Free dvds and Books

The Son of God speaks: “After the disobedience was enacted, my angel came over them [Adam and Eve] and they were ashamed over their nakedness, and they immediately experienced the lust and desire of the flesh and suffered hunger and thirst. … And for the sensuality the devil had aroused in them after their disobedience, I gave and created souls in their seed through my Divinity. And all the evil the devil tempted them with, I turned to good for them entirely.

“Thereafter, I showed them how to live and worship me, and I gave them permission to have relations, because before my permission and the enunciation of my will they were stricken with fear and were afraid to unite and have relations. Likewise, when Abel was killed and they were in mourning for a long time and observing abstinence, I was moved with compassion and comforted them. And when they understood my will, they began again to have relations and to procreate children, from which family I, their Creator, promised to be born.” (St. Bridget’s Revelations, Book 1 Chapter 26)

It is thus clear that “he who neglects prayer in the time of temptation is like a general, who, when surrounded by the enemy, does not ask for reinforcements from his monarch. Adam fell into sin because when he was tempted he did not look to God for help. We should say a Hail Mary, or at least devoutly utter the holy names of Jesus and Mary. "These holy names," St. John Chrysostom declares, "have an intrinsic power over the devil, and are a terror to hell." At the name of Mary the devils tremble with fear; when she is invoked their power forsakes them as wax melts before the fire.” (Rev. Francis Spirago, The Catechism Explained, A.D. 1899)

St. Ephraim, On Prayer Before Intercourse: “O Blessed Fruit conceived without intercourse, bless our wombs during intercourse. Have pity on our barrenness, Miraculous Child of virginity.” (Hymns of St. Ephraim: Hymn 7 On the Nativity)

Loving God during intercourse and at all times

We have already seen that Our Lord wants us to love and think about Him both before, during and after the marital act. There are many pious examples in Holy Scripture and the lives of the Patriarchs, Prophets and Saints that we can learn from in this regard. Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary, however, never had marital relations. So the holiest example of a marriage that includes natural marital relations is the marriage of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s parents: St. Joachim and St. Anna. They were chosen by God to be the parents of our Lord’s Mother.

Concerning their married life, Joachim and Anna certainly engaged in natural marital relations. But does any faithful Catholic believe that these two Saints would either make use of unnatural sexual acts or advise anyone in any situation whatsoever to do so? Certainly not! The very idea is incompatible not only with the holiness of Saints, but with the ordinary holiness required by Christ of every married couple. All married persons are of course required by God to refrain from every kind of mortal sin, including sexual sins, actual mortal sins as well as objective mortal sins. We are all called to imitate the Saints, even the least worthy among us.

In truth, The Mother of God also reveals to us in The Revelations of St. Bridget that Her holy parents Anna and Joachim: “would rather have died than to come together in carnal love; lust was dead in them. I assure you that when they did come together, it was because of divine love and because of the angel’s message [that revealed that they would be the parents of the holy Mother of God], not out of carnal desire, but against their will and out of a holy love for God. In this way, my flesh was put together by their seed and through divine love.” (St. Bridget’s Revelations, Book 1, Chapter 9)

Since Anna and Joachim’s marriage was so holy, pious spouses should also pray to these two holy Saints in Heaven to protect them from sinning in the marital act. When one reads these words about these most holy parents of Our Lady, and see how they despised the carnal and sensual love of the flesh and of the world, one can clearly see the great power chastity has in drawing down blessings from God. If God would have noticed any kind of sensuality in St. Anna and St. Joachim, they would never have become the parents of Our Lady. In truth, it was not fitting that the vessel of grace and the real Arc of the Covenant in which the Word of God made flesh dwelt, should be conceived in any other way than with a perfect and pure will, and without any shameful lust, just like it would have been for all parents in the Garden of Eden before the original sin of Adam and Eve.

Although a normal couple will not be spared from feeling any lust or concupiscence as it happened to Anna and Joachim through a special and divine grace, this should in no way hinder them from loving and desiring God during the procreative act. The Love of God should thus be the primary motive of the marital act along with the love of and desire to beget children for a couple rather than desiring or lusting after their own spouse. Most couples however choose to think about themselves or their spouse in an inordinate way and consequently to love themselves or their spouse during the procreative act. Anna and Joachim, however, clearly chose the best part, that is, loving, thinking about, and desiring to please God. If we think about pleasing God during the act of marriage and in our daily life, then our love will be directed towards Him – which is the best part. God’s love never dies! so it’s clearly a great mistake to seek love from a fleshly object that will rot and be eaten by worms in the grave, rather than seeking it from God, who lives and reigns forever and ever! Husbands and wives should thus love their own, their spouse and their children’s souls, instead of their own and other peoples bodies that will rot and be eaten by worms in the grave. This is an advice to those couples who wish to be perfect, as Anna and Joachim were perfect, and for those who wish to be united with God through love.

St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 3, Chapter 38, Instructions For Married Persons: “Matrimony is a great Sacrament, but I speak in Christ, and in the Church... Would to God that his most beloved Son were invited to all marriages, as he was to that of Cana; then the wine of consolations and benedictions would never be wanting; for the reason why there is commonly a scarcity of it at the beginning is, because Adonis [the god of beauty and desire] is invited instead of Jesus Christ, and Venus [the goddess whose functions encompassed love, beauty, sex, fertility and prosperity] instead of his blessed Mother. He that would have his lambs fair and spotted as Jacob’s were, must, like him, set fair rods of divers colors before the sheep when they meet to couple; and he that would have a happy success in marriage ought in his espousals to represent to himself the sanctity and dignity of this sacrament. But, alas! instead of this there are a thousand disorders committed in diversions, feasting, and immodest discourse; it is not surprising, then, that the success of marriages should not correspond. Above all things, I exhort married people to that mutual love which the Holy Ghost so much recommends in the Scripture. O you that are married! I tell you not to love each other with a natural love, for it is thus that the turtles love; nor do I say, love one another with a human love, for the heathens do this; but I say to you, after the great Apostle, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church." [Ephesians 5:25] And you, wives, love your husbands, as the Church loveth her Saviour. It was God that brought Eve to our first father, Adam, and gave her him in marriage; it is also God, O my friends! who, with his invisible hand, has tied the knot of the holy bond of your marriage, and given you to one another; why do you not, then, cherish each other with a holy, sacred, and divine love?

“... But while I exhort you to advance more and more in this mutual love, which you owe one another, beware lest it degenerate into any kind of jealousy; for it often happens, that as the worm is bred in the apple which is the most delicate and ripe, so jealousy grows in that love of married people which is the most ardent and affectionate, of which, nevertheless, it spoils and corrupts the substance, breeding, by insensible degrees, strifes, dissensions, and divorces. But jealousy is never seen where the friendship is reciprocally grounded on solid virtue: it is, therefore, an infallible mark that the love is in some degree sensual and gross, and has met with a virtue imperfect, inconstant, and subject to distrust. Jealousy is an absurd means of proving the sincerity of friendship. It may, indeed, be a sign of the greatness of the friendship, but never of its goodness, purity, and perfection; since the perfection of friendship presupposes an assurance of the virtue of those whom we love, and jealousy presupposes a doubt of it.

“If you desire, O husbands! that your wives should be faithful to you, give them a lesson by your example. "How," says St. Gregory Nazianzen, "can you exact purity of your wives, when you yourselves live in impurity? How can you require of them that which you give them not? Do you wish them to be chaste? behave yourselves chastely towards them: and, as St. Paul says, ‘let every man know how to possess his vessel in sanctification.’ But if, on the contrary, you yourselves teach them not to be virtuous, it is not surprising if you are disgraced by their perdition. But you, O wives! whose honor is inseparably joined with purity and modesty, be zealous to preserve this your glory, and suffer no kind of loose behavior to tarnish the whiteness of your reputation."

“... Ladies formerly, as well as now, were accustomed to wear ear-rings of pearl, for the pleasure... But for my part, as I know that the great friend of God, Isaac, sent ear-rings, as the first earnest of his love, to the chaste Rebecca, I believe that this mysterious ornament signifies that the first part which a husband should take possession of in his wife, and which his wife should faithfully keep for him, is her ears; in order that no other language or noise should enter there but only the sweet and amiable music of chaste and pure words, which are the oriental pearls of the gospel; for we must always remember that souls are poisoned by the ear, as the body is by the mouth.”

Love is necessary for Salvation

For a person to be Saved, the word of God teaches that one must love his God with “his whole heart, and with his whole soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind” (Luke 10:27). If any person fails to do this, that is, if he chooses to love something more than he loves God, whatever it may be or however small it may be, he will not be Saved. Consequently, it is of the greatest importance that all people who desires their salvation must do everything in their power to acquire and foster the love of God in their own hearts, soul, mind and body, by loving Him very deeply and at all times, and by praying to Him for help in loving Him worthily. Indeed, if a person can grow a deep love and attachment for their husband or wife or their children and have a fervent desire for them constantly, then, likewise, a person should have no problem in growing an even greater love and longing for God in his own heart, if he only so wish and desire: “For to Christians this rule of life is given, that we should love the Lord Our God with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the mind, and our neighbor as ourselves… God alone, to find whom is the happiest life, must be worshiped in perfect purity and chastity… in chaste and faithful obedience, not to gratify passion, but for the propagation of offspring, and for domestic society.” (St. Augustine, On the Morals of the Catholic Church, Chapter 30, Section 62, A.D. 388)

Jesus Christ in the Revelations of St. Bridget gives us a perfect description of how good spouses in the spiritual marriage are to love and desire God above all else.