Father's Day, Wives and Husbands

I am blessed to have a good husband. He is a kind and loving man who provides for our family and is a great example to the children. My son is learning how to be a man and my daughter is learning what kind of a man she ought to give her heart to. I honor, respect and yes, obey, him, even. When we were married, I made a conscious choice to defer to him if we had any disagreements. I told myself I'd only fight if he were wrong about something. And this decision has served us well. Oh, we still end up having stupid fights once in a while, like who should clean out the cat box, but they're so dumb we end up laughing. The unexpected consequence of deferring to my husband is that he always takes my wishes into consideration. And I'm not shy about letting him know what I need or want.

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So earlier this year, when I was reading the Bible and came across these verses (1 Cor 11:1-11) on veiling yourself to show obedience to your husband, I decided to cover my head in church. I grew up in a culture where women typically cover their heads during prayer. And the Muslim women were always covered. So this was not strange for me. My mother always pulled the palloo of her sari over her head in church. The Catholic church doesn't say that married women should or shouldn't use a veil, but I feel compelled to. There is an interesting shift in my mind as I cover myself. There is a cocooning effect for one. I can fix my eyes more easily on Jesus and be less distracted by others around me. And it is to honor, respect and humble myself before my Lord and my husband that I veil myself.

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Here is a short passage for wives in Ephesians 5:22-24.

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Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

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It is not popular in our culture to submit to anybody. But consider the responsibilities of the husband as well in Eph. 5:25-32.

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Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.

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Read these excellent reflections on marriage and on fatherhood by Msgr. Pope.

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