“From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.’ Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” _{Mk 10:6}

We began Respect Life Month with a consideration of Marriage.  This week I’d like to return to the subject.

I have the pleasure of receiving happy couples who are all “twitterpated”* in LOVE and want to get married in the Church.  Their motivations for a Church wedding can vary greatly.  Whatever the reason, it is a great joy to invite God’s Grace into their union.  By the time they come to my office, they’ve made many decisions that have had both positive and negative effects on the short and long term possibilities for their relationship.  Here I present some ideas which I hope will be considered as the young and young at heart venture into the wild and risky world of romance.

We’ll start with the one thing that a happy couple can do to pretty much ruin their chances for a long term happy marriage… cohabitate, that is, to live together.  If they do so, their chances for a divorce increase to at least 75% (some surveys have it at over 80%!).  If they are individually sexually active before their marriage, the divorce rate is triple the rate over that of a virgin couple on their wedding day.

Here are some things the happy couple can to improve their chances for a long term happy marriage.

Note that the general divorce rate in America is still approximately  50%.
Go to any Christian Church once a week, it drops to: 41%
Go to a non-denominational Protestant Church once a week, it drops to: 34%
Go to a Mainline Protestant Church once a week, it drops to: 25%
Go to a Catholic Church once a week, it drops even further to: 21%

Go to a Catholic Church once a week & actively discern God’s will for the family (NFP etc) <3%

Statistically speaking, divorce is eliminated!

If you are or once were one of those “twitterpated” couples who has made some of the mistakes I’ve mentioned… there is Hope.  Start now…  practice your faith, receive the sacraments regularly, especially Confession and Eucharist.  In doing so, you invite God, the source of all twitterpatedness**, into your marriage.

God’s Blessings

Fr. John Paul

*my spell checker recognized this word so it is officially a real word, besides, the wise Owl in Bambi said it.
**ok this one isn’t a real word, but you get the idea.