Advice for childless couples

Metropolitan Athanasios (Nikolaou) of Limassol (Cyprus) talks about couples that cannot have children naturally and the purpose of Christian marriage: “The human purpose is the eternal relationship with God”

Series: Family Life (FL)
Subtitles: English, Romanian

Metropolitan Athanasios:

“The human purpose is not marriage, nor monasticism, nor anything else. Like the purpose of marriage is not procreation. The human purpose is the eternal relationship with God. This is the first thing to look for. If someone succeeds in finding it, then he or she is fulfilled!

The same happens in marriage: If you fulfill the purpose of marriage, and if for one reason or another you can not have children, then it does not mean you have to ruin your marriage or you have a failed marriage, or anything like that. Sure, I know, I understand, it’s a trauma, a deficiency, but that does not mean that if we do not give birth to children then our marriage will not work well. The purpose of marriage is different! The purpose of our life is another one! And we are patient, we wait, we try. We are patient, we do not worry. We discover the true value of our life, its true hypostats.

My children, neither one nor the other are important, these are ephemeral things. They belong to this life. Sure… Each thing has, let’s say, its beauties. Who said that there is no beautiful part in each way of life? Do not worry! I remember that once, I told you, a boy went to Father Paisios, desperate, and said, “Father, I am 37, and I am not married yet!” He was depressed, he said, “I am 37 and I have not married yet!” The elder said, “My child, I am 70 and I am not married yet! Be patient, you still have time!” What was the Father supposed to tell him? Shouldn’t he rest him somehow?

So, my children, I want to say that behind these jokes there is a meaning, these things are good, they are beautiful, each thing in the right place, but if you do not learn to discover the purpose of your life, the meaning of your existence, and you think that the meaning of your life is marriage, or a specific man, or a girl, or children, or, maybe studies, or whatever, it means that you reduce the meaning of your life, and make an idol out of something that is not absolute, but relative! So if this is going to become ruined at some point, whether it is called marriage or studies, or our health, it can happen something with us, to get sick, and we can no longer go ahead, or a failure, or anything else that can happen in our lives!

If we do not understand what our purpose is, and we do absolutise these relative things, then, my children, there is a danger that at some point we will collapse! Like the one who stands on stilts! At some point they will break and he or she will fall down! You can not make an idol out of your life, your marriage, your children, your husband, your job, your money, your knowledge! Not these things! We have to stand above them, so that we may have peace in our lives!“