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What Binds Marriage Forever is a collection of texts written from 1956 to 1971 by Ida Friederike Görres, herself a married lay woman. Her main focus is the indissolubility of marriage. n the Preface, Görres observes the emergence of a marriage crisis in the West. “Each passing day,” she writes, “the conversation about marriage grows in gravity and urgency.” She wrote this in 1956; she could have written this and the other parts of this book in 2023. The centerpiece of the book is Chapter 1, written in 1971. She argues against Catholics who are trying to reframe marriage a mere love-bond that ceases when love ceases. She mounts a defense of the Catholic teaching on marriage against her counterparts’ calls to allow divorce and remarriage. She exposes the central role modern individualism plays in their arguments. She demon­strates how their arguments are ahistorical, a recipe for relational instability, and harmful to those who suffer when their spouses are adulterous, especially when the adulterous spouse is cheered on for acting out of “love.” Her core argument is that what binds marriage forever is a combination of “covenant, law, and grace, that is, sacrament.” Chapters 2 and 3 explore the topic of marriages between Catholics and bap­tized non-Catholics or non-Christians. Görres discusses the difficulties that such marriages can generate, not least of all the decision of which faith the children should be raised in. Chapter 4 is an overview of the sacramentality of marriage. She explains how marriage relates to the indissoluble bond between God and creation and she explains how the three traditional goods of marriage (fidelity, sacrament, off­spring) are reflected in the marriage liturgy.

Written by Dominican preacher and mystic Bl. Henry Suso (c. 1300-1366), Horologium Sapientiae, or Wisdom's Watch upon the Hours, was one of the most successful religious writings of its time. Now it is offered to the English-speaking world in a new translation based on Pius Knzle's critical Latin edition.