PRACTICING MONASTIC LIFE WITHIN MARRIAGE

"Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." (Rom 13:14) When St. Paul said this, he was not talking to monks but to people living in the world. The man in the world should not have more than the monks except for those things that pertain to a wife. This concession is given him but little else should be. In everything else, he must behave like a monk. 

Christ's Beatitudes is not only for monks. If it were so, God would have ended the world long ago. But no, the Church has countless saints from the world who have practiced them. 

If it were not possible to combine monastic life with marriage, everything would come to destruction. How can marriage be an honorable state unless the Beatitudes could be practiced within it?

Those who are married can live the monastic life. How? The Apostle tells us how:  if, while having wives, you behave as if you do not have any; if you take no pleasure in your possessions; if you deal with the world as if you were not dealing with it (1 Cor 7:31); if you realize that marriage is not bad in itself, but can be misused by your free will just as it is not wine which causes drunkenness, but excessive indulgence in wine. 

John Chrysostom, Homily on Hebrews, 7, 4 

(08-21-02)