Section 4 | Rule 13: Regarding the Custos’ Sacred Duty to Foster His Wife’s Sanctification

Let the husband understand that he is responsible for fostering his wife’s sanctification, for the scripture says, “Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for her: that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the laver of the water in the word of life” (Eph 5:25-26). The Custos is responsible for fostering and encouraging his wife in the ways of God, that she be sacred (Greek: hagios), holy and set apart for God. He is to accomplish this in three ways: first by protecting her from being assimilated to the world; for as the holy apostle says, “to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God” (Jms 4:4). Second, the husband is to protect her from his own disordered desires, particularly by seeing her as an object of lust, or by reducing her to being his servant. As it is has been said, “Lust separates love from sacrifice”; and sacrifice (particularly of himself and his disordered desires) is the duty of the priest of the domestic church. For as the holy apostle says, “offer your bodies as a holy and living sacrifice” (see Rom 12:1). Third, the Custos is to protect his wife from the evil one, by guarding her relationship with God; primarily by embodying the love of God and being a living reflection of God the Father and Christ the Divine Bridegroom; and secondarily by ensuring that she has adequate time for prayer and meditation that she may be renewed and strengthened for her ministry.

Devin Schadt | Executive Director of the Fathers of St. Joseph

Ite ad Joseph