WOMAN AND FAMILY LIFE

Marriage is meant to inflame the couple's desire towards salvation and to serve God in sanctity and chastity. And a rule of thumb for wives is: it is better to encourage the sluggish members of one's family towards holiness by running faster, going ahead of them than by running with them. It is better to enter the kingdom of God with one less member than be a complete family but go to hell.

The quest for holiness is so important that endangering it is the only valid reason for divorce. If newly weds are exhorted to leave father and mother to cling to their wives, why not leave husband or  wife to cling to God. "If I cannot drag you away from hell, neither will you drag me away from Christ." It is better to be divorced from man than to be divorced from God.

God made woman to be the more devout sex and a heroine of patience and charity; and God has engaged her in the noblest vocation, the sanctification of man either as a mother or a wife.

We live in an evil age where sin is no longer committed in secret but in the open, accepted by all and even encouraged by "laws" of freedom; where even Catholic schools and preachers teach only pietism instead of Catholic living. Then we see philosophy and science completely helpless before the onslaught of lustful living. 

When a woman is good, she is very good. When she is bad, she is very bad, a source of corruption, a virulent infection. Inspire her, therefore, to modesty, otherwise she will be bold in her behaviour. If she forgets her morals, she will make others forget theirs. A woman who becomes subversive is the demon incarnate; she is more violent, more prejudiced and more ruthless than man.

To win the man of the family, sanctify the woman. She is foremost the wife and mother whose sphere of action is within  the family where the work is enormous. Every evil in the world today is due to a mother who was a failure.

Venerable James Alberione

(08-08-03)