Fr. Todd 1/18/26

Dear Sacred Heart and St. Mary on the Lake,

            I want to continue this weekend about the goodness of marriage and the importance of our prayers for those preparing for marriage.  As I said in last week’s bulletin, I applaud the courage of these young couples bucking the societal trends to simply not get married at all.

            There are things every couple will need to confront along the way.  One very common reality is cohabitation (living together before marriage).  There used to be societal pressure not to but that has nearly completely reversed. Now, society, and even well-meaning Catholic’s, will encourage/expect a couple to cohabitate before getting married.  From the outside it even seems smart to live together before marriage- to save money, get to know one another better, etc.  Many have a faint inkling they are not supposed to but have no idea why and have never talked through why that might be the case.

            I have found that a large part of the problem is we are missing a proper and positive understanding of the human person, of marriage, and the goodness of sexuality.  Without a Christian understanding of the human person the Lord’s moral teaching lose all meaning.  At best they seem like arbitrary rules.  I am sorry about how common it is for people to know the basic “rules” of Christianity but have no idea of the Why behind those expectations.  So, I find it first most helpful to start with the proper understanding of the human person.  That dignity is the foundation for all further expectations.  A great resource is this book by Christopher West- The Good News about Sex and marriage (Revised Edition): Answers to Your Honest Questions about Catholic Teaching https://www.amazon.com/Good-News-About-Marriage-Revised/dp/0867166193 .  This excellent book is written based on the most common questions Christopher West has been asked after doing many, many conferences and talks. 

            That book will be a great start in understanding the why behind the basic moral expectation that a man and a woman who are not married shouldn’t live as if they are married.  It is still a challenging teaching but as I like to tell couples grappling with this- Marriage is hard so is great training!

            Interestingly enough there are sociological studies- not rooted in faith at all- that have examined the impact of cohabitation on the success rate of future marriage.  I think many would assume cohabitating would increase the success rate of future marriage but the opposite is true.  Cohabitating is terrible for marriage and greatly increases the divorce rate for those couples.   A main reason is that removes the distance required for objectively getting to know the other.  It removes the freedom couples should have leading up to marriage to be able to say yes (after all saying no when your lives are already intermingled is hard).  The studies show that couples who cohabitate before marriage tend to slide into marriage and then slide out of it. 

            I don’t want there to be anything to undermine a marriage before it has a chance to begin.  It takes a lot of courage to buck societal pressures and trends and these are the headwinds any young couple in our world will need to confront.  That is why we need to be praying for them!    Marriage is such an important vocation and our couples deserve every help along the way. 

God Bless,  Fr. Todd