I’ve just finished reading David Grann’s book on the murders of the Osage Indians in Oklahoma in the early 20th Century. This is the result of years of research into the murky past of middle America. It’s a tale of racism, greed, corruption and murder. It also tells us about some of the early heroes of the FBI – and the villains.
I found this book gave me an insight into racism today in the USA, and probably in the UK too. I can begin to understand why some people voted for Donald Trump – and Brexit. It’s unsettling because it throws a lighton the nastier side of human nature, the side I’v told myself was long gone.
Read this book and you will never see things in the same way again.
The Sixth Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
In this series I’m trying to show that the Ten Commandments are God’s guide to human happiness. I’m finding the Sixth Commandment a difficult one to do. Readers might ask what my experience of adultery is and I’d have to admit I have none. My critics might say that people commit adultery because it makes them happy so my idea that the commandment is a guide to happiness must be wrong.
Well, I can’t write from personal experience but people do write about death and I’m sure they must be alive to do that so personal experience is not always necessary; observation can suffice. I would think that adultery will cause unhappiness and worse in the long term. Adultery is often the cause of the breakup of a marriage and all the hurt that that involves. Families suffer, especially when children find their world turned upside down.
Adultery can lay one open to blackmail. History shows us examples of how the resulting scandal can wreck a career and ruin a life. The Profumo affair in the early sixties, when John Profumo, Secretary of State for War in the MacMillan government had an affair with Christine Keeler, caused him to end a promising career and contributed to the fall of the Conservative Government. Many people were deeply unhappy.
To understand the nature of adultery we need to look at the nature of marriage. Adultery is committed by a married person. It’s not so much about the sex as about matrimony. Weddings are joyful occasions. The preparations for a wedding are mind-blowing in the detail required. The details about invitations, dresses, hymns, cake etc. are endless and expensive. A wedding today is a major undertaking. Every bride wants their wedding to be spectacular and memorable. Many couples these days decide to go away to exotic locations for a wedding. I’ve even read of couples getting married while skydiving. Given all the effort that goes into it, who could blame us for regarding this as the sacrament of matrimony? It’s not.
Weddings are spectacular, not because of the dresses and the band, but because of who is involved. Matrimony is the only sacrament where the priest does not confer the sacrament. The bride and groom confer the sacrament on each other but someone else is involved. Like any sacrament matrimony is an encounter with Christ. How spectacular would it be to have Prince William at your wedding, the future King? Well in Christ you have the King of Kings and he is not just there for the wedding.
The sacrament of matrimony involves everything you do in every day of your marriage. It’s the marriage that is the sacrament, not the wedding. Taking your wedding vows is only the start, everything after that is sacramental. Everything from having and providing for children down to making the toast in the morning are sacramental and an encounter with Christ. Committing adultery is not just defaulting on a legal agreement as in a civil marriage; it is offending against the sacrament. The positive side of this is that you earn grace for everything you do in that marriage, even taking out the bins. You get that grace from God to help you live out your marriage.
When I got married my wife promised to stick with me for better or worse, in sickness and in health ‘till death do us part. Now that is a big ask. I can’t think of another agreement you are asked to make that is so demanding. What a great profession of love that is.
I was a guest at a wedding recently. It’s only one of many weddings I have attended but this one was a bit different. The priest’s homily is usually upbeat and positive about the marriage. This one was slightly different. It was upbeat but came with a caution. He pointed out that the honeymoon will come to an end. The couple will wake up one day and he will discover that she is not an angel and she will find that he is not Prince Charming. The hard reality of living with another human being with human failings will strike. I can only imagine the disappointment (my wife reads this column so I need to be careful here).
That’s when real married life begins and the grace we get from the sacrament kicks in. Once we are away from the dazzle of the wedding and confront all the challenges of normal daily living the love and support we bring to each other in marriage brings us the strength to persevere. Families bring responsibilities and challenges. I’m grateful that there were two of us working together to bring up our children. Surely there should be some support mechanism for those who, as a result of a death or a marriage breakup, have to bring up their children alone.
Critics of religion often describe the commandments as a negative list of don’ts. That’s a bit like describing the “Stop, Look and Listen” advice on crossing the road as negative. The Sixth Commandment is not negative it is urging us to be faithful to each other and the sacrament that brings us so much support. How does the Church support marriages in difficulty?
The aftermath of the Second World War saw a big increase in marriage difficulties. Men were returning from the war after almost six years of absence to families who had grown used to life without them. Many things had changed in the interval and the relationships had not been able to grow with the changes. Marriages were in difficulty and the Church responded by creating a counselling service to help. The Catholic Marriage Advisory Council was staffed by married people who had come through a rigorous selection procedure and were given continuous training.
Their training enabled the counsellors to help the couple identify the core problems in their relationship and work towards a solution. Problems tend to grow over a long period and so the counselling is no quick fix. The counsellors work with the couple over a protracted period to repair their relationship. The name was always a bit strange because it wasn’t a council, they didn’t advise and it didn’t limit the help to Catholics. It’s now known as Scottish Marriage Care.
I see this as the Church’s practical work in support of the Sixth Commandment. It’s not a list of don’ts but a positive step in helping people facing the realities of life. Human beings are very good at seeing what they want to see and missing the obvious. The counsellors are trained to peel away all the layers of misperception and reveal the true causes of conflict. Once you know the true cause of your problem you can find a solution. That’s how to find real happiness.
You might not think that applies to you but just how good are you at following events? If you would like to find out just how good you are you will find a video test below Try it out for a simple measure of how good you are at seeing what is there rather than what you want to see. I’d be interested in your findings.
Window On My World 