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Man and Woman

Man is the most elevated of creatures, woman the most sublime of ideals.
God made for man a throne; for woman an altar. The throne exalts, the altar sanctifies.
Man is the brain, woman, the heart. The brain creates light, the heart, Love. Light engenders, Love resurrects.
Man is strong by reason, woman is invincible by tears. Reason is convincing, tears moving.
Man is capable of all heroism, woman of all martyrdom. Heroism ennobles, martyrdom sublimates.
Man has supremacy, woman, preference. Supremacy is strength, preference is the right.
Man is a genius, woman, an angel. Genius is immeasurable, the angel undefinable.
The aspiration of man is supreme glory, the aspiration of woman is extreme virtue. Glory creates all that is great, virtue, all that is divine.
Man is a code, woman a gospel. A code corrects, the gospel perfects.
Man thinks, woman dreams. To think is to have a worm in the brain; to dream is to have a halo on the brow.
Man is an ocean, woman a lake. The ocean has the adorning pearl, the lake, dazzling poetry.
Man is a flying eagle, woman, the singing nightingale. To fly is to conquer space, to sing is to conquer the Soul.
Man is a temple, woman a shrine. Before the temple we discover ourselves, before the shrine we kneel.
In short, man is found where earth finishes, woman where heaven begins.
(Victor Hugo)

Is it a sin to make love before marriage?

Because intimate relationships before marriage are so common and so widely promoted through the media nowadays that they have long ago ceased to seem a sin, I would like to talk again about a few serious both short-term and long-term consequences of these relationships:
1. First of all, making love before marriage is a sin and sin always affects everybody either directly or indirectly because it excludes God and without God’s help there is deep suffering and anguish and nothing goes right.
2. Secondly, it makes a boy look only for that in a girl, sleep with her and after having gotten bored with her, he will look for someone else. It is like eating a bar of chocolate, without caring about feelings, the consequences of intimate relationships… he just leaves and that’s it.
3. intimate relationships before marriage often end up in countless abortions, beastly baby slaughter because nobody takes responsibility for raising a child and at their age young people don’t fully comprehend the great mystery and joy of having a baby.
4. If we agree to make ‚love’ before marriage, how early before getting married should it be? At the age of 20? 18? Or 15? More recently 14 year old girls are given birth control pills… and an 11 year old boy has become a father in England. What madness! What is the limit?
When you are 18 it is easy to say that making love before marriage is not a sin but at 25-30 when you have a little girl or boy you are not that certain anymore, you start to think that at 13 or 14 your little girl is just a kid… you start to think that you wouldn’t want her to get into the wrong hands…
Making love before marriage results in situations where the future husband or wife has had 5 or 6 previous partners which will definitely harm the future family and will lead to arguments and sometimes to serious medical problems as well.
Bodily love between spouses is often confused especially by young people, for a physiological need like hunger, sleeping, etc. Father Arsenie Boca used to say with sadness that when people will stop believing in the mystery of marriage they will be like animals. Unfortunately those days are here. The bodily union between spouses is naturally preceded and dependant on the union of the souls through the mystery of marriage. When we interfere with this harmonious arrangement created by God, sooner or later we will experience the consequences as well.
Intimate relationships outside of marriage also affect those around us via the domino effect, making young people who don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend feel diffident although they are in no way inferior. They make them try to look better, to do everything possible just to comply with others. In short, intimate relationships before marriage gave birth to an entire industry which produces a lot of money (provocative clothing, cosmetics, beauty parlors for the cult of the body, etc.) all this in order to be attractive and beautiful or handsome and good-looking.
Making love before marriage places intimate relationships among social pleasures, common entertainment, like billiards, going out, seeing a movie, etc although they used to always take place in the intimacy of the family and in the perspective of eternity.
The matter is so serious and causes so much evil that the subject is inexhaustible… but we’ll get back to it.
I’m telling you in all honesty, God had mercy on us, my wife and me, and helped us stay away from this sin, and for that we have received great help and much joy from Him. And we are always in His hands and we never suffered, we never had serious problems, but He has always been by our side and never left us.
If I were 15 again I would do things the same way because I lived the great miracle of our life by obeying the Lord. I have seen what making love before marriage does to a couple, it never brings anything good, nothing but bodily pleasure and very many problems of all sorts. Due to the experiences I’ve witnessed, the people I’ve met and everything that I’ve heard, today I know for sure that making love before marriage is a ‘disease’ which only brings even more ‘diseases’.
On the other hand I’ve seen how full of joy and peace the young people who stayed away from this sin are, they are so full of hope, so peaceful that one can see that sin brings death while doing God’s will always brings light and joy and makes everything in your life go well.

(Claudiu)

Translated by Claudia