The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - God's Genius Bar for Marriage

Episode Date: September 15, 2017

If God were to design a test to help diagnose the root of any problems in a marriage, he might ask about three areas in a couple's life together. Have both spouses left their old ways behind them? Have both spouses cleaved to one another in difficult times? Has the couple truly become one in their core beliefs and vision for life? Jeff walks through these questions, helping couples troubleshoot their marriages and more fully embrace God's plan for their lives.

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Episode 33, God's Genius Bar for Marriage. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show.

Welcome to the show. Looking forward to sharing again with you this week. some interesting things about being a disciple in the kingdom of God. You know, being a disciple of Jesus is not just a matter of studying. It's really a matter of rolling up your sleeves every day and putting the gospel into practice and taking God's word and doing something with it, not just accumulating knowledge. And this week I want to talk about your marriage. And right away, just let me say this.

If you're married, this show is for you. If you are not married, but you think you might be married in the future, the show is for you. and if you are clergy, if you're a priest, you're a deacon, you are religious, consecrated, this shows for you because all of us share one thing in common, and that is we have a bridal-spousal relationship with Jesus Christ. And marriage is really a inside look at the relationship between Christ and his church, the bridegroom and the bride. And I'm going to talk today about solving some problems in your marriage. And this show is partly due to you asking me.

I've had a lot of people who have said, Hey, Jeff, can you give us kind of a jump start on our marriage? We've got some problems that we're dealing with. Things aren't running the way they used to. And we need a little bit of help. And that's what I want to do today with you. So I'm calling this God's genius bar for marriage. if you have an iPhone, an iPad, an Apple product, or if you've even been to the mall and you went

by an Apple store, you know that they have a bar there called the Genius Bar. And some of them are changing a little bit, but products, you know, that use Microsoft and those, they have their own kind of a Genius Bar. And that is, you bring your, you bring your equipment in and you lay it on the counter and say, man, this thing isn't working anymore. I'm having problems. And they'll ask you some questions and they'll do some diagnostic tests and they'll probably find the problem and they'll help you fix the problem. And that's what I want to introduce to you today about marriage. And I'm going to specifically give three things that I think the genius, God, would ask you about your marriage or your relationship with Christ because everything I'm going to be sharing with

you today has to do with your relationship with Christ as well. You know, the church has always understood and taught that God himself is the author of marriage. And the vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. This was written into us, a marital relationship, whether it's with God or God and another human being. But marriage is not purely human. It's not a human institution,

despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, and social structures and spiritual attitudes, particularly today, people seem to think that they can just sort of redefine marriage and design it according to the way they would like to see marriage. That doesn't go because God is the one who designed marriage. And these differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. And that comes from Catholic Catechism Paragraph 1603.

We cannot forget the permanent characteristics of marriage. Hey, before we get into the topic here, I want to quickly mention to you. Some of you've been asking about my free video that I give every week. I give a free video out called Encountering the Word, which is a quick look at the upcoming readings for Sunday. And it's absolutely free. You can sign up. It'll come right into your little notification every week. prepare you for the Sunday readings. And you can simply get that at

Bible study for Catholics.com. It's a very easy address. A Bible study for Catholics.com. And as you go to that site, you'll notice my picture down there, and you can click on that, and it'll give you all the information. And I'll put it in the show notes as well, so that you don't have to worry about it if you're driving right now. But I'd like to make that available to you, absolutely free. every week, encountering the word. I've got thousands of people who are getting it now and preparing themselves for the Sunday readings. Also, I'd like to introduce to you Catholic family night.com. Catholic family night.com. My wife has put together a really wonderful devotion for the family to

gather around the word every week and to talk to the children, has some food, some game, some discussion questions for the family every week. If you'd like to gather your family around God's word every week, go to Catholic Family Night.com. And if you want to get a hold of me for any reason, show idea or a question, simply the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Well, back to our topic, God's Genius Bar for Marriage. You know, I was mentioning before just a moment ago about going to the Genius Bar at the Mall. And like the iPhone, or any other foam, the delicate balance of hardware and the intricacies of the internal code of marriage are all created by God. And there's a theology to the human body that opens up a deeper

meaning to love and marriage and goes beyond anything the world can offer. You might want to check out Christopher West. He does a great job of talking about this theology of the body. Fortunately for us, God entrusted this knowledge to the church. And it has been, been given to us through apostolic succession. In a real way, the Catholic Church is the genius bar for marriage. And I have found that out. I've been on both sides of this equation. I've been a Protestant pastor for 12 years. I came back to the Catholic Church back in the mid-90s. And I've got to tell you, I have found that the Catholic Church indeed is the genius bar for marriage. It's a Catholic church that will not waver from the creator's purpose for marriage. The church supports marriage by

clearly telling us what marriage is. Marriage is a covenant, not a contract. A contract involves the exchange of goods, a covenant involves the exchange of persons. And this complete offering of love and commitment to fidelity is a sign of something greater, which is God's love and commitment to the church, his bride. So you see, inside of this marital relationship on earth between a husband and wife, between myself and Emily, is really a deeper secret, and that is Christ's love for the church. Marriage is also a sacrament, and the catechism teaches us in paragraph 1601 that the matrimonial covenant by which a man and a woman established between themselves, a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses

and the procreation and education of offspring. This covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ, the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament. And a sacrament is a grace-filled encounter with Christ. Like the other six sacraments, the married couple celebrates Christ and participates in the life of the Trinity as they faithfully give themselves to each other. And the catechism goes on in paragraph 20,

2335, the union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the creator's generosity. Now, it says, therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. We're going to talk a little bit about that. The sacrament of marriage is not only a covenant raised to the dignity of a sacrament, but it is also a demonstration, a stage, if you will, on which God, demonstrates his love for the church. And that's what God wants to do in your life, in your relationship with Jesus, in your relationship with your spouse. He wants to demonstrate, like a stage, demonstrate the fidelity of God and the love of God. The Apostle Paul said it this way in Ephesians 5. He said that the relationship between a husband and a wife is a demonstration of the mystical union between Christ and the bridegroom and his church, the bride. In fact, backing up

looking at the whole of salvation history, we see that the plan of sheer goodness that's mentioned in the first paragraph of the catechism is really revealed by bookends of marriage. Sacred scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of the wedding feast of the lamb at the very end. Paragraph 1602 of the catechism. So marriage is a participation in the love of the Trinity. From a valid marriage arises a bond between the spouses, which by its very nature is perpetual and exclusive. And furthermore, the catechism says in paragraph 1638, in a Christian marriage, the spouses are strengthened and, as it were, consecrated for the duties and the dignity of their state by a special sacrament. So when a man and a woman

give a mutual consent and a valid marriage, it is sealed by God, and their love is caught up into the divine love of the Trinity. Their marriage is a sign to the world of what we are called to, which is a sharing in God's blessed life in heaven forever. It is the Catholic Church that faithfully proclaims the secret of a fruitful marriage. It takes three. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, marriage is the sharing of life between a man and a woman with God as the glue. If God is left out, that is typically when problems arise and we turn outside of the church for answers.

For marriage, the Bible is the owner's manual, and that manual has been entrusted to the church to be interpreted, taught, and celebrated, to understand, strengthen, and celebrate your marriage, come to God's genius bar, the Catholic Church. You'll find that when you go back to the owner's manual, things will work better. Listen, leave Mars and Venus behind

and realize that men are from God and women are from God. Married couples who follow God's teaching on marriage will experience a love that's out of this world. Now, I'm going to take a break when we come back, I want to share with you what I think you would hear from God's genius bar. If you go to that bar with a troubled marriage, I'm going to share with you what I think three things are that they're going to zero in on

to try to get things going for you again. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. We're talking about marriage today. Looking at God's Genius Bar. We'll be back in just a moment. There might be an upcoming ascension event happening near you, and we'd love for you to attend. Almost every week, our inspiring Catholic speakers travel to parishes, schools, and organizations around the country to ignite hearts with the love of Christ.

Discover and register for upcoming ascension events at ascensionpress.com slash events. Welcome back, my friend. We're talking about God's genius bar for marriage, and if you've had problems with your technical equipment, no doubt you have looked for someone, whether it be the genius bar at the mall, or you went into the, the Microsoft store, and you laid down that phone, you lay down that pad, you laid down that computer and you said, ah, you pulled your hair, I got problems. And they looked at it, they turned it on, and then they started to ask you some questions. And they found out, you know, they've been around the block a few times. They know the questions to ask. They know the typical reasons that we have brought on ourselves, if you will, that have resulted in problems in our in our computer they're used to it they know these things so i want to draw your attention to three things

and it comes from scripture and i love this it comes from genesis chapter two in verse 24 and this is after uh god created adam and then he created eve and he made a statement it says uh it says i'll go back i'll go back a couple verses for you it says uh verse 23 then the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh in my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Here's the key one. Verse 24, therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife. They become one flesh. And the man and his woman were both naked and were not ashamed.

Now, within that verse, verse 24, I think we've got three things that are very, very key to understanding where problems arise in marriage. And those three words are pretty clear in there. Therefore, a man shall leave, number one, his father and his mother. Number two, cling to his wife. Another translation says cleave to his wife. And number three, become one flesh. So you've got three things there. You've got leave, cleave, and become one. Now, I think as if you've got, if you go take your marriage to God's genius bar and you say, you know, whether it's in counseling or whatever it might be, and you say, listen, we are having problems. I think that the church is going to ask you questions about those three things. And I got to tell you that when I was a pastor for all those

years, years ago, and I had couples come to me and say, we're really struggling in our marriage right now, I use this to diagnose the problem. You see, when a husband and wife, come together. They are called to leave mother and father. They're called to leave mother and father. They're called to cleave or cling to each other, pursue, actually hotly pursue each other. And they are called to become one. Not only become one in their vision and dream for life, one in their family, one in their financial situation, but one in their financial situation, but one in flesh. Now, if there is a weakness in any one of those three, leave, cleave, or become one, you're going to have problems. You're going to have problems in your relationship. I'll demonstrate

this a little bit. I'll talk about it a little bit as we go on here. Now, everything I'm going to share with you about leaving and cleaving and becoming one, I want you to know that this is something that God calls us to do, but it's something that God has done. You see, Jesus, left heaven and he came to earth and he cling to you the bride he cleave to his bride and he has become one with us by way of the eucharist and he's given himself completely over to us in the eucharist so what he's asking you to do in your marriage is not something that he hasn't done he has left he is cleave he has become one with his bride the church and we must do that with him we must leave the things of this world we must cleave to christ if we want to be modern day

disciples and we must become one with christ one body with jesus christ now back to the marriage here you come up to the bar and you say hey a genius we are having real problems he's going to ask the question. Well, let's talk about leaving. Have both of you left your parents? Now, what I have found is that oftentimes when there is a real problem in the relationship, one of the couples or both have not truly left mom and dad. How many times do we hear the situation where a new husband simply cannot be the leader of his home because every time there's a problem, his wife calls her dad or the guy he calls his mom the apron strings have never really been cut there's never really been a leaving now is there anything wrong with calling mom and dad and getting some information about

how to buy a house or you know interest rates on cars or what to do about home repair no there's no problem with that but it should be something that both husband and wife agree on that we need some help here. But when one of the couple, the husband or the wife, demonstrates continuously that they are not really depending upon their spouse, but they are always going back to the old life, then there can become a problem. You see, every husband wants, he wants his wife to see him as the new knight in shining armor, not as the fuddy-duddy who can't do anything around the house or can't figure anything out, and she's always got to call her dad. Likewise, every wife wants to know that she's the queen of that new house, and that every time they have to do something

that's dealing with the house or dealing with the children, that he goes and he talks to his mom. Now, again, there's nothing wrong with talking to mom and dad, but we've got to ask ourselves, have we really left? Have we really left? And not only parents, but old lifestyles. let me tell you a funny story here when emily and i got married i had a habit of staying out till four in the morning reading my bible at a perkins restaurant in minnesota and one of the things i was so looking forward to was after i got married i thought well both of us can hang out till four in the morning and read the bible and and have coffee and so forth and uh when i got married i found out real quick.

That ain't going to happen. And I needed to leave that lifestyle. I need to leave the idea that a radio was going to be on all night next to my bed. Emily had nothing to do with it. See, when I grew up, everybody had their radio going on in their room, but Emily couldn't get to sleep with the radio, so I had to leave that behind. Now, a lot of people also have lifestyles before they get married, where they go out and have beers with a bar with the bar with the guy.

or whatever it might be, and they're going to find out real quick, they need to leave some of this behind. So if you're not leaving, then you're going to have trouble in your relationships. I'd ask you to think about your relationship with your spouse, think about your relationship with God. If you're having problems with your relationship with Jesus, it might be because you're not leaving the old things behind. You're not leaving the things in the flesh. You're not leaving the old priorities and pursuing Christ. So leaving is really important. Number two, cleave. If you're going to have a successful marriage, that marriage genius is going to start listening to are they having trouble cleaving? Are they pursuing each other? Are they clinging to one another?

Or do they have separate lives now where they don't pursue life together anymore? You see, if you're going to have a successful marriage, whether it's a human marriage or a human marriage, it's a supernatural relationship with Jesus Christ, you're going to have to pursue Jesus. You're going to have to pursue your wife. You have to pursue your husband. And that's really the work of marriage is finding ways of clinging to one another, not just physically, but in every way. Do you have common hopes and dreams for the future?

Think about the following three questions when it comes to cleaving and really becoming one with your spouse, is the dream equally inclusive of both you and your spouse and your life together? Or is it just the husband? He's going to have his way. He's going to have his dream come true. And you as a wife are thinking, he's not even pursuing me. He's not cleaving to me. He's cleaving to his, you fill in the blank, hobby, or whatever, his buddies, whatever it might be. Ask yourself also, number two, is the dream broad enough? Is it broad enough? And number three, are both of you strongly committed to the dream that you have for your life together?

So that you can do this together, cleave to one another in the context of this dream? Listen, if your dream takes you away from clinging to your spouse, it's not a dream from God. It's your own selfishness. You need a dream in your marriage that involves both of you. That doesn't mean that you both have to be a crazy. on fire for whatever it is, but you can be supportive and cling to one another in it. So when you go to that marriage genius bar, God's marriage genius bar, he's going to ask you, are you pursuing your spouse? Maybe you need to come up with a night during the week that's a

date night where you get together. Maybe you need to carve out time throughout the day where it's just you and your spouse with time together, where you are turning off the TV or whatever it might be setting your hobby aside and spending that time together, praying together. And I'll tell you, praying together is an incredible thing. And if you don't know how to pray together, you can start as simple as praying the Lord's prayer, the rosary together every single day, do some things that are different that really reflect a cleaving to one another. That's really, really important.

And to be honest with you, this is something that a lot of people don't think about. They were cleaving to each other before they got married. You couldn't keep them apart. You know, you're calling your spouse. You were texting your spouse. You were meeting your spouse for lunch and dinner and so forth. You were driving hundreds of miles to be with them, perhaps. Well, after you're married, you need to, you need to purposely, intentionally cleave to your spouse.

If you don't, I promise. You're going to problems, especially because you might start cleaving to other people. And that's a warning sign right there. Can you have other friends of the opposite sex? Yes, you can. I've got a lot of wonderful friends that I deeply love. But there's a difference with Emily and that I must pursue her in a different way. And then the third is to become one.

The first is leave. The second is cleave, or cling. And the third is, become one. In marriage, the need to become one is answered. Bodies, body answers, body, spirit answers spirit, and soul answers soul, forming Earth's closest relationship. You could put it this way. A spouse is someone who you can get naked with physically and in your soul.

there's nothing you are hiding you are becoming one with them and after years of counseling people you know one of the things i found out that that everybody was really wanted in their life they really wanted one person that they could be so transparent with so one with and not not be put down not be mocked but they could be one with them and i think that's built into our DNA to be honest with you because our ultimate goal is to be one with God, to be one with the Trinity, to be taken up into the life of the Trinity, and to share that life of God in the Trinity. And marriage and the desire for oneness is just a hint about something great.

And that's something greater is the relationship. And that's something greater is the relationship with God. and so if you're not becoming one pursuing your spouse and becoming one there could be a problem in your in your relationship now how do you become one well you'd be surprised at how many people i run into that they don't share anything financially with their spouse when my wife and I first got married back in 1978 when we first got married back in 1978 when we first got married back in 1978, June 3rd, we made it a point that we were going to share our finances with each other, that everything would become one. And we've been that way all these years. We've never had

separate accounts or anything like that. We knew that our house would be joint. We knew that everything we owned would be each other's, that there was really no such thing as mine and yours that we would share our lives with one another. We'd become one. certainly becoming one physically, to pursue each other, to actively love one another, to make sure that the other person is satisfied, that you love them, tenderly care for them, is a part of becoming one. But as I mentioned earlier, the dream of life, the dream of your marriage, the dreams for your children. These are things that we must become one with.

Just like Jesus shares his vision, his will with us, so that we can become one with him, we need to share with one another in a marriage, our dreams. And find that sweet spot where we both feel like we're living the dream. Not just she's here to live my dream, and I'm not just here to live her dream, but that we can live together. So I want to encourage you, I want to encourage you to encourage you to, Walk in that love. Leave everything behind that's going to interfere.

Let me just say that little caveat there. Leave the things behind that will interfere with your marriage and hotly pursue each other, cleave to each other. Number two, and number three, become one, become one. And I've got to tell you, forgiveness is very, very important in all of this. because I want to ask you a serious question here that could be a game changer for you in making this happen

when it comes to leaving mom and dad leaving the old lifestyle and pursuing and becoming one with your spouse can you leave let me ask you even a deeper question here can you leave your husband's past

behind Can you leave your wife's past behind? One of the problems that young people today are running into more so than their parents is that they have been more sexually active, they have been more into experimenting with drugs, they have done more things that might have surprised their parents than any other generation. And the question is, is that after you say, I do, can you leave your husband? spouses passed behind forgiveness is essential here it is essential there's a neighbor neighbor's husband and neighbor's husband was bringing flowers into his wife every night about five

o'clock he come home from work and he he brings in a flower you know basket of flowers every day and the wife across the street she's watching all of this and she's thinking thinking, wow. And he's bringing chocolate in and he kisses his wife at the front door. And after about two weeks of watching this, she says to her husband, she goes, I've been watching Don there across the street. And he brings flowers to his wife and he kisses her and he gives her chocolate. Why don't you do that? Husband replies, I don't even know the woman. Of course, that's meant to be a little funny. But when we see in other, people, the things that we want in our own marriage, it's time to look down deep and to ask

ourselves, am I myself leaving, cleaving, and becoming one? That's an important thing. I want to share that with you this week. And I encourage you to share this show with your spouse, if you would like to listen to it together and say, you know, these are three things that we need to get a checkup on and let's let's re-up let's recommit to each other my dear let's recommit to each other that we're going to leave and we're going to cleave and that we're going to become one with each other this is also a show that you might want to share with family or friends or neighbors or friends at work that just as a way of saying hey this this has helped me go ahead and share it with them I have found these three things are constant reminders in my life, in my marriage with Emily, that I need to make adjustments, I need to repent, I need to reactivate in certain areas, leave cleave, and become one.

Very, very important. Once again, a reminder, if you know some guys that are interested in riding motorcycles next summer, you make sure that you give out that email, J.Kavens at gmail.com. and we are going to start to get in touch with guys around the country. And another reminder, if you want something to prepare you for the Sunday readings, encountering the word. Encounter the word is a five-minute video that I put together every week. And I want to give it to you free. And all that information is going to be in the show notes.

Let me close by praying for you and your spouse or praying for you and your relationship with Jesus if you're single, praying for you and your relationship with the Lord if you are a priest you're a deacon you're consecrated you're religious let's pray in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen lord i thank you for my friends who are listening and lord as we come to you at the genius bar of marriage we pray lord that you would put your hands on these three areas have we truly left are we cleaving and are we becoming one not only in our relationship with our our husband or wife here on earth but our relationship with you, Jesus.

We know that you have done this for us. You've left, you have cling to us, you've become one with us, and we need to do the same with you. Show us, Lord, in our hearts, the areas that we are faltering, the areas where we are weak and what we need to do

to improve upon this. I pray this, Lord, in your name, amen. Name of the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit. My friend, have a great week, and once again, go to iTunes, and I like to hear your feedback. give me your feedback. Go ahead and rate the show. It helps in the rankings as far as getting

the new evangelization up and out. And we are partners in that. God bless you. Have a good week.