Dr. David Anders - The Catholic Church Saved My Marriage

A. David Anders

The Catholic Church
Saved My Marriage

Discovering Hidden Grace
in the Sacrament of Matrimony

EWTN PUBLISHING, INC.

Irondale, Alabama

Copyright 2018 by Albert David Anders

Printed in the United States of America.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Perceptions Design Studio.

On the cover: Saint Peters Basilica and Square in Vatican City, Rome, Italy; image courtesy of Sopotnicki/Shutterstock (482453902).

Biblical references in this book are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church , Second Edition, for use in the United States of America, copyright 1994 and 1997, United States Catholic Conference Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Quotes from English translations of papal documents are from the Vatican website (w2.vatican.va) Libreria Editrice Vaticana. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Nihil Obstat : Very Rev. Bryan W. Jerabek, J.C.L., Censor Librorum
Imprimatur : +Robert J. Baker, S.T.D., Bishop of Birmingham in Alabama
May 2, 2018, Memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor

EWTN Publishing, Inc.
5817 Old Leeds Road, Irondale, AL 35210

Distributed by Sophia Institute Press, Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Anders, A. David, author.

Title: The Catholic Church saved my marriage : discovering hidden grace in

the sacrament of matrimony / A. David Anders.

Description: Irondale, Alabama : EWTN Publishing, Inc., 2018. | Includes

bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018010816 | ISBN 9781682780527 (pbk. : alk. paper) ePub ISBN 9781682780534

Subjects: LCSH: Marriage Religious aspects Catholic Church. | Catholic

Church Doctrines. | Anders, David L.

Classification: LCC BX2250 .A542 2018 | DDC 261.8/3581088282 dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010816

To my parents,
Louis H. Anders Jr. and Marsha A. Anders,
my first great teachers in Christian marriage

Contents

Introduction

The Catholic Church saved my marriage and, quite possibly, my life. By the early 2000s, my marriage had degraded to the point at which I honestly wished for death. It was a matter not simply of incompatibility or conflict but of reciprocal contempt. No love. No affection. No mutual appreciation. My wife and I were held together only by the barest thread of duty to our children and a vow that I regretted with all my heart.

Today, I enjoy a life of marital bliss. We are in complete harmony on the most important issues of life, faith, and family. We delight in each others company. We bear one anothers burdens. We forgive each others faults. We accept lifes hardships including the inevitable marital conflicts as necessary steps in a journey of moral and spiritual progress. We have found that marriage is something bigger than both of us infinitely bigger. Marriage, we have discovered, is a life of service, in which we strive to make our union into a sign and instrument of Gods peace, justice, and love in the world.

We could not have gotten here without the Catholic Church. I am an adult convert to the Faith, and my wife is a revert. My initial interest in Catholicism was purely academic and had nothing to do with marriage, which I only gradually came to understand. As we began to practice the Catholic Faith and, later, to internalize the Churchs teaching on marriage, the results were literally astounding. People who knew us before testify to the miracle that occurred in our lives. This book tells the story of that transformation.

I know that this message is controversial. I speak on a regular basis with Catholics and non-Catholics throughout the world about their objections to the Catholic Faith. I host the radio show Called to Communion for the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network, in which we invite listeners to call in to explain why they are not Catholic. Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality ranks very high on the list of reasons people reject the Faith.

The reason Catholic teaching is controversial is not hard to understand. Church teaching on marriage is so difficult that Jesus own apostles found it hard to believe. Jesus taught that marriage is a permanent, indissoluble union of one man and one woman for life (Matt. 19:111). Furthermore, the Catholic Faith insists that we practice a kind of sexual restraint in marriage that seems unthinkable in todays sex-saturated culture. When Jesus expounded His doctrine on marriage, His disciples responded, If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry (Matt. 19:10).

Catholic teaching on marriage includes some stark negative commands: no divorce, no contraception, no in vitro fertilization, and no sexual union that terminates in acts that are intrinsically infertile. Many people who encounter Catholic teaching for the first time are absolutely shocked by this rigor. They see the negative commands as something arbitrary, because they do not understand their purpose .

The truth is that the Catholic Faith offers an extraordinarily positive vision of married life. It does not ignore human happiness, sexual pleasure, joy, or intimacy. Rather, it sets those good things in a much larger context. By subordinating sex and pleasure to a much higher good, the Catholic Faith provides the means to sustain such intimacy for ones whole life.

I am convinced that few people today, even among Catholics, understand just how rich the promise of Catholic married life is. The Church offers much more than rules about sexual restraint; She offers a way to make marriage into something transcendent, even mystical. The Church sees Christian marriage as inseparable from the ends of Christian faith itself, and those ends are distinctly supernatural.

* * *

This book describes my personal discovery of the Catholic teaching on marriage and the beautiful effect it had on my life. Much of that teaching is applicable to anyone, Catholic or not. However, its most sublime elements cannot be accepted without vigorous embrace of the Catholic Faith as a whole. In my own journey, the full Catholic doctrine of marriage became credible only as I came to understand that larger vision of the moral and spiritual life. The text, therefore, is autobiographical but also apologetic. I offer a defense of the Churchs most controversial teachings with reference to that larger vision.

Why doesnt the Church allow divorce and remarriage? Why does She oppose gay marriage, abortion, and contraception? Why does She endorse such a strict vision of marital sexuality? There are good answers to these questions that apply to everyone, Christian or not. How can I bear an unhappy marriage? What value is there in suffering? How could I forgive grave offenses? What should we teach our children about the meaning of life? The Catholic answers to these questions can be lived only by the deep embrace of Catholic faith and spirituality.

In my own journey into the Catholic Faith, I was surprised to discover that the Church envisions a contemplative dimension to Christian marriage. In Catholic thought, contemplation means having a deep, intuitive, almost experiential awareness of God through the life of prayer. Traditionally, contemplation has been the primary goal of monks and nuns, those called to dedicate themselves fully to the spiritual life. But the Church teaches that marriage is also a kind of full-time Christian spirituality, and one that offers a deep, interior experience of God.