Here is the spiritual powerhouse of a book you need to explore the sacred mystery and self-gift found in each state of life and to live out your baptismal call in profound union with Christ. Dr. Peter Kwasniewski masterfully vindicates the Church’s rich teachings on matrimony, priesthood, and virginity, dynamically unpacking how these states in life illuminate one another (as, indeed, they cannot be understood in isolation).
Drawing on sources ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, Eastern Christian and Western, these incisive pages will teach you:
- The four kinds of marriage (can you guess them?) and four reasons why marriage is noble
- What the pulsating heart of marriage and family is and what marriage cannot exist without
- The lessons we can learn from the marriage of Mary and Joseph
- The two greatest mercies of God (they will surprise you!)
- How the sevenfold pattern of spiritual growth relates to spousal union
- Three ways to explain the meaning of sexuality to your children
- Sixteen arguments and replies regarding priestly celibacy
- How faithful love complements divine worship on the path to communion with God
Dr. Kwasniewski demonstrates that both the dignity of marriage and family and the evils arrayed against them?pornography, self-gratification, premarital sex, divorce, contraception, and abortion?can and should be seen not only in terms of what they are but also in terms of what they signify spiritually and cosmically. The receiving and giving of life, prompted by the living God, is a sacred sign opposed to the anti-sacral sign of refusing or eliminating life, prompted by the enemy of God and of human nature.
In the midst of a growing totalitarianism hell-bent on diluting, relativizing, ostracizing, and ultimately obliterating chaste and fruitful love, Dr. Kwasniewki extols the sacramental dignity of the human body, a liturgical vessel by which the Lord and Giver of life is adored and glorified. By shining the light of reason and faith on fundamental truths, this book brings peace and renews confidence in the wisdom of Holy Mother Church.
