ON CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE AS RELATED IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST. JOHN VIANNEY
Both in the pulpit and in the confessional he had never ceased from proclaiming the strictness and the sweetness of ther laws of Christian marriage. He had been heard and understood. God’s blessing rested upon the homesteads of the village. To use the imagery of the Bible, “The wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of the house,” and “the children as olive plants , round about the table of their fathers.
Facing the church stood the house of the Coniers with their ten children; Pere Mandy was the father of twelve; twelve children formed a crown of honor for the Chatelains, Comte and Comtesse des Garets; the families of Pertinand and Fleury Treve had fifteen children each. During the pastorate of M. Vianney the population of Ars more than doubled. Between 1818 and 1824, there were 98 baptisms as against 40 burials.
Parents claimed a good deal of authority even over their grown up children, and they would not suffer it to be whittled away. Neither boys nor girls were permitted to walk aimlessly about the streets or to remain idle at home, for “Idleness hath taught much evil.” When the girls came back from school,” says Annette Scipiot, herself brought up under the severe regime, “instead of being allowed to play, they were made either to knit or to help in the housework. If they had to go out they were asked on their return, how they had behaved and whom they had met. On Sunday the girls went out only with their mothers.”
He knew all the young people in his congregation. He knew how girls and men were tempted to unchastity and would doubtless fall into it if they went off to dances together. Over the door of his chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist he had the inscription: HIS HEAD WAS THE PRICE OF A DANCE. And he told the people that the dance was the rope the devil used to drag the greatest number of souls to hell. He used to tell engaged couples that it was a serious sin if they were ever alone together, or if they stayed in the same house together before marriage. He was sufficiently aware of the temptations of mixed company at Ars.
Married people were shown the nobility of their calling, and he exhorted them to fulfill holily its duties. A lady of the name of Ruet, of Ouroux, in the department of the Rhone, had already a large family, and was about to become a mother once more. She came to Ars in order to seek courage at the feet of the holy Cure”. She had not long to wait, for M.Vianney summoned her from among the crowd. “You look very sad , my child,” he said, when she was on her knees in the confessional. “Oh I am so advanced in years, Father.” “Be comforted, my child…if you only knew the women who would go to hell because they did not bring into the world the children they should have given to it.” God killed Onan for practicing birth-control. He wasted his seed on the ground because he did not want to raise up seed by his brother, and God slew him for it, Gen. 38:10. The seriousness of the punishment shows the seriousness of the crime.
“Come now, my little one,” he said with fatherly kindliness to a woman who confided to him her anxiety because of her large family. “Do not be alarmed at your burden; Our Lord carries it with you. The good God does well all that he does; when he gives many children to a young mother, it is that he deems her worthy to rear them. It is a mark of confidence on his part.”
The life of St. John Vianney is the story of a humble and holy man who barely succeeded in becoming a priest, but converted thousands of sinners. The devil often attacked him physically and set fire to his bed. The evil one once revealed toSt. John Vianney that if there were three such men as he alive at one time, his kingdom (the devil’s) would be destroyed. At the time of his death in 1859, over 100,000 visited the little village of Ars, France. Today over 500,000 visit this simple farming town where they come to see the incorrupt body of one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church.
What the scriptures say in regard to child-bearing and salvation: “A woman shall be saved through child-bearing.” 1 Tim. 2:15. An interesting quote, “A woman shall be saved through child-bearing.” You never hear this quote in relation to salvation. Never. “Marriage honorable in all, and the marriage bed undefiled.” Hebrews 13:4. How does one defile the marriage bed? By using it for sensual pleasure while blocking God’s purpose out of it, and by inappropriate acts in the marriage bed. Birth control which is fornication in marriage; and adultery, with someone else’s spouse. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage, adultery, which Christ also forbade, St. Matthew chapter 19. He allowed divorce if one partner was guilty of fornication, but he did not allow remarriage, constituting it adultery. Speaking of the sin of contraception, St. Thomas Acquinas said, “Next to murder, by which an actually existent human being is destroyed, we rank this sin, by which the generation of a human being is prevented.” St. Augustine: “As unlawful land impure as the conduct of Onan who was slain.”
Sterilization? What has the Church decreed? “To the question proposed to the Sacred Congregation; Whether direct sterilization, either perpetual or temporary is permitted on a man or woman?” Answer: “In the negative.” Denzngers – Sources of Catholic Dogma. To whom does the devil have power over? “Over those who join together as the horse and the mule, and shut God out, and give themselves to their lust, the devil hath power.” Tobias 6:16-17.
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