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DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND Marriage the mystery of faithful love Marriage The Mystery of Faithful Love 1 Table of Contents Introduction by Alice von Hildebrand .............................................................................................3 Foreword by John Cardinal O’Connor.............................................................................................7 Preface by Dietrich von Hildebrand...............................................................................................10 Love and Marriage .........................................................................................................................12 Love and the mystery of sacramental marriage .............................................................................25 Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977) Biographical notes ............................................................38 History of Marriage (The Mystery of Faithful Love) ...................................................................41 Other Works by Dietrich von Hildebrand......................................................................................42 2 Introduction by Alice von Hildebrand Alice von Hildebrand (born Alice Jourdain, 11 March 1923 in Brussels, Belgium) is a Catholic philosopher and theologian and a former professor. She emigrated to the U.S. in 1940 and began teaching at Hunter College in New York City in 1947. She was married to the famous philosopher and theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977), meeting him at Fordham University in New York where she was a student and he was a professor. She remained married to him until his death. She retired in 1984. Alice von Hildebrand lives in the United States and is a lecturer and an author, whose works include: The Privilege of Being a Woman (2002) and The Soul of a Lion: The Life of Dietrich von Hildebrand (2000), a biography of her late husband. Bibliography • Greek Culture, the Adventure of the Human Spirit , editor (G. Braziller, 1966) • Introduction to a Philosophy of Religion (Franciscan Herald Press, 1970) • By Love Refined: Letters to a Young Bride (Sophia Institute Press, 1989) • Women and the Priesthood (Franciscan University Press, 1994) ISBN 0-940535-72-6 • By Grief Refined: Letters to a Widow (Franciscan University Press, 1994) • Memoiren und Aufsätze gegen den Nationalsozialismus, 1933–1938 , with Dietrich von Hildebrand and Rudolf Ebneth, (Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1994) ISBN 3-7867-1737-0 • Soul of a Lion: Dietrich Von Hildebrand: a Biography (Ignatius Press, 2000) ISBN 0-89870- 801-X • The Privilege of Being a Woman (Veritas Press, 2002) • Man and Woman: A Divine Invention (Ignatius Press, 2010) ISBN-10: 1932589562 3 Introduction - by Alice von Hildebrand “Love is Heaven; marriage is Hell,” wrote personality: he chooses to remain faithful to Lord Byron 150 years ago. At the time, he what he has seen, even though his vision could not have foreseen the incredible may later become blurred. popularity that his idea would have today. In matters of love and marriage, “Hell’ does In our society, the beauty and greatness of not come from fidelity ; it comes from lack of married love has been so obscured that most fidelity , which leaves men technically people now view marriage as a prison: a un bound but actually solitary: trapped in a conventional, boring, legal matter that shallow arbitrariness and a stifling threatens love and destroys freedom. subjectivism. My husband, Dietrich von Hildebrand, was Indeed, contrary to Lord Byron and to just the opposite. Long before he converted popular belief, marriage is the friend and to Roman Catholicism, he was convinced protector of love between man and woman. that the community of love in marriage is Marriage gives love the structure, the one of the deepest sources of human shelteredness, the climate in which alone it happiness. can grow. He saw the grandeur and the beauty of the Marriage teaches spouses humility and union of spouses in marriage – symbolized makes them realize that the human person is by their physical union which leads in such a a very poor lover. Much as we long to love mysterious way to the creation of a new and to be loved, we repeatedly fall short and human person. He recognized that love by desperately need help. We must bind its very essence longs for infinity and for ourselves through sacred vows so that the eternity. Therefore, a person truly in love bond will grant our love the strength wants to bind himself forever to his beloved necessary to face the tempest-tossed sea of – which is precisely the gift that marriage our human condition. gives him. For no love is free from periods of In contrast, love within an unqualified difficulties. But (as Kierkegaard aptly commitment betrays the very essence of remarks) because it implies will, love. He who refuses to commit himself (or commitment, duty, and responsibility, who breaks a commitment in order to start marriage braces spouses to fight to save the another relationship) fools himself. He precious gift of their love. It gives them the confuses the excitement of novelty with glorious confidence that with God’s help, authentic happiness. they will overcome the difficulties and Such affective defeatism – so typical of our emerge victorious. Thus, by adding a formal age – is a symptom of a severe emotional element to the material element of love, immaturity which weakens the very marriage guarantees the future of love and protects it against the temptations which are foundation of society. It is rooted partly in a bound to arise in human existence. misunderstanding of freedom. Many people criticize marriage because they fail to realize In a relationship without commitment, the that a person also exercises his freedom slightest obstacle, the most insignificant when he freely binds himself to another in difficulty, is a legitimate excuse for marriage. separating. Unfortunately, man – who is These critics of marriage do not see that usually so eager to win a fight over others – continuity – and especially faithfulness – is shows little or no desire to conquer himself. an essential characteristic of a truly great It is much easier for him to give up a 4 Introduction - by Alice von Hildebrand relationship than to fight what Kierkegaard As a Sacrament, marriage gives people the calls “the lassitude which often is wont to supernatural strength necessary to “fight the follow upon a wish fulfilled”. good fight.” 2 Every victory achieved together over habit, routine, and boredom Marriage calls each spouse to fight against cements the bonds existing between the himself for the sake of his beloved. This is why it has become so unpopular today. spouses and makes their love produce new People are no longer willing to achieve the blossoms. greatest of all victories, the victory over self. Also, because it explicitly and sacramentally unites the spouses with the infinite love that To abolish marriage is, as Kierkegaard tells Christ has for each one of them, sacramental us, “self-indulgence.” Only cowards malign marriage overcomes the tragic limits of marriage. They run from battle, defeated natural marriage and achieves the infinite before the struggle even begins. Marriage and eternal character to which every love alone can save love between man and aspires. woman and place it above the contingencies of daily flux and moods. Without this bond, It is therefore understandable that after this there is no reason to wish to transform the conversion to Roman Catholicism, my dreariness of everyday life into a poetic husband (who was already the great knight song. for natural love) became an ardent knight in defence of the supernatural love found in Sacramental marriage sacramental marriage. His enthusiasm for In Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love , the great beauty and mystery of faithful love my husband introduced these themes which in marriage led to the writing of this work. illuminate the value and importance of natural marriage and show the role that History of this book marriage plays in serving faithful love. The preparation of Marriage actually began in 1923 when my husband gave a lecture on At the same time, my husband saw that even marriage at a Congress of the Catholic in the happiest of natural marriages, mortal Academy Association in Ulm, Germany. man – the creature of a day (as Plato calls The lecture was a resounding success. him) – remains terribly finite and limited. Consequently, every merely natural love is In the lecture he argued that one should necessarily tragic: it will never achieve the distinguish between the meaning of marriage eternal union for which it naturally longs. (i.e., love) and its purpose (i.e., procreation). He portrayed marriage as a community of But when my husband converted to love, which, according to an admirable Catholicism, he discovered a wonderful new divine economy, finds its end in procreation. dimension of marriage: its sacramental character as a fountain of grace. St. Paul Even though official Catholic teaching had illuminated the sublime dignity of until then put an almost exclusive stress on sacramental marriage in calling it a “great the importance of procreation as the purpose mystery”, comparable to the love of Christ of marriage, the practice of the Church had for His Church. 1 Natural love pales in always implicitly recognized love as the comparison to the beauty of a love rooted in meaning of marriage. She had always Christ. approved the marriage of those who, because 1 Eph. 5:32 2 1 Tim. 6:12 5 Introduction -

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