrouvaille: help for troubled marriages
http://www.retrouvaille.org/

Here’s part 2 of 3 in Melinda Selmys’s National Catholic Register series “Catholics and Divorce”:

Part 2: 7 Worldly Wisdoms of Marriage
http://ncregister.com/site/article/4757

Part 2 quoted in full here:

7 Worldly Wisdoms of Marriage

Catholics and Divorce, part 2
BY MELINDA SELMYS
October 7-13, 2007 Issue | Posted 10/2/07 at 11:12 AM

Last week, we looked at marriage and divorce in the light of the cross. This week, we look through the fog of the world to see some of the misconceptions that lead families to self-annihilation.

1. A marriage is something that sometimes “just can’t work out.”

We all know that marriage takes work, but advice on how to “work out” your marriage is usually painted in such saccharine terms that it is of little use to couples in crisis. “Understand each other.” “Remember the person you fell in love with.” “Share your goals and dreams.” “Laugh together.” Recall the time when marital strife was most severe in your marriage. Was it even remotely possible to “share your goals and dreams” or “laugh together”?

Of course, many couples do find solutions here. But many others attempt this advice, and understandably they fail. Out of this springs a sense of despair and the conviction that in spite of their best efforts the marriage “just didn’t work out.”

2. Being “in love” is a necessary precondition for a good marriage.

The temporary madness that we call “being in love” is a powerful and moving experience, but a poor foundation for building a life. Emotions are fickle, and marriages built on them are houses built on sand. When someone divorces because they “fell in love” with someone else, we can safely bet all our worldly wealth that their second marriage will also fail. If you erect an idol to Eros in the center of your home, you may expect him to lead you from one fling to another, and never give you the time to build a love that can survive both abundance and dryness.

3. Sex is about personal fulfillment and expression.

Modern notions of sexuality look something like a business relationship. Two people use each other in a way that is theoretically mutually satisfactory, but usually tends towards exploitation. Sex is supposed to be about communion: The meaning of sex, like the meaning of life, can only be found by losing yourself.

A person focusing on himself will ultimately find frustration when the mechanisms of physical pleasure break down. He may also neglect the needs of his spouse — and as Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) points out in Love and Responsibility, such negligence ignores the dignity of the other and undermines the cohesion of marriage.

4. You can fix your love life with pornography.

A lackadaisical love life is often associated with marital breakdown, but the world reassures us that we can “bring a little spice” to the bedroom through mild forms of sexual perversion.

A lack of real emotional connection is to be fixed with an artificial injection of titillation, lust, danger or novelty. This is like white-washing a moldy structural support and thinking the new paint will prevent the collapse of your house.

Sex is a reflection of your love for one another, and it can often serve as a thermometer for suppressed problems in a relationship. Replacing love with tawdry tricks can only serve as a distraction while the relationship crumbles away.

5. Too many children cause chaos and family breakdown.

A houseful of wild banshee-children circle a couple who fling abuse at each other while a pile of bills builds up in the middle of their kitchen table. This is the image most people have of large families — but it is founded on a fallacy.

A family where the marriage is secure and well-balanced, and the family size is built on generosity, may be messy, but is fundamentally built on love. Every relationship in a family is a bond that holds it together. Two people share only one bond, three people share three, four people share six, and so forth.

6. You ought to prepare for possible divorce before you get married.

A man who signs a pre-nuptial agreement is saying to the woman at the altar, “I give you my entire self, for life — but I am not willing to risk losing my money for you.”

The demons of greed and mistrust, having been invited to the wedding feast, will be well equipped to tear such a marriage apart.

7. Even if there is no abuse, there is a point when you should just leave.

The world would have us imagine that divorce is often necessary, and that women in particular should be on the look-out for signs that it is time to put the stake in the heart of their family life. This can be valid.

If your spouse tortures your pets and threatens your children, you should leave — but leaving does not nullify your marriage. A battered woman may dream of finding new love and a second chance at happiness, yet those who are abused in one marriage notoriously seek out other abusive partners.

Instead of playing another round of nuptial roulette, women in this situation should remain faithful to their spouse in spirit. Remember, you once loved your abuser. Your prayerful chastity will not only bring you peace, it may also save his soul.

An examination of symptoms should always be followed by a prescription for the cure, so next week we will look at seven powerful antidotes to the ills that plague marriage.

Melinda Selmys is a staff writer at vulgatamagazine.org.

Jennifer Roback Morse writes and blogs extensively on this subject:
http://www.jennifer-roback-morse.com/

My article on my experience of divorce:
A Word That Means Divorced

Retrouvaille: help for troubled marriages
http://www.retrouvaille.org/

There’s a good series of articles by Melinda Selmys in the National Catholic Register. I’ll post part 1 today, part 2 tomorrow, and part 3 the day after.

Link to the first article in the NCR archives:

Part 1: Divorce: In the Image and Likeness of Hell
http://ncregister.com/site/article/4675

Part 1 quoted in full here (in case the permalink ever goes defunct…)

Divorce: In the Image and Likeness of Hell

Catholics and Divorce, part 1
BY MELINDA SELMYS
National Catholic Register
September 30 – October 6, 2007 Issue

I never intended to fall in love.

For a long time, it was not something that I believed in: the portrayals on television and in books seemed trite and shallow. Those who claimed to be in love seemed to be living out a fantasy that was destined to crumble. Love, therefore, was something that happened unexpectedly, like a flash of sunlight on a winter pond.

When I decided that I was going to marry my husband, it was not a rational discourse, weighing the advantages of financial unity, or a bid for an end to loneliness. It was a bold resolve, made in the knowledge that I was forging something beautiful and irrevocable, that I was taking a step, like Ulysses setting sail for home, that would end either in shipwreck or in glory.

I had no delusions that I was wedding myself to Galahad. I had known my husband for some time, and I had seen there was evil in his soul — every bit as much as in mine — but I loved him, and I knew that this was the one man with whom I could stand before God and vow my life away. I knew that this loving would be enough, and that in all of its darkness and suffering and beauty we would find the means to save our souls.

It was years later, after the ring was locked upon the finger, that I was sitting in a car with my husband’s divorced aunt. She said, “You know, no one will blame you if you divorce my nephew.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was as though someone had said to Frodo, “You know, no one will blame you if you just put on the One Ring and become like the Nazgul, half living and half dead.” The dignity of the quest is too great to justify such an ignominious end.

This is not to claim that there have never been times when I have considered leaving.

Early in our marriage he was usually out of work. There were days when I was in tears because we didn’t have enough money to buy milk for our daughter, and I considered walking out, telling him to call me when he had found a job and was ready to support a family.

But I knew that it would never happen: the motive for change would come from seeing me and his family with him, day by day, and that however humiliating it was to ask my parents for loans that I would never be able to repay, it would be more devastating to go home and admit that the project on which my life was built had failed.

In every marriage, there are moments when it seems impossible. I am sure that when Christ fell on the road to Cavalry, the thought of lifting his cross again and dragging it the rest of the way to the top of the hill seemed like madness. Perhaps it is different through divine eyes, but for men, there are always moments when we turn to heaven and say, “Are you insane?” When we are hardly able to see the top of Golgotha through our dust-bitten tears, we derive no comfort from reassurances that crucifixion isn’t all that bad, and that, seen in perspective, it’s really a beautiful expression of love and self-giving.

Unfortunately, this is how many tracts on divorce come across.

The theologians remind us that our married life is an image of the union between the soul and Christ in heaven. We hear of the wine of joy being mixed out of ordinary water, and of the bliss of two becoming one. We are offered the promise that if we just stick with it, it’s all going to get better, and we’ll enjoy a happy old age sipping lemonade on the front porch of a yellow house while our grandchildren play in the sun. We are told to improve communication, fall in love with each other all over again, observe the tender moments, etc., etc.

But how are you to fall in love again with an insensitive beast who has broken your heart and slept with another woman? How can you see your sex life as an image of the intimate life of the blessed Trinity when your wife consents only on a full moon when Mars is in Virgo, and makes love with the enthusiasm of a dead frog?

Marriage is, absolutely, an image of the soul wedded to God. It includes the same agony, the mingling of tears and blood, the same thorns digging into our skulls, the same nails plowed through our palms. And yet this yoke is easy, and this burden light.

This is the mystery at the heart of the Gospel, and it is the mystery at the heart of marriage: Only in dying do we live. Often we look at the spouse to whom we have vowed our life, and we think, “This is not the person that I married. This is not what I wanted.” And yet, it is what we were promised: the sickness, the poverty, the worst.

We are often tempted to abandon the project — to call on the angels of divorce to come with their golden ledgers and take us down from the cross of nuptial defeat.

It is when this temptation is strongest that we have the greatest capacity to strengthen love.

Everyone experiences this at some point in their life, whether they are contemplating divorce, or adultery, or suicide, or abortion. There is a despair that tears the soul apart, a raging fire that consumes everything, and then the will consents, just a little, to the sin proposed. Then there is quiet. The soul looking down into the surface of the river Styx, and seeing its reflection writhing amongst the tortured ghosts.

It is not peace: it is death.

But when peace has been absent for a long time, it can seem to be a good alternative.

In this moment, there are two paths set before us. God tells us to choose life, so that we and our children may live. And yet, often enough, we choose death.

God allows us to survive these little deaths, just as he allowed Adam and Eve to survive when they were cast from the garden. Yet this is the more difficult path. I have met divorced people who, out of this confrontation with the image of hell, were eventually able to transform a lukewarm faith into a life of penance and service to Christ. One day one of these people will be canonized, and we will all be able to beseech them to save our marriages.

Yet it is unquestionably better to choose life — even the life that comes through the cross. God does not try the soul beyond her means. He does not condemn divorce without giving us the graces necessary to avoid it.

Next week, we will make an honest appraisal of the obstacles that stand in our way, and consider why so many people in the modern world are choosing the wide path to the end of marriage.

Melinda Selmys is a staff writer at VulgataMagazine.org.

Jennifer Roback Morse writes and blogs extensively on this subject:
http://www.jennifer-roback-morse.com/

My article on my experience of divorce:
A Word That Means Divorced

Retrouvaille: help for troubled marriages
http://www.retrouvaille.org/