October 11, 2022
St. Paul’s exhortation for wives to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ (Ephesians 5) is one of the most offensive teachings to modern Catholics. . However, it is not only submissiveness in marriage that modern people find uncomfortable. It’s not just liberals who can’t stand it. Across the political and religious spectrum, even among self-proclaimed traditionalists, we find all sorts of excuses to avoid submission. Deeply embedded in post-Enlightenment consciousness is the equation of authority and tyranny, obedience and slavery.
If you think about it, the Bible teaches that throughout history, starting with Adam and Eve’s rebellion, issues of authority and obedience are the root of humanity’s disconnect with God. Satan tricked Eve into thinking that God’s command was not a gift of love, but a ploy to keep her down. Adam chose to please his wife more than God, a perversion of his God-given propensity for union. Since then, men and women have approached God’s authority not in a submissive and receptive manner, but in a suspicious and cautious manner, ironically fearful of what God is doing to them. They began to control and manipulate others in the same way.
The fundamental reality of authority as a gift and obedience as receptivity, which Christ came to restore in a marriage union with the Church, is at the heart of theologian Mary Stanford’s new book. It has become. The Paradox of Submission: Finding True Freedom in Marriage. Stanford University draws on the Bible, the theology of the body, and the entire tradition of the Church’s magisterium on marital submission to not only defend traditional teachings, but also to explain how both wives and husbands can be submissive. A deep dive into how we can find true freedom. God’s plan for what Pope Pius XI called the “order of love” in marriage is mutual and asymmetrical.
The Stanford University presentation, while wishing to be faithful to the teachings of the Church, feared that repeating this particular point of Biblical and Magisterial doctrine regarding marriage would simply create opportunities for control and abuse. It will be especially liberating for open-minded Catholics who are But not just wives, not just husbands and wives, but all Catholics can learn from living a life of submission in marriage and know that submissive receptivity is at the heart of what it means to be human.
link
mary stanford The Paradox of Submission: Finding True Freedom in Marriage
https://www.osvcatholicbookstore.com/product/the-obedience-paradox-finding-true-freedom-in-marriage
Pope Pius XI said this about marriage: Casti Connubiy
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html
This podcast is produced by CatholicCulture.org. If you like our show, please consider supporting us. http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio
Source: The Catholic Culture Podcast – catholicculturepodcast.libsyn.com
