St Josemaria's advice on marraige - this shocked me!

[Pejotif]

Originally Posted by Jimmygill88

You don't need to believe me but I regard the evidence to be such that canonisation was unwise.

During Escrivá's beatification process, Monsignor Vladimir Felzmann, who had been Escrivá's personal assistant before Felzmann left Opus Dei and became a priest in the Archdiocese of Westminster and an aide to Basil Cardinal Hume, sent several letters to Fr. Flavio Capucci, the postulator (i.e., chief promoter) of Escrivá's cause. In his letters, Msgr. Felzmann claimed to have personally witnessed Escrivá make controversial statements in defense of Adolf Hitler. The alleged statements by Escrivá include: "Vlad, Hitler couldn't have been such a bad person. He couldn't have killed six million. It couldn't have been more than four million", and "Hitler against the Jews, Hitler against the Slavs, this means Hitler against communism".[41][58] Msgr. Felzmann claimed that Escrivá made those remarks to him in 1967 or 1968, in Rome, during the intermission to a World War II-themed movie. Felzmann has also said that these remarks should be put in the context of Catholic anti-communism in Spain, and said that all of the male members of Opus Dei (who then numbered about fifty) volunteered in 1941 to join the "Blue Division", a group of Spanish and Portuguese volunteers who joined the German forces in their fight against the Soviet Army, along the eastern front.[59][60]

Again, I have to say I am astonished at how easily this so-called "information" about St. Josemaría passes.

Vladimir Feltzman was never St. Josemaría's personal assistant. He might have worked with him at some point, but his personal assistants were Álvaro del Portillo and Javier Echevarría since at least 1950. The claims about his statements regarding Hitler were proven to be entirely false in the canonization process.

Furthermore, it is also absolutely false that "all of the male members of Opus Dei volunteered in 1941 to join the Blue Division." They were engaged in starting Opus Dei, and they moved to cities in Spain, France, etc. None of them ever went to the war and none of them even volunteered. You can see this from the plain historical records and from their own remembrances, which show them going off to start the apostolates of Opus Dei in various places in Spain and abroad, and eventually Rome itself.

You also said somewhere that St. Josemaría supported Franco and Pinochet. Again this is not true. There were members of Opus Dei who supported them, just as there were those who opposed them (a notable example is Rafael Calvo Serrer, who was expelled from Spain for his work as a journalist against the regime. The whole point of Opus Dei is that members are laypersons who have the right to choose their own politics freely as longa s it does not contradict a well-formed conscience. St. Josemaría himself never made any political statements supporting anyone. He wrote a letter to Franco thanking him for restoring the Church after the brutal persecution of the Marxist Republic. That's all.

Finally, you say elsewhere that the Spanish bishops objected to St. Josemaría's canonization. Again, not true. I know this for a fact because I know a few Spanish bishops who actually were among the most fervent supporters, and told me of how overjoyed the Spanish church was that another great saint was going to be proclaimed from that country. In fact, an unprecedented one-third of the world's bishops petitioned for the canonization of St. Josemaría, and a whopping 470 of them were present at the event.

Someone said that this was a payoff for "bailing out" the Vatican at some point... If we're going to make up conspiracy theories to explain everything, there's little I can say. But the hard facts are these.

So, if you disagree with his advice to wives, that's just fine. Even if you personally don't like him, that's also fine. And if you want to criticize him, be my guest. But please don't spread misinformation.

[mexolic]

St. Josemaria passed away 37 years ago. I'd say by now that we do have a better understanding and knowledge of what's needed for a healthy, happy and long lasting marriage. Remember "the family that prays together stays together".

[Serap]

Originally Posted by mexolic

St. Josemaria passed away 37 years ago. I'd say by now that we do have a better understanding and knowledge of what's needed for a healthy, happy and long lasting marriage. Remember "the family that prays together stays together".

we don't pray together and we are staying together. my hubby is not religious.

my dad prays with his "wives" and he's a huge cheater.

[tafan]

Originally Posted by mexolic

St. Josemaria passed away 37 years ago. I'd say by now that we do have a better understanding and knowledge of what's needed for a healthy, happy and long lasting marriage. Remember "the family that prays together stays together".

Of all of the arguments on this thread, this is the weakest, IMO. It is quite arrogant for us to assume we have a better understanding now of whats needed for a healthy, happy, and long lasting marriage than our forebears. Certainly they had a much better statistical track record. Certainly more marriages lasted longer in the old days. Was it a perfect time? no, but to think that the overall ideal of the marriage has gotten better can only be said in jest.

As to "the family praying together, stays together"; well I can tell you in the old days there were a lot more catholic families which said regular rosaries together than now. Anedoctally, I believe that the movie Gone with the Wind has a early scene of of Scarlet's family praying a rosary together; as if that was just typical for a Catholic family in those days.

As another illustration, my favorite paper on morals and marriage was written in in 1936 http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/MORMAR.txt (I highly recommend it). Not much has been written since then that does as good of job explaining what love and marriage is all about (sorry all of you TOB fans) for an average lay person.


I'd say by now we have a lesser understanding and knowledge of what makes a healthy, happy,and long lasting marriage. I would say this emphatically.

[Mintaka]

Sheesh! Long thread!

I don't know much about this saint, but I've seen old film of one of his visit sessions on TV. It was pretty clear that he tempered his advice to the questioner.

It sounds to me as if the someone who was asking originally was a young woman, and that she was asking theoretically about marriage as something that bored people, not even going to the heart of the question that is infidelity. She obviously thought that she was pretty modern, from the way she phrased it, but a little bit better than most people because at least she wanted marriage to stay interesting.

She was probably also a little bit scruffy or overly severe in appearance, so he probably tailored his advice to pointing that out. I know this, because I know what kind of advice that us nerdy, scruffy, serious types tend to hear a lot!

Also, I've known people born in the same generation as Escriva, whereas I think a lot of people in this thread haven't; so I know what they were likely to say.

If the questioner had been someone older who was actually dealing with infidelity problems right this minute, or if he had been a man, he probably would have answered quite differently. I suspect that a man asking about marriage becoming boring would have heard strong words about his duty to his wife and kids, how he was like a soldier assigned to protect them. He would have heard how it was his duty to do things for his wife that made her feel like a queen. Since Escriva was Spanish, I'm sure that gallant words of courtesy might have been mentioned, or poetry and songs. Finding something to compliment instead of continual criticism would also have been likely to be mentioned.

One job of a shepherd (pastor) is to move an individual sheep back to the rest of the flock. Some sheep get too far ahead, some fall too far behind, some run off left and right. Not every sheep gets told the same thing or treated the same way. If advice doesn't apply to you, you don't have to get enraged. Just think to yourself, "That's for a different person in a different situation."

-----

Re: family Rosary -- That was a big big Irish custom back in Ireland during the big immigration times. Probably a lot of Americans from families originally from Ireland kept it up.

[Edward H]

Originally Posted by mexolic

St. Josemaria passed away 37 years ago. I'd say by now that we do have a better understanding and knowledge of what's needed for a healthy, happy and long lasting marriage. Remember "the family that prays together stays together".

Actually, I think a lot of the "advice" and "wisdom" we now seem to take as self-evidently good, is actually bad advice for marriages.

Most of the recent advice about marriage comes from secular "experts", who ignore or reject the role of the soul and the interior spiritual life a person. Not so St Josemaria, who probably heard all one needs to know in years worth of sitting in the confessional.

Escriva's "smiling asceticism" may not be what modern experts recommend, but it is what is best for a healthy pursuit of holiness in marriage. Self-donation, self-giving, offering the "little things" of married life to God as a sacrifice. Etc etc.

Today's talk is "50/50", separate bank accounts, "self-fulfillment" (not mutual and total self-donation), self-esteem (not esteem as a child of a Father God), my space, your space, "my needs", etc.

Escriva's point was at all costs get your wife to heaven...don't focus on you. Get your head out of your butt...etc. That's the message that more marriages need. Buck up and give until you die, and do it with a smile. That will please God if you do that, in the model of his loving and obedient, and totally self-donating Son. Yes?

That's the message of Escriva.

[Edward H]

Today the message is "self-fulfillment".

But the radically generous understanding of love and marriage is far closer to the Greek word "kenosis". Self-emptying.