family Archives - Faith and Marriage

November 9, 2022November 9, 2022

Supper & Substance STRIKES Again!

Praise and thanks be to God, after three years we were able to once again host our Annual Diocesan-Wide Supper & Substance at good ole’ Rock ’N’ Bowl! We are so thankful for our sponsors and patrons, John & Deborah Blancher for providing the band, the volunteers, our speaker couple – Kate & David Dawson Jr., and of course all those who joined in on the fun! With delicious food, great people, live music, dancing, bowling, and an inspiring presentation from the Dawsons, it was another fun faith-filled event! And while it would be difficult to go into detail concerning everything from the night, I would like to share three major “take aways”.

The first major “take away” was being reminded how good it is to be together! Many times we can take that for granted or we can forget how much of a blessing that is. We are made for communion and we thrive in community. See couples dancing, bowling together, conversing with other couples, enjoying a meal with everyone, and doing all of that at an event dedicated to enriching the Sacrament of Matrimony, was a truly wonderful sight to see. I hope that at some point everyone there was able to sit back and reflect on the beauty and importance of good fellowship and how healthy it is for us to do that often.

The second major “take away” from the night was the witness from Kate & David. They shared with us the importance of being on the same page spiritually as your spouse and to take the time to foster that unity together. They stressed the priority of putting your marriage ahead of being a parent which will in turn make you a better mom and dad. They also shared the importance of fathers taking on their role as the spiritual head of the family and the tremendous impact that it has on children holding on to their faith into adulthood. But with all that they said, it was their example that spoke the loudest, that they live by faith and not by sight, trusting in the Lord and that He cares for us and He will provide.

The third major “take away” from the night was an invitation to couples to start, restart, or continue offering Supper & Substance at their Church Parish. One of the main reasons why we started the Diocesan-Wide Supper & Substance was to reignite the vibrant Supper & Substance program that Hurricane Katrina put a huge damper on. What better way to promote it than to offer one across the Archdiocese and show how fruitful it can be. Our hope is that couples will return back to their parish and ask their Pastors how they can assist in offering this simple and effective marriage enrichment event at their Parish.

In closing, I just want to again, give thanks, praise, honor and glory to God for allowing the 13th Annual Diocesan-Wide Supper & Substance to be such a success and for all the amazing blessings that came from it. We are all so grateful for all our donors and supports as well as everyone who was able to attend. Special thanks to Kate & David Dawson Jr for all the amazing insights they shared with us and if you are interested in bringing Supper & Substance to your Parish, please call me (504) 830-3716, email jason@FaithandMarriage.org, or visit FaithAndMarriage.org.

November 9, 2022November 10, 2022

Husbands and Fathers, Lead Like St. Joseph

In this year of St. Joseph, I wanted to take this time to remind all husbands and fathers to embrace the responsibility to be the spiritual head of your family.

I was recently listening to an interview with Fr. Donald Calloway where he was talking about his recent book, “Consecration to St. Joseph”. He made the point that we as men, as husbands and as fathers, need to be the spiritual leaders in our families. Too often men will renounce our God given role to lead our families to our wife or forgo it entirely where our wife is left to pick up and carry, many times on her own, the mantel that we let drop.

One excuse that we often give to try and comfort ourselves or justify our behavior is admitting that our wife is more spiritual than we are, she knows more of the faith than we do, or she is holier than we are and so it stands to reason that she should be the one to lead.

Fr. Callaway pushed back on this idea by highlighting the fact that while Mary was conceived without sin, St. Joseph still led the Holy Family. Although Mary was the better “prayer”, she supported and trusted St. Joseph to be the spiritual leader, and so did God.

St. Joseph is a model and a reminder for all of us men. A model to see that regardless of who the holier one is in the home, we are still given the amazing task of being the head of our household. And a reminder that our authority to lead is one not of ruling over, but about doing the will of God in love and humility.

In a home where the wife was literally “Full of Grace” and “the Immaculate Conception”, St. Joseph did not abdicate his role to Mary. We too, in all love and humility, are called embrace the mission to lead our family in faith, to lead and carry out the will of the Father in Heaven.

When we are tempted to fall into this false sense of humility or try to outsource our God given responsibility to someone else, even if it is to an amazing wife and mother, just know that St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother are not impressed.

What does that mean concretely? Well, first we can ask ourselves, do we love God with all of our hearts, all of our minds, all of our strength, and with all of our souls? Do we trust Him and His will for us and our families? Do we believe that He is with us and that He is calling us to a deeper relationship with Him? Are we going to prayer everyday, without compromise? Are we initiating and leading couple prayer time with our spouse and are we bringing the family together each night for family prayer time? Are we taking the initiative to ask our wives to go on a married couples retreat together, or to learn more about your faith together? Are we leading by example when it comes to humility and forgiveness? Are we going to Confession and bringing our children with us? Do we love Jesus in the Eucharist? Do we foster that same love to our families? Do we help to get the kids ready for Mass on Sundays? Are we leading by example our faithfulness to Christ and His Church? Are we growing in our knowledge of the Scriptures and sharing with our families the ways of the Lord in word and in deed? Are we witnessing the love of God to our friends, families, and even to strangers? St. Joseph, Husband of Mary, Foster Father of Jesus Christ, Head of the Holy Family, and Patron of Fathers, Pray for us that we too may do the will of the Father and lead our families in faith and love.

by Jason Angelette, Faith and Marriage

May 17, 2022May 18, 2022

Couple Prayer – An Essential Key to a Thriving Marriage

“He who does not pray deprives himself of what is indispensable for life.”
– St. John Vianney (curé d’Ars):

We all want our marriages to do more than just survive; we want them to thrive! Not only is God the divine architect laying out the blueprint for a strong and lasting marriage, He is also the one who nourishes and perfects the very love of the spouses and gives them the grace to love as He loves!

In marriage, the man and the woman are “no longer two but one”(1) and in this sacramental union there is a new responsibility for the couple to foster and build up their relationship as one in the Lord. By its very design, marriage embraces a journey in faith that requires couples to draw closer to the Lord. This drawing together in the Lord takes on a much deeper aim than just asking the Lord for things. In the vocation of marriage, the Lord calls the spouses both individually and as one body, to draw near to Him.

“Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. Because, without me, you can do nothing” – John 15:4-5

How do couples respond to this invitation or how can they become more firmly grafted on the vine? While much can be written to answer this question, the focus here will be to look at one of the three perfect means that Pope St. John Paul II told married couples is necessary in forming a deeper intimacy with the Lord, and that of course, is prayer(2).

Since we are both physical and spiritual, or as St. John Paul II said, an “incarnate spirit”, we have physical needs and we have spiritual needs. Prayer, the sacraments, God’s word is like oxygen for the lungs. When we breathe deep into that abiding relationship, we are, by God’s grace, allowing that flow of life to enter into us. Every capable person is responsible to the building up their own spiritual walk in the Lord. Marriage takes on an additional invitation, building up the spiritual life of the spouses(3).

Every person is responsible for the building up of his or her own spiritual walk in the Lord. In marriage, the individuals take on the additional invitation to build up their spiritual life as a couple.3 While helping couples understand the necessity and benefits of praying together is important, just as important is teaching spouses how to pray as a couple. I would like to offer some simple steps in fostering your own couple prayer time:

Step 1: Ask God to help you commit to praying together as a couple.
Step 2: Find a time and a place that works best for the both of you and start small with 5 minutes.
Step 3: Regardless of how awkward or challenging it may be, or even when arguments come about because you are trying to commit to praying as a couple, don’t give up on it(4).
Step 4: Find a particular form or type of prayer that works best for the two of you(5).

Remember prayer is a “simple look turned toward Heaven”(6) so it can take on a variety of forms. To keep things simple, I would like to offer three options of couple prayer:

Option 1: The first is the, “We don’t have a lot of time, but we don’t want to go to bed without praying something together as a couple” option. If this is your situation, simply make the sign of the cross, pray together the prayer below, and then give each other a kiss goodnight.

“Lord Jesus, You are the author of life and the author of marriage. I thank You now for the gift of my vocation to marriage. Thank you for my spouse. Give me the grace to love, honor and cherish my spouse. Fill me with the gifts of Your Spirit that I may joyfully carry out the duties of my vocation. Help me to remember Your presence throughout the day so that I may not grow weary in loving and serving my family. Without You, Lord, I can do nothing. Renew my love, my patience and my fidelity that in loving my spouse I may better love and serve You. Amen(7)”

Option 2: The second option, one of my favorites, is to pray the Rosary together(8). Pope Saint Pius X wrote, “The Rosary is the most beautiful and the most rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God…and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.”

Option 3: The third option that I would like to offer is a form of prayer called “A TRIP”. I learned “A TRIP” from an amazing couple that I look up to very much and who have done great work in strengthening marriages for many years. It was a blessing in my marriage and I hope you will allow this daily trip to bless yours!

TAKE “A TRIP” TOGETHER EVERY DAY WITH GOD
? Begin with the sign of the cross.
? Read the Gospel of the day
? Listen in silence to the stirring of the Holy Spirit in your hearts.
? Pray using the following “A TRIP” formula.

ADORATION:
1. Spend a few moments just praising God together, worshipping the greatness and majesty of the Lord.
• “Praise the LORD! My soul; I will praise the LORD all my life, sing praises to my God while I live. Put not your trust in princes, in children of Adam powerless to save. Who breathing his last, returns to the earth; that day all his planning comes to nothing. Blessed the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD, his God” – Psalm 146: 2-5

THANKSGIVING:
2. What in this reading leads me to thankfulness or where do I find a reason for gratitude to God?
A Thankful heart leads me to appreciate all of life as the gift of a generous God.
• What can I thank my spouse for today?

REPENTANCE/REFLECTION:
3. As I reflect on this reading, what comes to mind? What stood out to you? Or as you reflect on this ready, is there something that is calling you to repent or what attitudes or behaviors does the Scripture expose in me that interfere with my drawing nearer to God? A repentant heart is open to God’s grace
and is tenderer toward others.
• Is there something that I need to ask forgiveness of from my spouse?

INTERCESSION:
4. For whom am I to pray this day? Specifically mention by name those who have asked for prayer or of whom you aware need prayer.
• Become a daily prayer warrior for others. A prayerful heart can be used by God to draw others closer to Him.

PLAN:
5. What plan of action does the Scripture encourage me to take? What one thing can I do today with the help of the Holy Spirit to act in accordance with the Word? A purpose-filled heart is alert to God’s Spirit prompting me to act for the good.
• Share your plans for the day with your spouse and remember important times you can keep them in prayer.

1 cf. Matthew 19:6
2 “Prayer,” the “Eucharist,” and the sacrament of “Penance”are the means “infallible and indispensable to form the Christian spirituality of conjugal and familial life.” Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body 126.5
3 If the marriage is blessed with children, there needs to be a building up of the spiritual life of the family.
4 There is too much a stake and too many blessings that will come from this to not strive to do this.
5 Even if one spouse likes a particular style of prayer and the other spouse prefers another type of prayer, that should not prevent couples
from praying together as a couple. This is not about changing a person’s personal prayer style but finding what your couple prayer style looks
like. It can be a blending of your styles or a simple rotation from one style to the next.
6 St. Thérèse of Lisieux
7 Willwoods Spouse’s Prayer
8 This link can bring you to some great resources

March 12, 2019April 1, 2019

What is Hope? Part 2

In the first part of this series on defining hope, I focused on the theological and spiritual aspects of hope; how hope is a virtue anchored on God and intimately united with love. (It’s a great read, check it out before moving on to this post). To briefly summarize, hope is a belief that things will get better. It is not the same thing as wishful thinking, which is naive and short-sighted; hope rests on an eternal goodness that gives perspective to our current struggles. For this post, I want to focus on the disposition of the one who has hope. What does living with hope do to the interior psyche of a person? How does it help in living a more fulfilling life? (I am a counselor, after all, and these types of questions always fascinate me.) Living with hope does a few things to the individual that possess this virtue. It provides a healthy-optimistic view of the world, it gives meaning in life, and it leads to right action. All of which are positive indicators for living a good life.

Psychologically speaking, optimism is an unwavering personality trait that regardless of the circumstances you still see life as good. The opposite of optimism is pessimism, where you see life as fundamentally flawed. According to Dr. Martin Seligman, in his book Authentic Happiness, the optimist is the person who sees bad events in life as temporary and isolated incidents, blips on the radar. He is able to understand and explain these bad moments. Moreover, he finds meaning and purpose in them. He can maintain perspective while not succumbing to the pains of life. The pessimist is the opposite, he is the person who sees the world negatively and dismisses the good events as temporary and isolated. The good moments become the blips on the radar for the pessimist. The optimist has hope, the pessimist does not. As a result, the optimist generally lives a healthier life than the pessimist and is not as prone to depression.

The traits of optimism and pessimism not only impact the individual but her social life and relationships. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s hard to get motivated to go out with friends or do some charitable work when you feel depressed or scared. As a result, pessimism can lead to self-absorption and rumination of negative experiences. It can become a nasty self-fulfilling prophecy. (We all have moments of this in life, but it becomes clinical when it is pervasive or due to trauma.) A simple way of testing where you fall on the optimism-pessimism spectrum is to think about your thinking: How often do you find yourself ruminating on past negative events or current stressors? How easy is it to recall recent gratifying experiences? How likely are you to dismiss a compliment? How likely are you to focus on worry and anxiety? There are concrete steps you can take to shift your thinking from focusing on the bad events and recalling hopeful memories. I encourage you to listen to episodes 14 and 15 of Always Hope on redemptive suffering and Catholic mindfulness, respectively, to further dive into these approaches.

The person with hope has a deep sense of meaning and purpose in her life. As I stated in the previous post, the fullness of hope rests on God’s promises of eternal salvation. Nothing short of heaven can fulfill our deepest longings. Fr Jacques Phillippe, in the chapter “Expect the impossible” in A Beautiful Hope, stated that hope is linked to desire and God will purify our hope and desires. Inevitably, there comes a moment when hope in the “lesser things” (see my previous post) fades and all that is left is a burning desire for God alone: not his church, not his gifts, not his favors, but Him and Him alone. We tend to lose hope in those moments of suffering, but that doesn’t have to be the case if we can continue to unite our pains and trials with Jesus and be patient with our emotions as we wrestle with our despair. (Two great autobiographical accounts of this purgative process are A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis and He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek.) Remember that God often allows us to suffer to draw us closer to himself, not to push us away. It is in those moments that we reach the limits of our human capacity, embrace our poverty, and cry out for salvation. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 5:3). The person with hope lives this promise. Her face is set like flint against the hardships of the world. He is able to turn the other cheek and learn to bloom wherever God has planted him. The person with hope becomes a beacon to the world that sin does not have the final answer and that love has already triumphed!

When we anchor our hope on God, and when we have shifted our desires to understand how that hope is actualized within us, now we can be people of right action. So, hope is also linked to the pearl of virtues…wisdom. Let me explain this in a story. Recently, I was having a conversation with my friend, Fr. Josh Johnson, who quoted a homily by his bishop (Michael Duca of Baton Rouge), who said that hope allows us to know what to pray for. Sometimes in the hospital rooms, families are praying for their loved ones not to die, when the more appropriate thing would be to pray for a peaceful death. Even in death, we have hope. (What a truly beautiful Christian thought…that death becomes the vehicle that unites us with our creator!) It would be “wishful thinking” for the family to continue praying for the person to come back to life when the greater miracle is that their loved one is closer to God after death than before it. Again, hope leads to wisdom. Even when we have to make changes in our current circumstances, like finding a new job or leaving a bad relationship, we can only truly know how to move forward when our desires have been purified and possess the clarity on what that next step should be. (More on this point in the next post).

So, cling to hope brothers and sisters! Let your hearts rest on Jesus, so that your mind may be clear enough to do the tasks before you. Let hope fill you so that we can be the light God has asked us to be in this world.

The final part of this series will be up soon! Stay connected with me on Facebook and Instagram (@drmariosacasa) so you don’t miss it!

February 26, 2019April 1, 2019

What is Hope?

I launched the Always Hope podcast back in October 2018 to help you see how living with hope will improve your life and relationships and better equip you to navigate cultural issues. It is a joy doing the show, but there is a lingering issue that continues to arise in my mind. I have failed to define my terms! Namely, the most important word of the show… hope. (My inner academic feels ashamed right now.) Therefore, in the next few blog posts, I’m going to define how I see hope from both theological and psychological lenses.

What is hope? In a nutshell, hope is the fundamental belief that things will get better. It is an interior disposition that is tied to both endurance and courage. It is the ability to hang on in the hard times and, simultaneously, the ability to make real changes in life when needed. Hope is a virtue that leads us to happiness and peace. It is good to live life with a belief that no matter what happens things will get better. The opposite of hope is despair: the belief that no matter what happens things will not get better or will get much worse. Simply put, despair sucks and is terrible for your mental health.

We need hope but more importantly we have to place our hope in the right things, because hoping is a vulnerable process. What happens when the thing we hope for doesn’t work out? Our expectations get crushed and we get hurt. What happens when we constantly open up and get disappointed? Well, then, eventually we stop opening up to not take the chance of getting hurt. This is why in AA circles, they say “hope and sh** go hand and hand.” That’s why it is crucial to not just have a willy-nilly hope, but one that is truly anchored in something that will never disappoint. We have to place our hope in something that will ultimately bring us authentic happiness or everlasting peace.

This is why hope is more than just a human virtue, it is a theological virtue. Hope is most fully actualized when it rests on God, who is the object of our hope, and the source of it. We have hope to the degree that we are able to see God’s goodness in the difficulties of life. Heaven is where we are headed and the taste of it along the journey of life is what keeps us going. As Christians, we believe in a God who became a man to teach us what it means to be fully human and then he died on the cross and rose again to give us the grace needed to actualize that vision of humanity.

Our hope squarely rests on the reality of the resurrection. It is the answer to the riddle of death. If God himself could die (which is just about the worst thing that could happen) and then overcame that atrocity in a miraculous event, then couldn’t he save us from our sin and struggles, too? If he is a personable and loving God? Because of this belief, hope is intimately connected with faith and love, which round out the three theological virtues. “…And so faith, hope, and love remain, and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:13). Without love and charity there cannot be a fullness of hope. Without faith, we cannot access the grace needed to live with hope.

Can we have hope without faith? Yes, of course. Anyone can have an optimistic belief that things will get better or find ways to create meaning and purpose in life. Yet, I’m with Benedict XVI who said in Spe Salvi, that without faith, our hope will be placed in lesser things whose peace is temporary. We look for a new job, success, achievement, we buy a new gadget, or seek to make some other change hoping that it will bring us peace and happiness. Or we look for substances or certain behaviors to bring us momentary feelings of calm and relief. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t desire success or look for ways to improve our life, I’m just saying that we still need something bigger to anchor those changes and direct our decisions in a way that brings real hope. Change for the sake of change is not real hope.

Can we have hope without love, though? I don’t think so. Even our hope in ‘lesser things’ should be motivated out of love for peace and consolation to be real. Love is the greatest virtue, it is the one that remains for all of eternity. Love is the supreme good that brings meaning in life. Firmly stated, without love we will despair and turn away from goodness. Eventually, without love, we will grow to hate the good things in life; like the Grinch hating the Whos and their joy of Christmas. An inability to face the goodness of life because it hurts too much is a severe pain indeed. Love is the purpose of life, it “decides everything” (quoting Fr. Arrupe) and we really need it to have hope.

I’ll end this post, by reflecting on a movie that drives these points home, The Shawshank Redemption. This is a movie about how hope can be lived even in the most despairing of places. Andy’s hope allows him to endure the challenges of prison life, yet it is the same hope that helps him plot his escape. The Mexican paradise is his hope that allows him to believe that goodness has not been lost in the world. (Of course, the beach is a metaphor for heaven, which is Paradise itself!) He also is motivated by his love for his friend, Red. Andy’s desire isn’t just to be in Paradise alone, but to be there with his friend. (Is this not a metaphor for the the Communion of Saints!?) Like Andy, let us place our hope in things that are truly substantive. Let us hope with faith and love so that we can have peace in life.

Stay tuned, part 2 of this series on hope will be out soon! Follow me on facebook or instagram (@drmariosacasa), so you don’t miss it when it comes out!

February 21, 2019April 30, 2019

Live Out Your Vows

February 14, 2019April 30, 2019

Marriage is a Vocation

February 12, 2019April 1, 2019

Mystery, Modesty, and Romance

When I was a college student, the director of the Catholic Student Union at Florida State University, Br. Sam Gunn often had words of wisdom to us college kids and the one that I want to write about today concerns dating and romance. At the end of a weekly gathering, Wednesday Spirit Nites, Bro Sam got up and wrote on a whiteboard three simple words, “Mystery, Modesty, Romance” and said something like, “If you don’t understand what this means, then figure it out.” That’s all he said and the night ended.

This was nearly 20 years ago and I haven’t stopped trying to figure out what he meant. His words were exactly what us college students, stuck in a hook-up culture, needed to hear… when sex becomes cheap and casual, true romance is dead. Basically, in order to have true romance there must be something worthy of pursuing, a great good worth seeking, and a mystery worth discovering. Every person is a mystery and true Eros is the type of love that draws us closer to one particular person with wonder and desire. So, how does one safeguard their mystery from false Eros? Modesty.

Modesty is not synonymous with puritanical prudishness, which purports to cover-up out of fear or because erotic desire is bad. That’s just wrong. Authentic modesty is rooted in a profound understanding of your goodness and knowing that only someone truly worthy has the right to see it. “Don’t throw your pearls before the swine,” Jesus said in Matthew 7:6, resist the pressure to show off what you got, choose modesty. Without modesty, there is no mystery, and without mystery, there can be no romance. MODESTY IS SEXY! (Yes, you are reading that correctly!) Without it, we perpetuate a culture of cheap and empty encounters that degrade human persons of our dignity nor will ever bring satiation to our everlasting desires.

Here’s a quick Theology of the Body lesson that makes these points clearer. John Paul II stated that the body alone is capable of making the invisible visible. The body reveals the person. The goodness of a person’s soul is revealed through the body. Yes, this is a mystery, but the mystery is part of the reality of who we are as people made in the image and likeness of God. To dedicate one’s life towards the exploration and understanding of another person’s deepest mysteries is called sacramental marriage. Only when I have made a covenantal vow to love you until I die, have I earned the right to your most intimate parts (physically, emotionally, and spiritually). It all works together.

The funny thing is that even though Br. Sam stated those words for college students to encourage modesty, as I continue to reflect on them now as a married man, I find that these are also the keys for continued marital romance. I have a deep disdain for the cultural narrative that states sex and romance die after marriage. It’s just not true! In the book, The Case for Marriage, the authors state that according to research married couples report a higher frequency of sexual encounters and higher satisfaction with those encounters than their non-married counterparts. (Take that hook-up culture!) Still, that narrative exists because there is some truth to the challenge of not losing romance in the midst of the craziness of life, work, and raising kids. We like to compartmentalize tasks in our minds to make things more efficient and so we can swiftly move through our day, checking one box off after another. The problem here is that our spouse (or sex with our spouse) should never just be a mere check off the list of things that need to get done. Counselors have a fancy technical term for when that happens in marriage, it’s called Boredom (which is the opposite of sexy).

In this context, the temptation for married couples is not revealing the mystery too quickly (like lusty college students), but the opposite, feeling that you have solved that mystery. Once you state that you have the other person figured out, that is when romance dies, because there is nothing left to pursue. Eternal mystery means that even after 50 years of marriage, there will still be some truth, goodness, and beauty inside my wife that I would not fully understand. There would be some mystery still worth pursuing. Repeatedly finding that newness is crucial to keeping the romance alive. Because newness is sexy. For married couples, the advice usually given to spice things up is euphemistically couched in the term “novelty items.” I caution that because the high of trying a new product is always temporary. It is a bit misguided to expect consumerism to solve bedroom boredom because novelty is primarily a disposition of the heart, not a new toy.

Married couples, this Valentine’s Day, I encourage you to find new ways of reconnecting. Instead of the same old date night, try something different. Do an adventure together. Start a new project. Do a work of service together. Something that gets you working as a team again and gives you the opportunity to see your spouse’s strengths shine again. Discover something new about who he/she is. And whatever the date is, choose to avoid talking about the duties or checklists of the day, but the hopes and longings for the future. When was the last time you talked about the bigger questions of life? When was the last time you and your spouse wondered together? Reconnect with that sense of wonder for the person you married and use that as fuel for the marital embrace.

Dating and engaged couples, this Valentine’s Day, choose modesty and preserve the goodness of your mystery. Take this as a time to continue learning how to love one another and enjoy this season of discovery in your relationship. Every season is a gift and possesses its own challenges. It is hard to believe that now, but you will understand that in time.

St. Valentine, pray for us!

February 11, 2019April 30, 2019