Dr. Kelly Flanagan
This is a wonderful article on the blog, Untangled. I recommend it to all – especially if you’re married.
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Dr. Kelly Flanagan
This is a wonderful article on the blog, Untangled. I recommend it to all – especially if you’re married.
Glory to God for All Things 
March 26, 2012 at 1:06 am
Q: Why is marriage a sacrament/mystery?
A: Because it is impossible to completely nail oneself to the cross without help.
March 26, 2012 at 5:12 am
Thank you Father, that was fabulous. Is the author Orthodox?
March 26, 2012 at 6:54 am
Selena,
I do not know. I doubt it. But the article was an excellent example of the theology of the cross.
March 26, 2012 at 8:48 am
That’s a good one Gregory!
here’s another one I have heard:
Q: Why is marriage a sacrament/mystery?
A: Because through the Church’s blessing it becomes permanent defying the law of this world that nothing is permanent
March 26, 2012 at 9:41 am
My priest told my wife and me this during our premarital counseling. It’s served us well.
March 26, 2012 at 11:42 am
Ephesians 5:25: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Ephesians 5:2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.;
Ephesians 5:24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.;
Ephesians 5:33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.;
Colossians 3:19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.;
1 Peter 3:7 Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
March 26, 2012 at 7:44 pm
Thanks for that great link! Good timing. My husband and I just celebrated our 17th anniversary (yesterday). My parents just passed their 55th and my in-laws just passed their 60th! This is a reminder of how blessed we really are. With so few completely intact families these days, having such an example in both sets of grandparents really shows in the wonderful sense of security we see in our children. Just to be able to see that makes every bit of “losing” worth it and then some! (Still, I know I need to try to lose more often.)
This also reminded me of a Red Skelton quote I found on a plaque in Gatlinburg last summer and gave to my dad (who’s a big Red Skelton fan). It reads:
“All men make mistakes. Married men just find out about them sooner.”
Working at this business of losing, keeping your sense of humor is helpful. 🙂
March 27, 2012 at 5:16 am
It reminds me of a comment I read some time ago: Marriage is an opportunity to love at least one person the way God loves everybody.
March 27, 2012 at 11:30 am
The one sentence that really stuck out to me was, “It is knowing that your spouse will never fully understand you, will never truly love you unconditionally—because they are a broken creature, too—and loving them to the end anyway.”
It’s funny that you posted this now, since my wife and I have been talking about our marriage recently (things do tend to get neglected with a toddler and a 9-month-old running around), and I was reminded of the re-post you put up lately about the ecclesiology of the cross. I thought then that the exact same thoughts you gave about ecclesiology apply to marriage (fitting, I suppose, since the family is a “little Church”): “Either the [husband and wife] love and forgive each other or the whole thing falls apart.”
March 27, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Coffeezombie,
The connection is very strong in my mind as well. It’s my wife who showed me the article on marriage. I liked it and reposted it. It was my way of saying, “Thank you!”
March 28, 2012 at 5:36 pm
Marriage reminds the last foot washing. One can’t know if is love or humility. Marriage is the greatest form of humility.
March 30, 2012 at 6:56 pm
I’m stuck on the thought that over half of marriages that have ended in divorce have *properly* ended in divorce due to being destructive or abusive. Are most marriages truly that destructive to children? Is that even a Christian argument for divorce? When does being at the bottom of the inverted pyramid stop being Christ-like and start being abused?
For an Orthodox Christian, how bad must a marriage be *for the children* in order to divorce for the children’s sake? Does trying to serve in humility actually become something destructive?
Can something so terrible (divorce) really be a good solution for so many people?
March 30, 2012 at 9:50 pm
If I may Tess: it is not very profitable to consider such things. While the Orthodox consider marriage to be indissolubile except in cases of adultery (Matt 19:19) or where the economia of salvation may be expected to override “what God has joined together”, Roman Catholics do not even admit to it’s existence.
It is the divine person of God who alone can unite what man has divided. He does it within himself (in the eschaton).
March 30, 2012 at 10:36 pm
I was born in America and taken to Occupy Germany when a mere infant. My parents hired a German lady who later was revealed as a Nazi, with all that implies. The Nazi raised me,my sister and brother. So I was under the auspices of the spirit of death. “It is the divine person of God who alone can unite what man has divided. He does it within himself (in the eschaton).”
God does protect. I have an Orthodox Spiritual Father and I have been blessed despite immersion in Nazi death spirits. God and the Orthodox Church are bigger than death.