БРАК

The importance of the Sacrament of Marriage imposes very important responsibilities on both of you, which you must try to fulfill in every possible way. Your cohabitation must be pure and holy, just as the union of the Lord with the Church is holy, it must be reasonable, loving and peaceful and inseparable. Your cohabitation must be pure and holy, for the Lord Himself, who first created man, male and female, combines husband and wife into one flesh for mutual assistance in bodily and spiritual needs and for the sake of multiplying the human race. The goal is high and holy: from now on you become animated instruments of Divine goodness and omnipotence, for through husband and wife the All-Good Creator calls to existence and life intelligent creatures, His future children and heirs of the Kingdom of God; and you, if the Lord blesses you with them, will have to educate them in the rules of the Orthodox faith and Christian life, serving for them, first of all, as an example of faith, piety and fear of God; and for each other you should be an example of meekness and kindness, self-control, complacency, honesty and hard work, submission to God's will, patience and hope; help each other, take care of each other, be forgiving to one another, covering each other’s weaknesses with love. There are also unhappy marriages: sometimes husband and wife come together as if only for the sin and misfortune of both. Why are they unhappy? Mostly from the dissimilarity of characters, from mutual intransigence, from the obstinacy, arbitrariness and exactingness of the husband or from his impudent disposition; from the infidelity of a husband or wife; from intemperance or passion for the husband's game; from the wife’s addiction to clothes, from her waywardness, anger, grumpiness, stubbornness, from the inability to tolerate shortcomings in life’s needs. May the Lord help you to avoid such sinful cohabitation and such marital troubles. Always have faith and fear of God in your heart, prudence, patience, hope, work and pray, go to bed and get up with prayer in your heart and on your lips, do not leave church meetings, diligently fulfill the Christian duty of confession and communion of the Holy Mysteries every year. In these sacraments you will find, in addition to the grace of cleansing sins and sanctifying your souls and bodies, the grace of firm unanimity, sanctification in the very loins and in the womb of the future generation, renewal of spiritual and physical strength, help, consolation and encouragement in difficult everyday circumstances, healing of illnesses. Your cohabitation must be reasonable, for the holy Apostle Peter says: “You husbands, treat your wives wisely, as with the weakest vessel, showing them honor, as heirs together of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered” (1 Pet. 3:7). And you must always understand why the Lord united you in marriage, crowning you into one flesh: it is you who must constantly, with your combined strength, achieve the Kingdom of God, and if God gives children, also educate and prepare them, especially for the inheritance of eternal blessings, for temporal blessings are deceptive, short-lived and do not constitute the goal of our life. Christians are promised imperishable, spiritual, eternal benefits. Stimulate each other to the love of God and heavenly blessings and love for your neighbor. Always keeping the heavenly fatherland in mind, you must consider yourself strangers and strangers on earth, value time and use it for deeds of righteousness, and not for empty, vain and sinful deeds, consider every day a great gift of God's mercy, given to us for our conversion to God, for correction, for confirmation and improvement in virtue, for the salvation of the soul. “Value the time, for the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16). Further, your cohabitation should be loving and peaceful. And how could it be otherwise? For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it, just as the Lord does the Church. And from now on you will be one flesh. A husband must love his wife as his own body: for “he who loves his wife loves himself” (Eph. 5:29, 28). If you live in mutual love, you will bring down God’s grace upon yourself and your descendants - and God will dwell in you and crown all your undertakings and deeds with blessed success, for where there is love, there is God, and where God is, there is all that is good. With love, peace and tranquility will be established in your home, for love is long-suffering, and covers everything, and does not allow a person to become irritated, angry, capricious, or offend in word or deed. Finally, your cohabitation must be inseparable - until the grave: Christian love loves to the end, and not for a while, it is firm and constant. There will be temptations for your love from the weaknesses of one or the other of you, or from the dissimilarity of characters, habits, or from people, from the primordial enemy - overcome these temptations courageously; “Be wise as serpents and simple as doves” (Matthew 10:16); do not be irritated, endure, be forgiving, be strengthened by faith in Christ Jesus, who will be for you, an honest groom and an honest bride, an everlasting example of holy love, meekness, gentleness, patience - your strength, your light and guide, your Protector and Savior to the grave (12). You might be interested in: