The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1959-01-02
BREIG-
Yes Doesn't
Mean NO!

Even a newspaper columnist surely is entitled
to at least one New Years wish. If that be so, then
l devoutly desire that certain persons among my
readers will make-and keep-the following resolu-
ton for 1859:
upon my honor will never Jump to The con-
elusion that because Breig praises rain, ha considers
sunshine inferior, and is opposed to all statements
concerning its beauty"
The immediate reason for my suggestion is a
letter from a man who was impressed by something
/ wrote about the holiness of the marriage embrace
in which husband and wife cooperate with God in the
creation of a new and immortal being.
My text, if you recall, was the welded love OF
St. Anne and St. Joachim which brought forth, in
the natural order of generation and birth, the most
holy and immaculate Virgin whom God Incarnate,
from eternity, chose for His Mother.
| said that we might well learn, from meditation
upon this husband and wife and child, something
about the splendor of the state of matrimony which
Marys Son, in good time, elevated to the status of
nothing less than one Of the seven sacraments.
ONE A WHO WROTE to me wants me to
answer this question: if the. union of a married
couple as two in one flesh is SO magnificent, why
was Christ the Savior born of an inviolate virgin.
through the power of God in the the overshadowing
of the Holy Spirit?
] have encountered the same kind of reaction in
various aspects. For example, some people have
imagined that l ~derogated %virginity in the religious
state of life, because | wrote or talked about the
high dignity and sanctty of marriage.
| do not quite understand this frame Of mind.
III 1 speak SlOWlHSlV O1 Tie DcduLy OF roses, why
should anybody suppose that have no use for tulips.
which as a matter Of fact | consider the queen of
flowers?
Must a writer, if he says he likes Canada very
much, hasten to explain that he does not look down
his nose at Germany and Ireland and England and
Spain and Arabla-not one of which he has ever
laid eyes on?
THE SIMPLE FACT is that nobody has ever
really learned how to read until he has consented,
consciously or unconsciously, to refrain from attri-
buting to a writer's views which the writer has not
expressed at all.
A writer, in other words, has got to have some
freedom. He has a right to expect reasonable under
standing and cooperation from readers. Otherwise he
must fall into total silence, lest everything he says
be misinterpreted.
A classic instance of what / mean comes to mind.
Once ! told a study group that although there IS
certainly a He'll where creatures sufficiently wicked
go for eternity, the Church has never said that any
human being is in hell.
A meeting or two later the thing that | had half
foreseen came to pass. In the course OF a discussion,
somebody said to me, "but don't you remember?
You said yourself that no human being ever has gone
to He'll"
HIs IS THE KIND of mental attitude which /
request readers to overcome in 1859 and succeeding
years, because if it isn't overcome, something like
total confusion is going to be the end result.
If | denounce marriage, you might reasonably
conclude that | had no very high opinion of ~celibacy;
because if marriage were highly undesirable-a kind
of snare and delusion-then %virginity would merely
be an avoidance of unpleaSantnesS.
But if l praise marriage, as / do, then obviously
consider it heroic to sacrifice marriage and embrace
celbacy out of love of God and love of fellowmen,
The nobility of virginity cannot be fully seen save in
the light of the Splendor OF matrlmony.
AS FOR CHRIST being born of a Virgin, there is
no d~erogation of marriage in that-not the faintest.
The Father of the Son Of God, from eternity, is God;
and the Father of the Son of God Incarnate likewise
is God.
Christ had no human father because he aready
had a Father the Eternal Father by whom He
generated in eternity. Having more than one father.
= in the generative sense, strikes me as like having
more than one mother. 1t is preposterous.
And so l repeat-my desire for 1859 is that
readers sternly put down this tendency to assume
that because | say that ice cream is tasty, therefore
l consider all other desserts revolving. 1t is unfair
to treat a writer like that.