Publication date:
22 March 2005Length of book:
144 pagesPublisher
Sheed & WardDimensions:
218x160mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780742542488
Marriage as an institution faces many challenges today. This volume presents essential wisdom from the 2000 year-old Christian tradition that is as true and valuable today as it always was. The readings present positive resources for understanding the sacrament of marriage as a beautiful and sacred Christian vocation, a context in which difficult times can be worked through with grace. Marriage also involves family, even if the couple has no children. In marrying a spouse, one marries his or her whole family. The readings embrace family life as well. Levering introduces historically arranged texts from Christian saints and spiritual leaders describing the nature and value of marriage, offering counsel about how to live out marriage as part of a life of faith, or depicting their own experience of family life. This volume has much to offer married couples, people preparing for marriage, and classroom study of marriage and family.
There is hardly a more important lesson for Christian families than to see how the ways of Christ with his bride, the ways of God with his adopted children, are written into the relations of the "domestic church," and Levering's collection of texts seems calculated to show us how grace both preserves and elevates married and family life. It is remarkable, too, that both ancient and modern, the voices assembled here sound in an astonishingly harmonious chorus.