204 



THE MEANS OF GRACE 



2. Duties with Regard to the Reception 

 of the Sacrament. — These are partly negative 

 and partly positive. 



a) Motives. — The motives by which a person 

 is led to embrace the married state must be mor- 

 ally licit. 



«) Both parties must be convinced that they 

 are called to the married state and that they pos- 

 sess not only the necessary knowledge but like- 

 wise the religious and ethical qualities without 

 which married life cannot prove pleasing to God 

 nor helpful to the contracting parties. 10 As the 

 sexes are drawn together indiscriminately by the 

 natural stimulus of sensual and intellectual at- 

 traction, the gratification of the sexual instinct " 

 is not a sufficient moral motive to justify mar- 

 riage. The same is true of greed, Platonic love, 

 so called, and other purely secular motives. 

 None of these suffices to constitute matrimony 

 a truly moral relationship. 



There is nothing wrong in attending to physical 

 beauty and natural attraction in selecting a part- 



10 Ecclus. VII, 27 sq.; 1 Tim. II, 

 IS- — Rit. Rom., tit. 7, c. 1, n. 1: 

 "Uterque sciat rudimenta fidei, 

 quum ea deinde filios suos docere de- 

 beant." — For the instruction of 

 bridal couples in the duties of their 

 new state of life there are available 

 0. number of useful books, e. g., 

 Gerard, Marriage and Parenthood 

 (New York: Jos. Wagner), and oth- 

 ers. 



11 The Roman Catechism (F. II, 

 C 8, qu. 8) admonishes parish priests 

 to teach the faithful that the nature 

 and import of marriage consist in 

 the bond and obligation, and that, 

 besides the consent expressed in the 

 manner prescribed by the Church, 

 consummation is not necessarily re- 

 quired to constitute a true marriage. 

 — Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, The Sacra- 

 ments, Vol. IV, 2nd ed., pp. 184 sqq. 



