(Borrowed from Scott Hahn’s Facebook page)
TAKING UP OF THE CROSS IN MARRIAGE
According to Croatian tradition, when a couple gets married, the priest doesn’t tell them that they have found the perfect person. On the contrary! Instead, he says to them: “You have found your cross. It is a cross to love, to carry it with you, a cross that is not to throw away but to treasure.”
In Herzegovina, the Cross represents the greatest love and the crucifix is the treasure of the house.
When the bride and groom enter the church on their wedding day, they carry a crucifix with them. The priest blesses the crucifix. When the time comes to exchange their vows, the bride puts her right hand on the crucifix and the groom puts his hand on hers, so that both hands are joined together on the crucifix.
The priest covers their hands with his stole as they exchange their vows, according to the rite of the Church, to be faithful to each other, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, till death do them part.
Then, instead of kissing each other, the bride and groom kiss the crucifix. Those who witness the ceremony understand from it that if one of them leaves the other, he or she leaves Christ on the Cross.
After the ceremony, the newlyweds bring the crucifix to their home and put it in a place of honor. It will forever be the point of reference and the place of family prayer. In times of difficulty, the family do not go to the lawyer or the psychiatrist, but kneel down together before the crucifix in search of help from Jesus Christ. They kneel down and maybe even cry and open their hearts asking the Lord and each other for forgiveness. They go to sleep with peace in their hearts because they have received forgiveness from the only one who has the power to save.
Husband and wife will teach their children to kiss the crucifix every day and not to go to sleep like pagans, without first giving thanks to Jesus. They know that Jesus is holding them in His arms and there is nothing to fear.
H/t Toby Kenobe
That is all very nice, but why does the Protestant Married Preacher within Catholicism, priest wannabe Scott Hahn, feel like it is his responsibility, and not that of a priest or religious, to bring us this information?
Scott Hahn is a heretic. He has publicly stated that laymen have an equal dignity to priests, probably because he is upset that he cannot be both married AND a Catholic priest. He wants as a professional theologian to have it both ways.
The problem with these former Protestants is that they bring their emotionalism and heresies, very subtly, into the Church. That is why they do not need to be acting like professional married priests and need to get real jobs:
“They kneel down and maybe even cry and open their hearts asking the Lord and each other for forgiveness.”
Is that right? This seems the typical over the top emotionalism of many former Protestants, which is why they do not need to be placing themselves into theology teaching positions.
“because they have received forgiveness from the only one who has the power to save.”
Subtle heresy from the former Protestant Scott Hahn, which is why he is so dangerous to Catholic souls.
As any Catholic knows, the Moher of God has the power to save as Coredemptrix, Mediatrix of all Graces, and Queen of Heaven and Earth. So why is the former Protestant saying that ONLY Jesus has the power to save? That is one thing that really started to bother me about Scott Hahn. He constantly in his books, very subtly, denigrates the power of the Virgin Mary.
I knew that wouldn’t take long.
“Joel”….What the @$%# is wrong with you?!?!?!?
He’s not wrong…. And why are you cussing at him? Not very Catholic behavior….
He’s not wrong, just going on and on about it. Scott Hahn didn’t write the piece, he simply shared it on his page, and I made proper attribution.
First of all, @$%# is not cussing…that’s kinda the whole point. I would admonish you to never again ever say ‘heck’, ‘jeeze’, ‘dang’, or anything else that stands in place of an actual, real cuss, otherwise you’re a pearl-clutching hypocrite.
And I stand by my symbols. He is wrong. And the vehement hatred dripping from Catholic fangs gives trads a reeeaallly bad name (and this I write as someone who moved across the country to be at an SSPX Priory). Joel (and mike) do it with such stupendous ease.
Chances are you know absolutely nothing about Scott, other than he’s a former protestant, and boy, we really can’t have any of THAT sort of thing in the REAL church now, can we? He’s a faithful student of and teacher of the Fathers; he’s given 2 of his sons as priests to God; he’s brought more people into the Church than St. Paul did; …what have you done? He’s one of the holiest souls I’ve ever come across, and I’ve come across a lot, though ironically not in Catholic site comboxes as a general rule.
Your hatred for a sincere and holy brother in the Faith is a real skandalon, and I say this in a spirit of Charity; you really need to get a grip on it. It’s a malignant form of pride, and a total absence of humility and Charity….I’d say maybe even worse than 4 symbols. ‘Heck’, wouldn’t you say so Cynthia?
Whoa, where did that personal attack come from? All I said was he wasn’t wrong entirely and I hold no hatred for Scott Hahn, I even have read some of his books. If there is any hatred being expressed, except my concern for your “symbols”, which do express meaning, it is coming from you. And FYI, I too am a member of an SSPX parish.
First of all ‘Cynthia’, the personal attack came from you, accusing me of something I didn’t do, in a post that wasn’t directed toward you..that’s the real unCatholic behavior. What I wrote after your accusation and personal insult is called a ‘response’. How do you know what my symbols stood for?…’heck’?, ‘hell’?…something worse? I’d say the interpretation was totally in the mind of the interpreter…a little room for clean-up there, I’d say, fellow trad.
Second of all, the majority of the post was aimed at Joel and his venomy posts, one of which was a real, unprovoked, undeserved personal attack against a good Catholic man and brother in the Faith …which you agreed with(!) btw, so really, own what you said. Lemme remember….the exact quote was “He’s not wrong”, not “he’s not entirely wrong”…’and gee, I really like Scott’. You try to change the meaning of your clear words to look like a victim…’I din do nuffin…why you pick on me??’. Again, how would you phrase that?…”Not very Catholic behavior….”
….just sayin’.
Is “susan” a professional Catholic?
The BETTER question is what is wrong with these professional lay Catholics. Why do they think they can be pretend priests and married at the same time? There was nothing like this in the Catholic Church ever before the 1980’s or so and even then it was rare. The Catholic teaching office has always been for priests and religious. You rarely ever see a Catholic book published before Vatican II by a layman. And then came Scott Hahn, Taylor Marshall, and all the other professional Catholics.
I have discerned that all our problems right now with two antipopes in a row, going on twelve years now, are largely their fault. They will NOT give up their donations and get real jobs–plumber, electrician, farmer, teacher, soldier, businessman, etc. They know if they want to keep their donations, they have to pretend that Bergoglio and Prevost are real popes.
I know part of the problem is Vatican II and the misrepresentation that we are all “prophet, priest, and king” (something never taught before Vatican II) and that they did not get good advice in high school and college. Someone charitably should have told them: “I know that Catholic theology is very interesting, but if you want to study theology in college, you need to become a priest. If you want to get married and have children, you need to study something whether in college or vocational school to support your wife and children, or you need to join the military. Then once you have a good job, you can study theology in the evenings or online.”
This wanting it both ways is causing the Church such problems right now. Priests have to be prudent and so it should be up to the lay Catholics to not accept these antipopes and to publicize the usurpation back in 2013 and put pressure on the bishops.
Electricity is new. There was no electricity before the Council of Trent. Shall we boycott it? Leads to a lot of heresy, IMO.
Also the traditional job was being a serf for lord Likes-a-berry. The unmanly men of today demand feminine things like worker’s rights and a career. Can ‘t even dig a potato from a ditch, like real men from before the Council of Trent.
Which is to say that neither Jesus nor the apostles made a special position of nun or monk in the Church but it was established because some people were intensely devout, though laymen.
In a related (local?) custom, at my (TLM) wedding, the priest brought the missal from the altar at the end of the nuptial blessing to my wife and me, and we each kissed the crucifix facing the first page of the Roman canon, with a similar meaning as the Croatian tradition described in the post. It was perhaps the most striking part of the whole day.
Excellent.