Advent Blessings

We are Liz & Sam Cohen, married 40 years and excited to journey with all of you who are taking the opportunity to enrich you marriage through reflections on this Marriage Blog.

Today, as we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, these words from the first reading from Isaiah strike a chord for us. “Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.” Sam & I are both reminded to let the Lord form us in His ways both individually and as a married couple on our journey each day.

And as we continue to reflect, from Mark’s gospel, Jesus says, “Be watchful! Be Alert!” These words prompt us to be mindful of our actions towards our spouse and others, to help prepare ourselves during this season of Advent. This is a two-fold time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to the anniversary of Jesus’ birth at Christmas and also to Christ’s second coming at the end of time. Advent is a period of devout and expectant delight. It contains an element of penance in the sense of preparing, quieting and disciplining our hearts for the full joy of Christmas.

As we journey through Advent, joining our hearts and hands together in reflective prayer, we pray for God to form us (the clay) during this time of spiritual preparation. In our efforts to strengthen our sacramental love in the covenant that we made with God 40 years ago, we are choosing to “Be Watchful… Be Alert,” to focus each other by making daily decisions to love and decisions to be loved by our spouse throughout Advent.

As we all know, loving our spouse is often easy, joyful and very rewarding as we grow in our love and intimacy as a couple. Yet other times, we may struggle, or even find it difficult, when we are not in the right frame of mind or feeling neglected ourselves. In these times, God asks us to step up to the plate, leave our attitude of self-centeredness behind and make a conscious choice: to make a decision to love our spouse. In doing so, we are once again on track as we mirror Christ’s love to our beloved spouse.

Have you ever felt unlovable? Have you turned away when your spouse tried to give you words of encouragement when you were feeling down or a hug when you were disappointed? Maybe it’s time to think about letting yourself be loved. “Be watchful… Be Alert” of your actions. Make a conscious choice to be loved by your spouse. Let them be the hands of God by simply letting go and letting them love you, just as you are in your brokenness. There is nothing more amazing when you feel the presence of God through the love of your spouse.

Making decisions to love our spouse and to be loved by our spouse brings us to a higher stage of joy in our sacramental marriage. Love is a decision. Be aware, live in the moment. This is the joy that God wants us all to experience as a married couple each day.

We will keep your marriage relationship in our daily prayers during this season of devout and expectant delight.

Advent Blessings to All of You!

Sam & Liz

Thanksgiving and Being Grateful for Your Spouse's "MEQ"

Thanksgiving is almost upon us.  Here is a prayer of thanks we used with a group of couples we recently hosted for dinner.  We thought you might find it useful, especially at this time of year.

We Give Thanks

Our Father in Heaven,

We give thanks for the pleasure

Of gathering together for this occasion.

We give thanks for this food

Prepared by loving hands.

We give thanks for life,

The freedom to enjoy it all

And all other blessings.

As we partake of this food,

We pray for health and strength

To carry on and try to live as You would have us.

This we ask in the name of Christ,

Our Heavenly Father.

- Harry Jewell

In this month's "St. Louis Java Journal", author Phyllis Clay Sparks writes, "Rather than letting the good in our lives inspire happy feelings and gratitude in every present moment, more often than not we notice what's missing, what isn't working, and what we don't have.  We tend to worry about losing what we have and what the future might hold.  It's vitally important for our happiness that we get in the habit of noticing the blessings in life everyday." 

We get the St. Louis Java Journal at our local Einstein Bagel where, around 7:30 a.m. on just about any Saturday morning, you can find us enjoying an egg sandwich, a cup of coffee or juice, and conversation with Bob and Marge, a couple married for over 65 years, who we met there at Einstein's a few years ago.  Talk about counting your blessings and being grateful for them!  Being grateful and giving thanks is an important aspect of simply 'being' in this life. 

 

Here's something you might try as a couple (it will only take about 5 minutes).  Each day think of your spouse's "Most Endearing Quality" (MEQ) for that day.  An MEQ might be as simple as their smile, a helping hand they lent to you or a self-sacrifice they made for another person, or their thoughtfulness in the loving words of support they gave you when you needed a boost most of all. 

Be aware of how grateful you are for their MEQ.  Then share their MEQ with them and ask them how it makes them feel when you do.  You might even try writing this MEQ and your feeling down before sharing it with one another. 

Talk this over with God and see what He says.  We hope He guides you to give it a try someday.  We think you will be pleased with the results.

 

In the meantime, with a strong feeling of gratitude for each of you, allow us to wish all our Vibrant Catholic Marriages blog readers and their families and friends a very Happy Thanksgiving!

God loves you (and so do we),

David & Linda

Whispers of the Holy Spirit

When my cousin Jim asked if I would be interested in writing a blog post on marriage I was a little taken back, yes very honored that he would think of us, but also very humbled. See we’ve only been married 8 1⁄2 yrs, babies in our marriage journey, and constantly learning what it means to make a marriage last and be beautiful! In those short 8 1⁄2 years we have been blessed beyond measure. God has given our little family 5 amazing children here on earth and 3 beautiful angles in Heaven. To say the least, we’ve been a bit busy! Within that busyness we’ve picked up bad habits and at times just gone through the motions to make it through whatever season of life we’re facing.

I don’t think that we truly realized we were doing this and how it was affecting us until recently. It all started when our newest was 6wks old. My husband was facing a very challenging project at work and he had to put a lot of time into it. One month turned into two, then three, and it’s still going after 5 1⁄2 months. I feel for him and I am so proud of him for how hard he works for our family; that being said things haven’t been easy. Those little habits of just getting through, toughing it out and trying to “survive” this season stopped working; I realized that we had stopped talking and started blaming.

That never works in a marriage. I had stopped seeing my husband for who he was and instead was frustrated for what he couldn’t do for me.

HUMILITY

"O Father, give us the humility which realizes its ignorance, admits its mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice, accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for thy name's sake." - William Barclay

The 'us' in the prayer above can often refer to a married couple - a husband and wife. Even though through sacramental marriage we become 'one flesh', that flesh encompasses two minds, two bodies. Stir in some ego, pride and selfishness, and the boundaries of that oneness can be tested.

In the prayer we plead to God to 'give' and to 'help' - because the sentiments and attitudes being called out do not exist naturally within our hearts - not in the abundance required.

Patience. Forgiveness. Humility. Vulnerability.

Left to our own devices they cannot be continuously obtained and lived. Only through God's Grace - his giving and helping - do we grasp and animate the beauty they define.

We have only recently found this prayer. Its recitation reminds us of God's blueprint of the love we are to have for one another. Both of us can be stubborn, almost to a fault (imagine that!). When opinions differ, a faint undercurrent of antagonism is present (remember that pride and ego?) Slowly the contention rises and soon we are pushing and straining against our oneness, competing for the almighty crown of 'right'.

We wish we could confidently say that after 40+ years of Catholicism, 20 years of marriage, 4 years of TOOLS and countless retreats and spiritual awakenings we 'grasp and animate' this prayer 100% of the time. The truth would reveal that the number is much closer to 50%, if that.

That hurts, as the truth often does.

But growth doesn't happen without strain and pain. Our prayer - for ourselves as well as all of you - is that daily attention to this call to humility strengthens our oneness, and that we hold its wisdom in our heart to draw from in our daily walk together.


--by Jim and Karen Dunne

In the beginning

It started with discussions about why so many marriages are struggling.  Through many discussions, prayers and advice from other couples, we decided to start this blog.  Feel free to share it with people and spread the word.  Ministering to married couples is starting to feel like a new vocation or being on a mission. 

" I simply want to invite you, during this year that is beginning, to do everything you can for the married and family spirituality that you get from Teams to reach couples around you,"  said Fr. Caffarel, spiritual adviser to the TEAMS of our Lady, in October 1950.  "May it strengthen their union that is perhaps breaking up. May it reanimate their love and reveal to them the riches of their sacrament of marriage. May it help them also to know the joy and strength that comes from fraternal friendship between couples.

Are you short of the necessary ardor? Are you not aware to what extent the ambient culture in which they live threatens the Christian life and union of so many couples?"

Marriages have been struggling for centuries.  What has always been there for us is Christ.  As a person or a couple we need to seek His mercy, His healing and His power.  It is our prayer that through one another we can find a way to hear His word.

The purpose of this blog is to offer inspiration, advice and a friendly space.  The contributors are men and women that are trying to live out their vocation to marriage.  Some of these people have been married for almost 50 years, others for under 10 years.  Their perspectives will be uniquely their own and all of our writing will be from the heart.  I am thankful for the commitment from these contributors and I hope we can add more writers in the future.

"Do not tell me that there is nothing to be done,"  continues Fr. Caffarel.  "If you really care for all these threatened couples that are short of love and grace, you will know how to invent what needs to be done and you will persevere in your efforts. Inventiveness, perseverance, such are the qualities of missionaries. How numerous are the missionaries who struggle, preach and persevere for years without result! Well, yes indeed, be the missionaries of this married spirituality that gives you life.''

Quotations come from: Fr. Henri Caffarel - Monthly Letter of Equipes Notre Dame; October 1950.