OK, so many of you who went to Mass today hear the “Infamous” line: Wives should be subordinate to their Husbands as to the Lord. For the Husband is the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is the Head of the Church…so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything; (Eph 5:20-21, 23) Well apparently the Holy Spirit didn’t get the memo that we don’t think and talk like that today! 
Alright, so maybe it grates on modern ears today but don’t just dismiss what God teaches here. One of the great dangers of this passage is that it is so startling to modern ears that many people tune out after the first line into their own thoughts and reactions and thus miss the rest of what God has to say. You may notice that there is text that follows and before a man gloats at the first line or a women reacts with anger or sadness we do well to pay attention to the rest of the text which spells out the duties of a husband. You see if you’re going to be the head of a household there are certain requirements that have to be met. God’s not playing around here or choosing sides. He has a comprehensive plan for husbands that is demanding and requires him to curb any notions that authority is about power and to remember that, for a Christian, authority is always given so that the one who has it may serve (cf Mark 10:42-45).
So what are the requirements for a husband?
- Husbands, love your wives- Pay attention men, don’t just tolerate your wife, don’t just bring home money, don’t just love in some intellectual sort of way. LOVE your wife with all your heart. Beg God for the grace to love your wife tenderly, powerfully and unconditionally. Did you hear what God says? LOVE your wife! Now he goes on to tell you to love her in three ways: passionately, purifyingly and providingly.
- Passionate love – even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her. The Greek word (Paradidomi) translated here as “handed over” always refers in the New Testament to Jesus’ crucifixion. Husbands, are you willing to give your life for your wife and children? Are you willing to die to yourself and give your life as a daily sacrifice for them? God instructs you to love your wife (and children) with the same kind of love he has for his Bride the Church. That kind of love is summed up in the cross. Love your wife passionately, be willing to suffer for her, be willing to make sacrifices for her and the children.
- Purifyingly - to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Now a husband cannot sanctify his wife in the same way God can. But what a husband is called to do is to help his wife and children grow in their relationship to Jesus Christ. He is first to be under God’s authority himself and thus make it easier for his wife and children to live out their baptismal commitments. He ought to a spiritual leader in his home, praying with his wife and children, reading scripture and seeing to it that his home is a place where God is loved and obeyed, first of all by him. His wife should not have to drag him to Church, he should willingly help her to grow in holiness and pray with her every day. And he should become more holy as well and thus make it easier for his wife to live the Christian life.
- Providingly – So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it - Husbands, take care of your wife in her needs. She needs more than food money and shelter, these days she can get a lot of that for herself. What she needs even more is your love, understanding, and appreciation. She needs for you to be a good listener and wants an attentive husband who is present to her. Like any human being she needs reassurance and affirmation. Tell her of your love and appreciation, don’t just presume she knows. Show care for your wife, attend to her needs just like you instinctively do for your own self. That’s what God is teaching here.
OK, so scripture DOES teach that a wife should be submitted to her husband. But what kind of husband does scripture have in mind? A husband who really loves his wife, who is a servant leader, who is makes sacrifices for his wife, who is prayerful and spiritual, submitted to God’s authority and who cares deeply for his wife and her needs. The same God who teaches submission (and he does) also teaches these things clearly for the husband. The teaching must be taken as a whole.
For more on this consider listening to my sermon on this from today. It is here (Teaching on Marriage) in mp3 format. It is 35 minutes! but consider downloading it if you can’t listen just now. You can download this and other sermons of mine by going here: http://frpope.com/audio/recordings.phpand then right clicking on the title of any talk and selecting the “Save Target As” option. You can also get my sermons at iTunes. Just search on my name. Perhaps put this or other sermons on your iPod and listen when you get the chance.
This video clip is from the movie Fireproof and depicts a heartfelt apology from a husband who realizes he has not loved his wife as he should. A beautiful movie available at Amazon if you have never seen it.
Amen, Father!!
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this post! I that if more married couples submitted to this, as God commands, would there be so many divorces? So many single parent households? I think not….
LOL!
Plus I always look at it like this…he (my husband) is the boss, if it all goes to the birds….it’s his fault
Msgr. Pope, thanks for tackling one of the most difficult readings on which to preach. I think it is not only an opportunity to “set the record straight” about a misunderstood passage but also to confront the reality that in most houselholds these days the woman really is in charge and tends to run the show. The priest I heard preach talked about headship as the husband taking the lead in service to his wife and his family, stepping up to the plate in family affairs and this message is an important one as well, especially in two -parent working households when there is not enough hours in the day to do it all and often the wife and mother carries the bigger burden.
WOW is all I can say!!! You could not have made it any clearer. Maybe if we keep praying hard enough, and you keep preaching the WORD like this, just maybe we will be able to at least lower the divorce rate!…..LOL
As I read it, the passage is not difficult to understand, but people read it and take the “burger king” approach to marriage, i.e., have your way (as opposed to God’s way). I think this section of Ephesians 5 begins with the call to “submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.” Submit out of reverence to Christ. We need to spend more time thinking about the meaning of the text. Far too many say it is too hard even though the theme is constantly repeated starting in the beginning where the “the two become one and have dominion over God’s creation (Gen 1) and they were naked and not ashamed, i.e., fully open in communicating and relating to one another (Gen 2). at some point in time, we got to the present state i.e., naked and ashamed (Gen 3) and we often choose to stay here.
i have a basic question for one who would consider submitting consistent with the text. What is the appropriate response to a spouse who would submit consistent with divine law and enter a relationship by submitting out of reverence for Christ. My choice to attempt to live by this law is the best choice I have made in this life because my wife sees my intent and consistently responds to me in the way Christ responds to all. so, What is the appropriate response and will you commit to it?
The problem with this passage being the *Second* Reading at Mass is that it’s very easy for the Priest to not have to comment on it in his homily and only speak about the Gospel reading. This happened on the rare occasion when a relative of mine went to Mass (she was badly burnt by the church growing up). As you can imagine she reacted very badly to *her perception* of what this passage said. I really don’t think you can proclaim a scripture passage as provocative as this one without providing at least some commentary on it.
Things will change when I am Pope…
Lots of qualifications and caveats. In my view, this kind of teaching undermines the husband’s authority. Yes, he has obligations and duties, and so does the wife. This is a sort of eloquent, roundabout way of saying that wives don’t need to submit to their husbands as to the Lord. It doesn’t work.
It’s easy these days to say that a husband should be willing to be crucified for his wife, but not that a wife should obey her husband in doing housework or in the way she dresses.
Dan, if housework needs doing, why would the man expect his wife to obey? Seriously. Can’t the husband typically do his share of housework? Is the typical husband so wimpy that he can’t learn to vacuum or wash the dishes? (By the way, Don’t forget: Obey is not in Catholic marriage vows. Your wife is not a servant or an employee.)
Thank you Father,
I do not have any problem with the picture you paint of a Christian husband in this piece. Surely this is the biblical ideal of what authority looks like. What I have always struggled with when people insist that men be the head of their households and that wives submit to their husbands is that I have never seen a single example of what such submission looks like in the concrete. I always want to ask, give me 3 examples of a wife submitting to her husband in three different areas of life. What does it actually look like when a woman submits to her husband on a question of child-rearing? What does it look like when a woman submits to her husband on a question of employment? What does it look like when a woman submits to her husband on a question of household management? etc.
As Dan points out, this is where the rubber meets the road. Unlike Dan, if I read him rightly, I have no expectation that a man can dictate to his wife about housework or her wardrobe. But I think Dan is right in pointing out that even after all your eloquence about what a man’s role in a marriage looks like, we still don’t know a thing about what a woman’s submission looks like.
I am in full agreement with Steve that a wife is not “a servant or an employee.” As such her submission shouldn’t look like that. But what does her submission look like? Without an answer to that, the main difficulty of the modern reader remains.
Steve, I suppose because her role is to submit to her husband as to the Lord. Nobody argues that a husband has a right to be a tyrant or that his wife is his employee, but she is his wife, and he is her leader. If he thinks for the good of the family the house should be cleaner or his wife should dress more modestly, she should be submissive in that, which means, practically speaking, obedient.
Brett’s right on. Nearly everything written on this subject now is supersensitive to modern feminism, in effect, in my view, hobbling husbands, so they think they basically have no authority that their wives don’t have, that they are equals in every sense. Or even that they have less authority than their wives. But servant leadership isn’t the same things as submission. Jesus isn’t submissive to his Church, even though he gave up his life for it.