Christian Marriage
On the last Saturday of 2006, my wife and I attended the wedding of a friend in a Methodist church. The ceremony was fairly simple compared to the Catholic marriage rites.
However, I was very impressed by the sermon preached by the pastor after the reading from Genesis on the creation of Adam and Eve. In summary the pastor said that the overwhelming reason for failing marriages is the selfish attitudes of husband and wives.
The husband is probably looking for someone to cook and launder his clothes. He advised men to just get a maid rather than marrying someone and expecting her to slave for you, if a housekeeper was their aim.The wife, under the influence of feminism, intends to build her career rather than her home and insists on making joint decisions for the family.
The remedy the pastor advocated was to obey God. God’s order of things is that a man is the head of the house and that a wife should obey her husband. There can be no such thing as joint decisions as the husband ought to be the sole decision maker. The role of the wife is not as spectator but as consultant to provide advice. The ultimate decision maker should be the husband. And here comes the jolt - when a husband decides against his wife’s advise, the wife is to accept it and trust that God will guide the husband and she should not sulk.
This is tough teaching and God’s teaching has never been easy anyway. It was tough for my wife to accept. The part she found trying was that she should not be resentful but remain joyful when her advise is not heeded. Aren’t we all expected to continue being joyful and thank God for his blessings, even during our tribulations.
I have attended numerous Catholic weddings in Malaysia and Singapore over 40 years and have never once heard a Catholic pastor mention the roles of husband and wife in such profound language. It’s high time that Catholic priests preach the uncomfortable truth from the pulpitl.
