NCR / Nobody In This City of 30,000 Has Ever Been Divorced — Here’s Their Secret
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-cit ... ut-divorce
There is a town in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I am told, which is part of the Balkan Peninsula, called Široki-Brijeg, where no one in living memory has ever been divorced. About 30,000 souls inhabit the place, nearly all of whom are Catholic.
How can this possibly be in a world where, even among professed Catholics, so many marriages fail?
What is it that makes this town so different?
Is it something in the water supply?
No, it is not. Nor is it the result of any sort of law forbidding couples to divorce.
Because there are no such laws. People who marry in Široki-Brijeg have not been schooled by the State into seeing the union of man and woman as a life sentence. There is no penal code, in other words, in which the compliance of married couples is required.
The exchange of vows at the altar is not to be confused with the ritual of the hangman placing a noose around the neck of a condemned prisoner. If there is to be any bending of the will, it will not be the result of anyone other than the couple themselves.
So, what is it that keeps these couples together?
It is the fruit of a fixed attitude of free and complete submission to Jesus Christ, whose Cross unites at the deepest level every aspect of their lives. So that, for all the differences dividing them, they nevertheless remain deeply committed to a life of mutual self-giving love.
In short, it is a life centered entirely upon Christ and his Cross, on which he freely chose to hang for the world’s salvation. .. ..
.. It is not an option, the couples of Široki-Brijeg are saying, to live like this. It is the only way to live.
To live each day from the reality of an already deeply intimate participation in the life of Christ, allowing him to live now in us.
Faith in Christ, therefore, which serves as a springboard for the promised fidelity to one another, is no longer an ideal to which one strives haplessly to conform; it is the very center from which they find themselves already living.
And, yes, there is much joy — and not a little laughter — amid a life shared in that Christ-centered way.
The OP request is for respectful, not critical, not passive-aggressive swipes, instead, prayers and encouragement for better understanding of how to choose committed marriage, as God designed, rather than the pain and trauma of divorce.
Education about marriage and raising children begins soon after birth, it’s a lengthy process that lasts throughout life.
Thousands+thousands of messages, spoken and unspoken, contribute to each one’s marriage-family education.
It begins in the home+church.
In healthy cultures, it’s valued, modeled and encouraged in everyday life.