Three to Get Married

I found this book among my grandma's collection when I was about 12 years old, and since then I have read and re-read it probably 40 times. Having The Most Reverend Fulton J. Sheen as a spiritual advisor during the years that I was developing my ideas on what my life was going to be like, was priceless. I had access to all of his other books as well, but this one has remained my favorite, though the cover is held on with masking tape and the pages are brown and crumbling from many, many uses, and I intend to keep reading it again and again throughout the rest of my married life.

A post I just read on a friend's blog reminded me of how grateful I am for my Mother's teaching that, as soon as we arrived at the age of reason, we had to begin discerning our vocation in life. I wavered dramatically in the years between my first communion and my 18th birthday, but because my Mother taught us the importance of our vocation, the fulfillment of God's purpose for us here on earth, and path to our heavenly goal, by the time I was of the age to put it to use, I had already been through all of the refining fire, the agony, and the ecstasy of discernment and was able to follow God's call right away. It is so important to make the discerning of your vocation your young life's greatest goal, I cannot stress that enough! It is the very blueprint, the map, the design, the GPS unit of your path to heaven. Jobs will come and go, careers will be made and lost, you will move many times, etc. etc., but none of these things is as important as your vocation, because nothing is as important as knowing God, loving God, and serving God, which is what your vocation consists of.

Many, many young people are unprepared for this, because their lives are so wrapped up in finishing high-school, finishing college, beginning a career, and then, finally, figuring out whether or not they should get married and have kids or stay single or might be called to the religious state. This is awful! This vocation, this, your life's undertaking should not be shoved to the back burner!

Another reason I am seeing in many of my friends for putting their vocation on the back burner still (and this is because of an actual choice, not because of extenuating circumstances), even now that they have done all of that "required" stuff (graduating from college, beginning a career, etc.) is because they are hoping to have some years for themselves now, to enjoy their youth, to do the things they want to do that they won't be able to do once they are married. This is a mistake as well, because it sets you up to live a life of pleasure seeking. By the time you have had your fun, and sown your "wild oats" you will have either gotten into trouble because you were out doing your own thing and had no responsibilities, or you will have developed within yourself a trait of pleasure seeking. You were not seeking your life, your vocation; you were seeking to enjoy yourself BEFORE your vocation. Heaven is to be sought at all times, and your vocation should not be made to wait.

I would like to share with you, part of a chapter from "Three to Get Married". It is an awesome book, and I recommend this to each and everyone, no matter what you think your vocation might be. Bishop Sheen leaves no stone unturned, and quite frequently I am astonished at how well he addresses a subject, then progresses to addressing something that the original subject made your mind think of, and so on and on until he leaves you completely satisfied. It is almost as good as having a personal, in depth counseling session with the good Bishop.

Beginning of Chapter 18 from "Three to Get Married, by His Most Reverend Fulton J. Sheen

One of the greatest mistakes the human heart can make is to seek pleasure as a goal of life. Pleasure is a by-product of the fulfillment of duty; it is a bridesmaid, not a bride; it is something which attends and waits on man when he does that which he ought. To go through life with the idea of always having a good time is not to have a good time. A boy does not eat ice cream to have pleasure; he has a pleasure because he eats ice cream. The satisfaction of the appetite of hunger gives pleasure, but one does not eat just to have pleasure. One does not marry to enjoy pleasures of the flesh; one enjoys the pleasures of marriage because one fulfills to the utmost the functions and obligations of the married state. A good husband wants to love and to have a happy life; a wicked husband wants to be loved and to enjoy himself. The good man seeks a woman to complement his imperfection and to work toward mutual enrichment. The evil man wants to immolate a woman in order to enjoy himself. The happiness of marriage is in a certain sense a prepayment of God for its trials. Because its burdens are many, its pleasures are meant to be many. The honeymoon precedes the labors of birth, and is a credit God extends in advance because of the responsibilities involved.

The greatest joys in life are purchased at the cost of some sacrifice. No one ever enjoys good reading, good music, or good art without a certain amount of study and effort. Neither can one enjoy love without a certain amount of self-denial. It is not that love by its nature demands suffering, for there is no suffering in Divine Love. But whenever love is imperfect, or whenever a body is associated with a soul, there must be suffering, for such is the cost of love's purification. One cannot grow from ignorance to love of poetry without discipline. Neither can one mount from one level of love to another without a certain amount of purification. The Blessed Virgin passed from one level of love, which was for her Divine Son, to the higher level of a love for all whom He would redeem, by willing His Passion and Death at the Marriage Feast of Cana.

All love craves a cross by the very fact that love is forgetful of self for others. But even in the midst of sacrifice, it can say: "Suffering is in me, but I am not in it." The joy which is seen forthcoming as the result of the trial makes one in some way independent of it.