“The ordinary way to holiness and to the fullness of Christian life
is marriage. Most men and women will become saints in the married
state. And yet so many Christians who are not called to religious life
or to the preisthood say of themselves ‘I have no vocation!’ What a
mistake! They have a wonderful vocation, all the more wonderful because
of its relative freedom and lack of formality. For the ’society’ which
is the family lives beautifully by its own spontaneous inner laws. It
has no need of codified rule and custom. Love is its rule and all its
customs are the living expression of deep and sincere affection. In a
certain sense, the vocation to the married state is more desirable than
any other, because of the fact that this spontaneity, this spirit of
freedom and union in charity is so easily accessible, for the ordinary
man, in family life. The formalism and artificiality which creep into
religious communities are with difficulty admitted into the circle of a
family where powerful human values triumphantly resist the incursions
of falsity.”

– Thomas Merton (activist and Catholic Monk 1915-1968)