The Conjugal Act and Procreativity: CORMAC BURKE
(Reprinted by permission of the author)
Young people need to realize that when they marry, they are going to marry someone with defects; and therefore, when they fall in love, if they think that the other person has no defects, they are wrong. Just as they would be wrong if, after marrying and beginning to discover the other person's defects, they let themselves think that love is at an end. On the contrary, it is then that love has come to a turning point towards - or away from - maturity.
Marriage in crisis
Has man lost faith in marriage?
Marriage seems to have gone wrong for modern man. He seems uncertain about it, and even disillusioned. The growing frequency of divorce in countries where it is permitted, and the campaign for it where it is not yet legal, are proof of this unhappy situation. People, after all, can only regard the legalization of divorce as 'progress' to the extent to which they feel that marriage is likely to break down--just as people tend to look for a money-back warranty only insofar as they feel they are unlikely to be satisfied with the goods they have purchased. There is no getting away from the fact: a world that is beginning to believe in divorce is beginning to disbelieve in marriage.
MARRIAGE AS GOD'S INTENSIVE SCHOOL OF LOVE
Monsignor Cormac Burke Gives Tips for a Happy Union
NAIROBI, Kenya, MARCH 27, 2004 (Zenit.org).
Marriage is one of God's most intensive schools of love, where he wishes to train most of his pupils.
So says Monsignor Cormac Burke, an Opus Dei priest and former judge of the Roman Rota who teaches anthropology at Strathmore University here.
Monsignor Burke explores the dynamics of love, marriage and children in his book "Covenanted Happiness" (Scepter Press). He shared with ZENIT how only the person who is prepared to face the challenges of love will grow in love, and how children challenge each spouse's capacity to love even more.
Q: What are the "laws of happiness" as they are found and lived in Christian marriage?