Are standards of right and wrong mere products of time and culture?

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires.” - Pope Benedict 16

(Gn 3:1-8)Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals
that the LORD God had made.
The serpent asked the woman,
“Did God really tell you not to eat
from any of the trees in the garden?”
The woman answered the serpent:
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;
it is only about the fruit of the tree
in the middle of the garden that God said,
‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’”
But the serpent said to the woman:
“You certainly will not die!
No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods
who know what is good and what is evil.”
The woman saw that the tree was good for food,
pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.
So she took some of its fruit and ate it;
and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her,
and he ate it.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened,
and they realized that they were naked;
so they sewed fig leaves together
and made loincloths for themselves.

When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day,the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God
among the trees of the garden.

Everyday in the local newspapers, we read about couples getting engaged, planning to get married in the Catholic Church. But how many seriously take counsel from the writings of the Popes and the wealth of the extraordinarily beautiful teachings of the Catholic Church on married life and human reproduction? Praise be to God for His glorious plan for man and woman!

The innocent eyes of Adam and Eve were opened to the world of sin and disobedience when they disobeyed God. Now in a sinful, secular world, which by its nature rebels against the will of God, married couples and those preparing for marriage desperately need to have their eyes opened (Gn 3:7) to the glory of God's beautiful plan for marriage. God's plan draws upon the original innocence and intimacy of man and woman before the fall. Yet God's plan far exceeds his original plan for Adam and Eve. It has been redeemed in Jesus to a new, risen, glorious innocence and intimacy of man and woman made into new creations in Jesus.

Married couples and those preparing for marriage, put your relationship in the hands of Jesus. Let Jesus touch your eyes and ears, and open them to hear God's will for your marriage. Jesus "has done everything well" (Mk 7:37), and He will make your relationship better than you could ever ask for or imagine (Eph 3:20).