74. Friday after Second Sunday after Epiphany.
God, thou hast done all things well;
teach us to know thy love. Amen.
Genesis 2, 18. 21-24. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
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Here we learn that of his goodness God created man, “male and female created he them,” and ordered that they live together in wedlock. Of his goodness toward us he still continues to lead to each man the woman destined for him; and every man shall receive his wife, and every woman shall receive her husband, as a gift from the Lord. The woman is created to be an helpmeet for man, and the man is to provide for her temporal wants. Each is to promote the temporal and eternal happiness of the other. But it is only through love that this object can be attained. Love unites the hearts and wills of the two, and together they become strong to fight the battle of life and bear the day’s burden. In love they gladly serve each other, each of them happy in the happiness of the other, and both having their troubles in common. Then wedlock is a glorious estate, full of trials of all kinds, but rich in grace also, and having an ennobling, refining, and sanctifying influence on man and woman alike. “Out of the harmony of their natures will then spring a new common will, of which the quiet home, with its duties, its occupations, and its joys, shall be the evidence. But, alas, how this most beautiful relation is being desecrated on every hand! The man and woman have their separate opinions and are at cross purposes after their marriage as well as before it; sometimes one has the upper hand, and sometimes the other; and in their secret hearts both are speculating on the question whether or not the advantages of married life balance the loss of one’s dear personal liberty. At last each becomes the torment of the other, and in the contemplation of the cold necessity which ties them to each other, love’s fire is quenched.” No; self-love never has founded a happy marriage. How could selfishness unite hearts in the Lord? But let the husband and wife be united in the love of God in Christ, and they will become a blessing to each other for time and eternity. Even the frailties which both of them still have shall not prevent this consummation. On the contrary, if they have all things in common, they shall be blessed even through their very infirmities. “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.”
God, give us happy marriages and happy homes in which love is the bond of union; in which love is the fire; in which love is the strength, and the riches, and the life. Amen.*
O blessed house, the joys of which thou sharest,
And never art forgot in scenes of joy;
O blessed house, for whose sad wounds thou carest,
Where all the sick thy healing power employ;
Until at last the day’s work fully ended,
All finally in joyful rapture fly
To that blest house to which thou hast ascended,
Unto the blessed Father’s house on high.
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.