Day Two – Marriage: Made for Love

Breaking Open the Theme
Marriage between one man and one woman responds to the deepest longing of the human heart for love and belonging. We yearn to be loved and to receive love. The same can be said of family life: in a family, children are received to be loved and to love in return.

Despite human shortcomings, the married couple and the family are reflections of God who is three divine persons in a communion of love. In marriage, the man and the woman become “one body” (Gen 2: 24), a communion of love that generates new life. In a similar way, the human family becomes a communion of love by the exchange of giving and receiving love between its members.

Marriage and family life are schools of love. They teach us how to reach a communion of love within the context of daily life: full of joys, sacrifices, trials, and hopes. In all of this, love is purified and perfected, made authentic and complete. As Christ’s sacrifice on the cross exemplified, love is laying down one’s life for another. Spouses and family members are called to do the same, each and every day.

Reflection
Despite our best efforts to love faithfully and unconditionally, marriage and family life can be difficult and challenge our ability to love continually. The marital love that is blessed by the sacrament of marriage is fortified and sustained, however, by a unique grace intended to “perfect the couple’s love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity” (CCC, 1641). By virtue of this grace, the couple helps one another to attain holiness.

The source of this grace is Christ. “Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony” (GS, 48). Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,” and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love” (CCC, 1642).

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

1. What makes the love of man and woman unique, especially within the marital relationship? What makes the love of family members a communion of persons?
2. How are our marriage and family schools of love? As a couple and family, do we demonstrate a communion of love that is self-giving, pure, and sacrificial?
3. As a couple, how do we rely on the grace of the sacrament of marriage to assist us in moments of challenge and difficulty?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Five: The Tree that God Grows

A Story about Perfect Imperfection

This past Advent I started a Jesse Tree. I was tempted to go all in, DIY style, with the help of more seasoned mommy crafters who host their annual Jesse Tree swap in town. But, the temptation wasn’t strong due to my complete lack of skill and patience to deal with anything calling for glue, paint, or toothpicks. Instead, I was lured by the beautiful display of perfectly hand-painted wooden disks portraying each symbol of the Jesse Tree that I found at a local gift shop. For a few dollars I could opt out of the messy affair of gooey toothpicks and paint-smeared fingers; it sounded like a glorious plan.

Later at a White Elephant Party, I happened to notice a simple but radiant little Jesse Tree on the hostess’s piano. It was decorated with homemade symbols of different proportions, colors, and textures. It was multi-dimensional and dynamic; it made my Jesse Tree seem flat and uninspiring.

As I behold my children – each unique and exquisite in their own way – I’m reminded of the homemade Jesse Tree. Each branch held a symbol sculpted by a different person’s hand, bearing the stamp of the crafter’s creativity and cleverness. Each child bears the mark of the Creator and bears His image in a unique way. Each child is a blossom upon my family tree or a young sapling that needs to be cultivated, watered, and pruned. But, like the challenge of the Jesse Tree, I often feel inadequate before the challenges of raising these young saplings. My craftiness isn’t tested, but my calmness is. My inner Etsy isn’t tested, but my self-control is!

Part of the great parental privilege is that God provides His grace, and it suffices. It is enough to rely on His gracious help to assist us in every challenge. Yet, with social media awash in images that deliver a message of external perfection – so much so that “Instagrammable” is a new word – it is hard not to feel inadequate and insufficient. It is hard to admit that I am not ‘the Etsy type’ and my children’s nursery is not ”Instagrammable.” Likewise, it is hard to admit time and time again in confession that I have failed to be patient and forbearing with my children.

Time and time again, however, with the grace of God, as a couple, we are reminded to simply love each of our children well and to recognize that He is the Crafter of our tree, our little domestic church, and of each of its blossoms, and He will make it grow.
– Julia and Francis

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on with your spouse:

1. In what areas of your marriage or family do you feel inadequate or incapable?
2. How can you and your spouse or family establish greater trust in God’s grace?
3. Think about a present challenge in your life. How will you and your spouse meet this challenge with the help of God?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

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Day Three – Marriage: Made for Each Other

Breaking Open the Theme
God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him” (Gen. 2:18). The woman that God ‘fashions’ from the man’s rib elicits from the man a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23). This beautiful account from the book of Genesis of the creation of Eve from Adam’s side demonstrates how woman was created specifically as a helper, companion, and suitable partner for man. Unlike any other created being, man discovers woman as another ‘I’, as sharing the same humanity (see CCC, 371).

“Man and woman were made ‘for each other’ – not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be ‘helpmate’ to the other, for they are equal as persons (“bone of my bones…”) and complementary as masculine and feminine” (CCC, 372).

Because they are equal as persons in their humanity, but complementary in their differences as masculine and feminine, man and woman contribute unique gifts to the marriage, especially the physical differences of their bodies which allow for the transmission of human life. Only through sexual difference can a husband and a wife give themselves completely to one another.

True marital union, therefore, is not possible without sexual difference; for this reason, sexual difference is essential to marriage. Sexual difference is the necessary starting point for understanding why protecting and promoting marriage as the union of one man and one woman isn’t arbitrary or discriminatory. Rather, it’s a matter of justice, truth, love, and real freedom. Only a man and a woman—at every level of their identity: biological, physiological, emotional, social, spiritual—are capable of authentically speaking the language of married love, that is, the language of total self-gift, open to the gift of the other and the gift of life.

Reflection
Our maleness or femaleness is essential to our identity as persons. Our gender is not something that is pasted onto us as an after-thought, or that is an incidental part of who we are. Male and female are two different ways of being a human person, body and soul. When we deny our identity as sexually differentiated beings, we diminish our humanity.

A conjugal or marital union comes about only through sexual difference. Only a husband and a wife have the space or capacity to truly receive each other’s distinctive sexual gift, and only a husband and a wife can make a gift of their selves to the other in that way. The beauty of the Church’s teaching on marriage, grounded in this anthropological foundation, sheds light on the responsibility of man and woman to collaborate with God in His plan for the human race.

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

(1) How do reason and faith not conflict when it comes to marriage? In other words, how does the sacrament of marriage, which is between a baptized man and a baptized woman, build upon, and not detract from, the basic and reasonable truths at the heart of every marriage?
(2) Do you think sexual difference, man to woman and woman to man, is understood and appreciated today? Why or why not?
(3) As a couple, how can you help others reflect on the importance of sexual difference and complementarity?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Six: Love in Truth

A Story about Unexpected Challenges
We have been blessed in our 42 years of marriage with four beautiful and amazing children. Our children, the source of our greatest pride and joy, have also been the source of our greatest suffering.

With the sudden death of our first son, at only six months old, we experienced our first crucible. The first fruit of our love had withered, testing our own love as a couple. It was a life-changing experience in our marriage, but, fortunately, our grief led us to a deeper commitment to one another and to our faith. This prepared us to meet other challenges that were to come, testing our unity as a couple and family.

While still in college, our daughter announced that she was pregnant with our first grandchild, outside the bond of marriage. Although stunned and saddened by the circumstances, we welcomed the gift of new life that would bless our family. During the turbulent time that surrounded these events, we accompanied our daughter in her struggle to recognize and follow God’s plan. We are proud to be the grandparents of a young man with deep faith who now serves our country overseas as a U.S. Marine.

One day, our youngest son announced that he experienced same-sex attraction and had embraced a lifestyle that was contrary to his human dignity in the eyes of God. The pain of losing our son to the lies of the world is hard to describe.

As our son, we made him know that our love is unconditional. However, we also needed to remain steadfast in truth, as true love warrants. When we did not attend the same-sex union with his partner, a deep hurt was felt on both sides. His departure from any practice of a life in the Catholic faith is our greatest sorrow, which elicits a constant prayer rising from our hearts for Mary to lead him back to her Son.

On our wedding day, we promised each other that we would accept children lovingly from God and educate them according to the law of Christ and His Church. Little did we realize the great gift we were agreeing to receive, nor the tremendous responsibility it entails. We continue to educate our children and grandchildren in the faith, challenging them to true discipleship.

While our work to build our domestic church is not done, we trust that the faith that we set as the foundation of our family will be a reminder to our children of God’s unwavering faithfulness and unfailing love. Even the greatest blessings can blossom in the midst of thorns.
– Christine and Rick

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on with your spouse:

1. How have you dealt with the challenges and disappointments experienced in your marriage or caused by your children? Where have you found God’s grace and mercy present in those times?
2. In what ways may God be asking you to give greater witness to truth in love within your family?
3. How have you noticed God’s hand in the midst of suffering and loss?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

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Day Four – Marriage: Made for Life

Breaking Open the Theme
“Male and female he created them. God blessed and God said to them: ‘Be fertile and multiply’” (Gen. 1:27-28).

Marriage is the natural human context wherein a child is properly conceived and welcomed into life as the “supreme gift of marriage” (GS, 50). And in this stance of openness and welcoming, meant to mark every aspect of married love, a husband and a wife grow closer to each other. Making a gift of himself or herself to the other as spouses and being open to children is one and the same choice and act. As Pope John Paul II taught, “Thus the couple, while giving themselves to one another, give not just themselves but also the reality of children, who are a living reflection of their love, a permanent sign of conjugal unity and a living and inseparable synthesis of their being a father and a mother” (FC, 14).

In other words, in marriage, love and life are inseparable. This is what the Church means when she teaches that the unitive and procreative meanings of married love are inseparable. In embracing each other, husband and wife embrace their capacity to conceive a child and are called to do nothing deliberate to close part of themselves to the gift of the other.

This does not mean that a child will be conceived from every act of sexual intimacy. Marriage is not a mechanical factory for the mass production of children. The Church teaches couples in their openness to life to practice responsible parenthood by discerning whether or not they have serious reasons, in keeping with God’s plan for marriage, to postpone becoming a father and a mother here and now.

“The fundamental task of the family is to serve life, to actualize in history the original blessing of the Creator – that of transmitting by procreation the divine image from person to person. (…) However, the fruitfulness of conjugal love is not restricted solely to the procreation of children, even understood in its specifically human dimension: it is enlarged and enriched by all those fruits of moral, spiritual and supernatural life which the father and mother are called to hand on to their children, and through the children to the Church and to the world” (FC, 28).

Reflection
Any honest consideration of marriage must think about children, the hope of our future. For millennia, people of every generation and of every culture have understood that the marriage of a man and a woman is the central pro-child social institution and the rock of the natural family. Marriage brings together a man and a woman who unite as husband and wife to form a unique relationship open to welcoming and caring for new life. As the union of husband and wife, marriage is a union open from within to the blessing of fruitfulness. Children are born “from the very heart” of marriage, from the mutual self-giving between husband and wife (CCC, no. 2366). They are the “supreme gift” of marriage and its “ultimate crown” (GS, nos. 50, 48).

Just as plants need the proper elements not only to begin to grow but also to flourish, children need the proper elements as well. It takes a man and a woman, with God’s help, to bring a child into existence. It makes sense that if sexual difference is essential for the beginning of life, it is also vital for the caring of that life. Mothers and fathers matter for the duration of a child’s life.

Marriage is the institution meant to ensure that a child is welcomed as a gift to be nurtured and raised by the uniquely different love that only a mother and a father can give. Just as a seedling needs the presence of soil, sunlight, and water to grow and flourish, so too a child needs the natural foundation of life and love uniquely provided in the loving marriage of a man and a woman open to the gift of a child.

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

(1) How are openness to life and sexual difference related? Why is this important for understanding the meaning of marriage?
(2) How do you understand and embrace the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life, including the Church’s teaching on the use of contraception?
(3) In what way can you witness as a couple to the sanctity and dignity of human life and the importance of mothers and fathers in the lives of their children?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Seven: Learning at a Later Stage

A Story told by Grandparents

Early on as grandparents, we learned a lesson about teaching children to pray while babysitting our 4-year-old grandson. Come bedtime, the parents had not yet re-appeared, so we had the chance to do bedtime routine with little Antonio: story, snack, bath, pajamas. We had lots of experience with that, although we hadn’t remembered how much energy it took!

When he finally climbed into bed, we were exhausted. We quickly said a short rote prayer with him, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” Ok, kisses and lights out. Right? No! Antonio started to wail, “I want the long prayer! I want the long prayer!” He cried and cried. We were mystified. What could the long prayer be? We sat on the bed and shared our own nighttime prayers with him, beginning with Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, special intentions, blessings all around. Antonio calmed down and went to sleep like a lamb.

When the parents came home, we told them about the drama and asked “What’s the ‘long prayer’?” They laughed and said, “Oh, we usually do a longer bedtime prayer routine with him, including a whole litany of intentions, followed by the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, just like you taught us. It’s our special time together, and he looks forward to it. But when he is being rowdy, and we are at the end of our rope, we just say a short simple prayer with him. He must have thought you were punishing him by not saying the long prayer!”

By praying together as a family, we had instilled in our son a love of shared family prayer that he had passed on to his own family. We had witnessed how the habit of prayer, instituted when our children were young, was still resonating with them as adults.

Our parental responsibility to foster the faith in our home continues as grandparents – now in the homes of our children and children’s children. Prayer is an excellent way to foster the faith, even when it has grown weak in our next of kin. Praying together is a time to reconnect, renew, and reconcile. At bedtime, meal time, car time, in sickness and in health, a family builds the bonds of love when they turn to God together.

Customs, traditions, and celebrations are all potential opportunities for prayer and faith building. Drawing on the homemade spiritual practices of yesteryear, a future of faith can be forged for next generations, one celebration at a time.

Just as God was with us through the long nights and exhausting days of our own parenting journey, He is with us in this new chapter of life in the bigger domestic church. We now say the “long prayer” for our children and grandchildren, sharing the comforting and encouraging love of our heavenly Father.
– Lauri and John

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on with your spouse:

1. What traditions can you share with your grandchildren to foster the faith? Do you pray regularly for your children and grandchildren?
2. How does the faith and prayer shape your responsibility as a grandparent?
3. If you are not a grandparent, what are other forms of ‘grandparenting’ that you can provide to someone who needs it?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Day Five – Marriage: Made for Freedom

Breaking Open the Theme
“Jesus answered them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains. So if a son frees you, then you will truly be free’” (Jn. 8:34-36).The

Dominican moral theologian, Servais Pinckaers (1925-2008), identified two concepts of freedom that are in contrast to one another: freedom of indifference and freedom for excellence.

“Freedom of indifference” means seeing freedom as open and neutral toward all the available options. Every choice, in so far as it is a choice, is equally free. It is the freedom to not be forced to do anything (“freedom from coercion”). If freedom is really unconnected to any other aspect of the person or objective truth, then choosing to murder another person is just as “free” a decision as choosing to buy a meal for a homeless person. Of course, anyone would say that the person helping out another person is “using” their freedom better than the murderer, but is that saying enough? Is it just a question of using our freedom well or badly? Freedom of indifference says yes, those two people are equally free to choose good or evil.

In contrast, if you understand freedom as the “freedom for excellence”, you would say that the murderer is actually less free than the charitable giver. In doing something that is wrong, in acting against the true, objective order of things, the person choosing evil is actually diminishing or losing his (or her) freedom. It is in fact an abuse of freedom. It will not bring him (or her) happiness. Therefore, it is not a truly free choice. The freedom for excellence is the freedom to do good: the freedom to become who you are meant to be.

True freedom then is the capacity to love in truth and to choose the good. This echoes the words of the Catechism: “The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes,” and “true freedom” comes “in the service of what is good and just” (CCC, 1733).

Rightly ordered freedom, which serves true happiness, is service to others. This freedom corresponds to what a person is called to be: a gift for others.

Reflection
Marriage between a baptized man and woman requires the free consent of the will. The two spouses consent freely to make a gift of self to the other. The Catechism clarifies that to be free, the consent “must be an act of the will of each of the contracting parties, free of coercion or grave external fear” (CCC, 1628). By means of the consent, the spouses mutually give themselves to each other and become ‘one body’. The consent of the spouses is received by the priest (or deacon) in the name of the Church, followed by the blessing of the Church.

In many ways, the consent to marry is one of the most profound acts of human freedom. It is an act of freedom for excellence which opens new possibilities of greater excellence and happiness. When exercised together, husband and wife demonstrate a joint effort to become more truly who they are called to be by their sincere gifts of self.

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

(1) How does freedom for excellence correspond better to a Christian vision of the human person than freedom of indifference?
(2) In what ways has freedom been abused in the name of a false freedom and how has this affected marriage?
(3) Marriage in the Church requires a free consent of the will by both spouses. How was your marriage a choice made freely for excellence: in the freedom to become who you are meant to be?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Four: Parenting Among Friends

A Story about Spiritual Parenthood
John and Patti, good friends of ours, are great examples of how marital love is called to be, and can be, fruitful both biologically and spiritually. In addition to their immediate family, their domestic church, their marriage has borne spiritual fruit for countless others, including ourselves.

When we first met John and Patti, they had already been married a few years and had three (of their now six) children. We became instant friends and soon found ourselves at their home most Friday nights for a delicious dinner, a decade of the rosary with their family, and then, after the kids were tucked into bed, a relaxing evening together. We have many fond memories of sinking into their comfortable living room couches with a glass of wine in hand to simply catch up on the past week and enjoy each other’s company.

They also invited us to join their group of friends who had been meeting monthly for a few years for prayer and dinner. We were honored to be invited and their friends quickly became our friends. And they, like John and Patti, helped to nourish the seed of faith in our lives. Besides the monthly gatherings of prayer and fellowship, we were all soon celebrating joys together (births, birthdays, playoffs, etc.) and we accompanied one another in trials (illnesses, unemployment, family difficulties, etc.).

Five years ago, however, with the advent of a new job opportunity 1,200 miles away, we left this amazing group – fortified in the faith but doubtful that we would ever find friends who nourished our faith as much as they had. But we did – by God’s grace. Inspired by that group, we invited a few couples at our new parish to start a similar group. For four years now this new group of couples continues to grace our lives in rich and meaningful ways. And, some members of our group have continued to spread the gift by helping other groups begin in our parish, as well. And, because of that, we have now created materials for new groups to begin anywhere in the country.

We thank God, therefore, for John and Patti and for all of the couples in both groups, old and new, and for the spiritual fruit that these relationships have borne in our lives. Truly, all of these couples have been spiritual parents to us, giving us and our marriage a more meaningful life. And, we praise God for the fruit it is now bringing to many other couples, too!
– Kari and Stephen

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse

1. What does spiritual parenthood mean to you? How can it be lived in different ways?
2. Who has helped you and your marriage? Whom have you helped to have a better marriage?
3. What can you do to find couples who can accompany you as mentors and guides? What can you do to accompany couples who may need help along the journey?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Day Six – Marriage: Made for the Common Good

Breaking Open the Theme
“To love someone is to desire that person’s good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of ‘all of us’, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society (CV, 7).

The common good is everyone’s responsibility. The efforts we make on a daily basis to be attentive to the needs of others are a contribution to the common good. The family is an essential component of the common good, rooted in marriage between a man and woman.

Healthy marriages model many virtues and good habits that are vital for social life. For example, joyful and sacrificial love between a man and a woman in marriage serves as an example to their children of what it means to love other people in general. Marriage advances a “genuine human ecology,” which includes a respect for and proper understanding of the human body and sexuality. At a fundamental and basic level, an intact marriage between husband and wife remains the most fertile source and well-integrated environment for new members of society.

Children who are raised in homes with their own married mother and father enjoy stability that no other family structure offers. If we consider these points, it becomes clear that marriage is important to the common good of society – the institution of marriage, properly understood as a man and a woman, bound to one another and their children, helps everyone in the society to flourish. It encourages young men and women to make promises to one another if they want to be “a couple”; it gives a societal recognition of such a promise and the community’s investment in helping the couple to keep it; and it gives children the stable homes they deserve.

Reflection
“The family founded on marriage is an irreplaceable natural institution and a fundamental element of the common good of every society” (Pope John Paul II, Address to the participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council of the Family, November 20, 2004).

The Catechism lists three essential components of the common good: respect for the person, social well-being and development, and peace. (CCC, 1905-1917) In other words, society should be ordered in such a way that people will find it easier to be good, to develop their gifts and capacities in peace, carrying out their duties and responsibilities without having to struggle against oppression or fear, able to act according to their consciences. The common good is meant to ensure that people may live a “truly human life” (CCC, no. 1908).

Strong marriages – marriages in which a man and a woman stay together for their entire lives – are good for society as well as for the couple themselves. They serve as examples to the community of the virtues of love, fidelity, and perseverance. They demonstrate the capacity of the human being to live up to his or her promises.

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

(1) What are the three ways marriage is good for the entire society?
(2) How does your marriage contribute to your own capacity and growth as a person? How does this in turn contribute to the benefit of your family and society?
(3) In what ways do you recognize the benefit to the common good of a stable marriage between man and woman?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Day Seven – Marriage: Made for Eternity

Breaking Open the Theme
Man is created to know, to love, and to serve Him in this life and enjoy His presence for eternity. The eternal reward is a beatitude which surpasses all human understanding. It is the gift of true happiness that comes from seeking the love of God above all else. The path to holiness or beatitude is paved with choices and consequences; homage to God or wealth; service to self or neighbor.

All Christians in every state or walk of life are called to holiness, or the perfection of charity. “In order to reach this perfection, the faithful should use the strength dealt out to them by Christ’s gift, so that . . . doing the will of the Father in everything, they may wholeheartedly devote themselves to the glory of God and to the service of their neighbor” (LG, 40). The way of perfection also passes by way of the Cross which calls for sacrifice, mortification, and dying to self.

Reflection
Marriage is an opportunity to become holy. On their wedding day, the spouses become each other’s primary companion for life’s journey until death. The journey towards heaven should be sustained by one’s spouse. A sacramental and prayerful life shared together can contribute to helping one another progress in holiness.

The journey of married life is also sustained by the graces provided in the sacrament of marriage which assist the spouses in their particular vocation to love and serve one another.

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

(1) What are some ways in which you experience daily the choices and consequences that bring us closer or farther from reaching holiness?
(2) In what ways does your marriage challenge you to become holy?
(3) Do you believe that you are each called to beatitude with God? How do you sustain one another in the walk towards holiness?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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