About the family: words of saints and aphorisms of writers
Sirs and ladies, allow me today to bring to your attention a small collection of wise sayings dedicated to the institution of the family by the Holy Fathers, Church leaders, scientists and writers. Somewhere they will be encouragement, and somewhere they will be advice that each of us sometimes needs:
“Family relationships must be subordinated to spiritual needs. Marriage has a lot of consolation, but it is also accompanied by many anxieties and sorrows, sometimes very deep. Keep this in mind, so that when something like this comes, you do not greet it as a surprise. Now you two are alone. And joys are stronger, and sorrows are more easily divided in half. Take care of your love with your wife. This is the source of a happy family life. But you need to take care of it so that it doesn’t get clogged. Above all, be afraid of losing trust in each other or having it shaken in some way.” Saint Theophan the Recluse.
“When you love, you don’t want to drink any other water than the one you find in your favorite source. Loyalty in this case is a natural thing. In a loveless marriage, in less than two months the water of the spring becomes bitter.” Stendhal
“One person asked me: “Geronda, what most of all connects a husband and wife?” “Gratitude,” I answered him. One person loves another for what he gives him. A wife gives her husband trust, devotion, obedience. The husband gives his wife confidence that she is under his cover and protection. The wife is the mistress of the house, but also the main servant in it. The husband is the ruler of the house, but also the bearer of its burdens. Spouses must have purified love among themselves in order to receive mutual consolation from each other and be able to fulfill their spiritual duties. In order to live in harmony, they must, first of all, put love at the foundation of life - that precious love that lies in spiritual nobility, in sacrifice, and not false, worldly, carnal love. If there is love and sacrifice, then one person always puts himself in the place of another, understands him, and experiences pain for him. And by accepting his neighbor into his suffering heart, a person accepts Christ into his heart, Who again fills him with His inexpressible joy.” Venerable Paisiy Svyatogorets
“Good spouses have two souls, but one will.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“In marriage, one must sacrifice everything and endure everything in order to preserve mutual love; if it is lost, everything is lost. True wealth and the greatest happiness is when a husband and wife do not disagree with each other, they are united with each other as one flesh. Such spouses, even if they lived poorly and were ignorant, can be the happiest of all, because they enjoy true happiness and live in constant peace. Value unanimity in the family above all else and do everything in this way and strive to ensure that peace and silence are constantly preserved in the marriage. Then the children will imitate the virtues of their parents, and virtue will flourish throughout the house, and there will be prosperity in all matters.” Saint John Chrysostom
“You can’t live even a minute without a crown. Don't have abortions. It will be terrible to answer before the Living God for violating God’s holy commandment: “Thou shalt not kill!” Elder Nikolai Guryanov
“A just husband commands his wife not as the owner of property, but as the soul of the body: taking into account her feelings and invariably benevolently.” Plutarch
“During a wedding, they drink from a common cup: wine mixed with water and drunk to the bottom. Wine - the joys of living together, water (and more of it) - common sorrows, troubles and pains... Roses will only appear at the beginning of the journey, and thorns (no family can avoid them) will appear later. But their number and severity will depend on your wisdom, and most importantly, love. If your feelings include the apostolic definition of love, then you will not be far from happiness.” Elder John (Peasant)
“The dependence of family life makes a person more moral.” Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin
“Celibacy is created by promiscuity. Both sexes avoid the union that should make them better, and remain in a union that makes them worse." Charles Louis Montesquieu
“The main misconception regarding family life today is that everyone is looking for and expecting happiness from family life as something ready-made that they must certainly find without work or effort. But there is no such ready-made happiness of any kind or anywhere on our earth: here everything is obtained through labor. Imagining that family happiness is ensured forever by a happy choice of a party and that it is strengthened by the first inclination, many spouses now lose sight of the fact that at the first time of marriage they do not yet know each other as they should, or even themselves in their new position. Only standing close to each other, as spouses stand, and only over time can they study each other’s way of thinking, tastes, inclinations, habits, and, to the surprise of many, in the chosen ones of the heart, along with the virtues that attracted love, significant shortcomings are also revealed. The discovery of shortcomings, unexpected thoughts, desires and demands sometimes strike both spouses as something extraordinary, dangerous for happiness and proof of a mistake made in the choice. With the further discovery of shortcomings, this idea is confirmed, and multiplying clashes, disputes and disagreements with a lack of self-observation and condescension towards each other are taken as proof that happiness is flying away, that the marriage has failed, that it is impossible to live together, that it is necessary to separate. Meanwhile, the rules of Christian life required both spouses, while grateful to God for the virtues found in each other, to be on guard and wait for the discovery of shortcomings as an inevitable part of every person; study them, treat them with all the forbearance that mutual love requires, and accept with meekness and patience the correction of each other.” Archbishop Ambrose (Klyucharyov)
“From our parents we received the greatest and most priceless gift - life. They fed and raised us, sparing neither strength nor love. And now that they are old and sick, it is our duty to cure them and nurse them back to health!” Leonardo da Vinci
“The legitimate purpose of union with a woman should be the birth and upbringing of children. When a person entering into marriage has only sensual pleasures in mind, and strives only to please the lusts of his flesh, then he is deeply mistaken and by such a union with a woman he introduces disorder into life relationships, the bad consequences of which quite naturally respond to himself and his offspring.” Venerable Maximus the Confessor
“Life with a wife is not easy, but life without her is absolutely impossible.” Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder
“My wife and children teach humanity; bachelors are gloomy and stern.” Francis Bacon
“The spirit of obvious or secret pride and vanity possesses us, so that almost each of us thinks a lot and highly about himself and little and lowly about others... Hence, in the family and society, instead of love, harmony and mutual services, mutual intransigence, mutual ill will, and envy reign and hatred of each other, quarrels, strife, discord.” Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov)
“A good wife is like an ant in the house, and an evil wife is like a leaky barrel.” Menander
“In family life, everyone must forget himself completely, think only about others - such an attitude towards each other of family members binds the family together so that they all feel that it is impossible for each of them to live without the others. The groom, wise from experience, tries to treat himself as strictly as possible, and more attentively towards his new life partner, and if some shortcomings are noticed in the bride, then attribute them not to her, but to her parents, and try to cover everything with love. Seeing the love and disposition of her husband, in turn, the wife tries to repay the same and, noticing the roughness of her husband’s character, the wife, not wise with experience, covering everything with love, quietly tries to correct these shortcomings, roughness and acts as a leader of the heart very skillfully, and through this mutual loving relationship towards each other, two beings, perhaps at first completely opposite to each other, come closer and become close and live to the point that one heart and one spirit are formed.” Righteous Alexy Mechev.
“A happy marriage is a marriage in which the husband understands every word that the wife does not say.” Alfred Hitchcock
Compiled by Andrey Szegeda
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How not to cool down in a relationship?
There are many examples of how people in relationships lose interest in each other and cool down. How to be here? The recipe, it seems to me, is simple and at the same time complex. Each participant in a relationship has his own secrets of the soul, and they need to be revealed, albeit gradually, but constantly. Show your beauty - but not all at once. First the first, then the second, the third plane of depth... Then the person next to you will be ready for new discoveries and, in addition, will understand that you are inexhaustible. Even if at some point you are already exhausted, he will not notice this; on the contrary, he will help you discover something in yourself. But at the same time, if one of the couple has his own principles - for example, you are against your parents interfering in your family life - it is better to voice this during the courtship period, so that there is no misunderstanding later. Everything that you did not voice before the wedding simply does not exist for another person. He will then be rightly surprised and discouraged: he was preparing for one thing, but in reality something else turns out. There are things that need to be negotiated on shore. And everything after the wedding should be worked out together. Otherwise, it’s better not to get involved in family life, because it will be a gamble.
About the sacrament of marriage
Marriage is a Sacrament simply because it exceeds the boundaries of our reason, for in it two become one.
Saint John Chrysostom
(IV–V centuries)
* * *
When approaching such an important Sacrament as marriage, one must prepare oneself by purifying oneself by confession and communion of the Holy Mysteries, and prayer, but not by balls, music and dancing, for this step extends not only to this life, but even to eternity.
Venerable Macarius of Optina
(1788–1860)
* * *
In the laws and actions of the Church, the New Testament family is an object of special care: God’s blessing is invoked on the bride and groom at the first expression of their mutual consent with a special prayer. The celebration of marriage constitutes a Sacrament in which the vow of eternal fidelity is sealed and the marital union is sanctified; From the very moment of birth, children are placed under the protection and guidance of the Church throughout their upbringing.
Ambrose (Klyucharyov), Archbishop of Kharkov
(1820–1901)
* * *
Good children, setting out on a journey unknown to them, come to their mother and ask for her parting blessing, and the gentle mother blesses them. The Church of Christ does the same when her obedient children - the named bride and groom - appear in the temple of God, asking for her maternal blessing on the path of married life unknown to them. Hitherto strangers to each other, united into one couple, the bride and groom enter into a new family life for them and therefore do not know what awaits them: whether joy, peace or emotional anxieties and sorrows. In this case, they need the right guidance for the upcoming path of life. And the Church accompanies this benevolence with solemn and deeply significant rites.
Priest Alexander (Rozhdestvensky)
(1872–1905)
* * *
The marital union, and hence family life, was established and sanctified by the Lord God Himself in paradise. And God created man
, - it is said in the Holy Scriptures, -
in His own image, in the image of God He created it;
male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth (Gen. 1:27-28).
When the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came to earth, He also confirmed the law of marriage, repeating the words that God said in paradise when he created a wife for the first man and established the law of marriage: a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife ;
and the two will become one flesh (Gen. 2:24). To make people understand how worthy of honor the marriage union is, He himself deigned to be with His Most Pure Mother and disciples at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. But, having been established by God in paradise, confirmed by Christ the Savior, the marriage union received a special, higher sanctification in the Church of Christ, as the holy apostles explained.
So, Saint Paul, repeating the words of the Savior about the marriage union, that in it two - husband and wife - will be one flesh, adds: This mystery is great; I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church
(Eph. 5:32). Notice, this mystery is great! - the Word of God teaches. That is why marriage is revered as a Sacrament among the seven Holy Sacraments established in the Church.
Priest Alexander (Rozhdestvensky)
* * *
Without the blessing of God, without His sanctification of the marriage, all congratulations and good wishes of friends will be empty words. Without His daily blessing of family life, even the most tender and true love will not be able to give everything that a thirsty heart needs. Without Heaven's blessing, all the beauty, joy, and value of family life can be destroyed at any moment.
Holy Passion-Bearer Queen Alexandra
(1872–1918)
* * *
No romance can replace marriage. In the novel, people appear in splendor and flourishing, but still not themselves: in the novel, a ghostly, embellished reality is revealed, and the life of each of the two is certainly a pose, even if forgivable and innocent. Only in marriage is complete knowledge of a person possible - a miracle of sensation, touch, vision of someone else's personality, and this is as wonderful and unique as the knowledge of God by mystics. That is why, before marriage, a person glides above life, observes it from the outside, and only in marriage does he plunge into life, entering it through another person. This enjoyment of real knowledge and real life gives that feeling of completeness and satisfaction that makes us richer and wiser.
Preface
...and the two will become one flesh.
(Eph. 5:31)
This book contains statements of saints about the most important issues that concern people. The world around us, at first glance, is changing rapidly. Today it is difficult to imagine how we used to get along without mobile phones, computers and the Internet. But these are all external changes. True life is in the heart of man. And the heart is the same in all ages. And when he is filled with pain and despair, resentment or a feeling of the meaninglessness of existence, no new inventions of science will help.
Why do we live on earth? If a person answers this question correctly for himself, if he finds his true purpose, he will be able to correctly relate to the everyday issues of his life: study, work, marriage, children. After all, really, what meaning will private goals have when a person’s whole life as a whole has no meaning?
When we don’t know the answer, we go for advice from someone who has experienced the same thing as us and found the answer. The people whose words are collected in this series asked the same questions as our contemporaries. Their strong faith in God not only gave them the strength to survive the most difficult moments, but also filled their lives with real, sincere joy. The statements of the saints about love, family, children, loneliness, death - this is their life experience, their heartfelt advice to every person.
The theme of this book is family. Here are collected quotes about the family from the Holy Scriptures, the works of the holy fathers of the Church, the words of priests of the 19th century and our contemporaries. They talk about the essence of marriage, about the true love of a man and a woman, about how to preserve love and overcome loneliness and indifference.
Father Alexander Elchaninov (1881–1934) wrote in his diaries: “No romance can replace marriage. In the novel, people appear in splendor and flourishing, but still not themselves: in the novel, a ghostly, embellished reality is revealed, and the life of each of the two is certainly a pose, even if forgivable and innocent. Only in marriage is complete knowledge of a person possible - a miracle of sensation, touch, vision of someone else's personality, and this is as wonderful and unique as the knowledge of God by mystics. That is why, before marriage, a person glides above life, observes it from the outside, and only in marriage does he plunge into life, entering it through another person. This enjoyment of real knowledge and real life gives that feeling of completeness and satisfaction that makes us richer and wiser.”
From the editor
