Divorce Primer

1. God is the Author of Marriage

   To protect the sanctity of marriage is to protect the FAMILY and to glorify GOD. “That is why a man leaves his Father and Mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

   Q: Why we should be against Divorce?
   “He who made man from the beginning, made the male and female. And he said: for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one in flesh. What therefore GOD hath joined together let no man asunder (Matthew 19:4-6). The indissolubility of all marriage, not merely of Christian marriage is affirmed. The permanence of marriage for the whole human race according to natural law is here confirmed and ratified by a Divine positive ordinance” (Catholic Encyclopedia, online).

   Prayer for life by Pope John Paul II
   WIFE/HUSBAND’S PRAYER
   O merciful Lord God, who in the beginning did take eve out of the side of Adam and did give her to him as a helpmate: grant me grace to live worthy of the honorable estate of matrimony to which You have called me, that I may love my husband/wife with a pure and chaste love. Keep me from all worldliness and vanity. Help me, o Lord that I may prudently and discreetly guide this household with my wife/husband. Let no fault of mine aggravate any sins by which he/she may be especially tempted; enable me to sooth him/her in perplexity, to cheer him/her in difficulty, to refresh him/her in weariness, and as far as may be, to advise him/her in doubt. Give me understanding so to fulfill may part in the education of our children, that they me be in our joy in this world and our glory in the next. Grant that our perfect union here may be the beginning of the till more prefect and blissful union hereafter in thy kingdom; and this I prey through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

   Q: What does our law, our church and our tradition say?

   1. The Philippine constitution recognizes marriage as the foundation of the nation
      Article XV: The Family
      1. Section 1. The state recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation. Accordingly, it shall strengthen its solidarity and actively promote its total development.
      2. Section 2. Marriage, as an inviolable social institution, is the foundation of the family and shall be protected by the state.
      3. Section 3. The state shall defend:
         (1) The right of spouses to found a family accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.
2. Marriage in the plan of God in the Sacred Scripture
   1. “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him… that is why man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and the two of them become one body” (Gen 2:18-24).
   2. “Haven’t you read” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate (Mt. 19: 4-6).
   3. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church. However, let each one of you his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:32-33)
3. Marriage in the sacred tradition of the church
   1. “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. But now both by the manner of the creation, and by the manner of the law giving, He showed that one man must dwell with one women continually, and never break off from her” (St. John Chrysostom, On Mathew, 62:1 (370 CE), in NPNF1, X:382)
   2. “The marital right is given for you this reason: lest you fall into the snare and sin with a strange woman. “if you are bound to a wife do not seek a divorce’; for you are not permitted, while your wife lives, to marry another.” (To Vigilius, Letter 19:7 (385 CE), in FC, XXVI:176
   3. Now that the scripture counsels marriage, and allows no release from the union is expressly contained in the law. ‘Thou shalt not put away thy wife, except for the cause of fornication:’ and it regards as fornication, the marriage of those separated while the other is alive” (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 2:24 (A.D 202), in ANF, 11:379)
4. Marriage in the teaching of the Magisterium
   1. The council of Trent confirmed it when it says: “But, the grace which might perfect that natural love, and confirm that indissoluble union, and sanctify the married, Christ himself, the institutor and perfecter of the venerable sacrament. (Canon I, Council of Trent, session XXIV. Canons on the sacrament, II, XI, 1563)
   2. The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in eyes of society too is a lasting one” (GS48)
   3. The love of the spouses requires, of its very nature, the unity and indissolubility of the spouses community of persons, which embraces their entire life (CCC 1640)
   4. By virtue of the covenant of married life, the man and the woman ‘are no longer two but one flesh’ and they called to grow continually in their common through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving. (FC 19)
   5. “Spouses have the duty and right to preserve conjugal living unless a legitimate cause excuses them.” (Can. 1151)