For those who are married, it can be a wonderful memory to reflect back on the process of getting to know your future spouse, falling in love with them, promising to spend the rest of your life with them, and building a home and a family with them. But anyone who is married can attest to the fact that it can be challenging; there might be bad days or even bad years, when obstacles present themselves regularly and need to be dealt with. While it might be true that initial attraction is what motivated some to pursue their future spouses, it was the act of accepting their future spouse for who they were that led them to marriage. A marriage based solely on attraction is destined to fail because it forces an impossible expectation on the other person. The life of the Church is the exact same way, though we can use the theological virtues as steps to this process: faith is that initial attraction that motivates us to pursue participation in the Church, hope is the fuel that keeps us on the journey towards God even through the difficult times, and love is the destination. Love is why we get married and why we choose to be in the Church.

Satan hates anything that models itself after God’s relationship with humanity. For Satan (who was a powerful angel), humans are beneath him, yet God chose us as His precious capstone of all creation. The Church is the Bride of Christ, the most beloved of the Son, and all marriages and families are models of the relationship between the Church and Christ. As a result, both the Church and marriages are going to be the prime target for Satan to sow discord within humanity. This is done most effectively within marriages by promoting selfishness in a naturally selfless commitment, and within the Church through the spread of heresy. There is also a correlation between selfish behavior in a marriage and heretical beliefs within the Church. In Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, he requests that the Christians there hold on and remain faithful to the tradition of the Church. This tradition developed from him and his contemporaries, but its origin was only in the words and deeds of Christ, the fullness of revelation that can still reveal its layers to us over time through his Church. These daily reflections may be written by a single individual prone to error, but the source is unchanging; it just so happens that the source, Scripture, has the power to be opened further to discerning hearts through reflection. A person works in the same way. You may think you know everything about your spouse, but they will continue to show aspects of themselves previously undiscovered on a daily basis. The person hasn’t changed, you just know them more fully.

Heresy in the Church and selfishness in a marriage will only come about when the idea of further discovery is disordered or misunderstood. To extract something from Scripture or doctrine that is not actually present is not “further discovery,” it is a lie. To behave in a selfish manner when you promised to be selfless to your spouse is not showing your true identity, but a cop-out to act exclusively for yourself. In the great romance between Christ and His Church, just as it is between a husband and his wife, we must hold fast to the “weightier things”, as Christ says - judgment (right orientation), mercy (right action), and fidelity, especially fidelity to the truth. Our Church, both in the world and domestically, will be protected from heresies and selfishness when we remember what is at the heart of our coming together: self-giving love.