One of the books I have been reviewing for use in marriage prep is Von Hildebrand's "Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love." There is one section which I thought was the best of the whole book, so I am going to quote it at length here:
"Certainly this decision involves a great risk; and when the choice of a spouse happens to be based on an illusion, the indissolubleness of marriage may prove a great cross for one or both consorts. But it lies in the nature of conjugal love to be bold, heroic, not to shrink back from taking risk. All great things on earth are connected with risk. Without risk, human life - in statu viae - would be deprived of all grandeur and heroism. Do not religious vows imply a similar risk? If the vocation proves itself an illusion, the religious state can become a heavy cross, a burden hard to bear. Yet an heroic love of God is willing to take such a risk, even desires to take it.
Marriage is not a bourgeois affair, a kind of insurance for happiness, providing a way of escape from every eventual cross. Does not love as such carry with it a great risk of suffering? In attaching our hearts to a person, do we not run the risk of enduring terrible sufferings, through misfortunes that may happen to our beloved or separation from her when she dies? Should we then abstain from love in order to prevent the possibility of great sorrow?
He whose life is dominated by the intention of avoiding any possible cross excludes everything that gives human life grandeur and depth. He will never know real abandon - never know real, deep happiness. Remaining in a mediocre self-centeredness, he will never be able to do aanything without a certain reserve; he will always provide for a possibility of retreat.
All life is overshadowed by death: "Media in vita mortis sumus." We must never forget that we do not live in Paradise, but that as a consequence of the Fall of man, we live in a world which is permeated by a deeply tragic element, where happiness is necessarily wrapped up with tribulation.
The redemption of the world by our Lord has not suspended disharmony and banished suffering, although He gave a new meaning to suffering by making it a means of penance and sacrifice. he transfigured it by the Holy Cross behind which shine the rays of eternal harmony.
Thus, in this fleeting, earthbound life all that is great and important is connected with risk,and calls for a holy boldness, and heroic spirit of unconditional abandon. The law of all great things in statu viae is expressed in the words of our Lord: 'No man putting his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.' (Lk. 9:62)
Of course all great decisions, insofar as they carry with them great risks, should be deeply considered before we undertake them. Entering into marriage calls for a realization of the great and decisive step which it represents, and requires profound self-examination. The objective form of marriage must correspond to the deepest meaning of marriage as the most perfect and intimate union of love, and cannot be conformed to the case of a failure.
Against this background the unspeakable shabbiness and stupidity of a trial marriage clearly appears. Trial marriage is in itself contradictory to the nature of conjugal love. Anyone who even considers trial marriage has never experienced conjugal love.
Marriage is the most intimate communion of love in Jesus and for Jesus, a community which belongs to Jesus and brings about the sanctification of both spouses. In it, two persons are one in one flesh and have been allowed to participate in the creation of a new human being by God. This community has been elevated to a Sacrament as an image of the union of Christ and the Church."
