Have you ever thought of your marriage as a foretaste of heaven? When marriage is lived as God intended – with permanence, partnership, fidelity, and fruitfulness – your marriage is the image of the love that unites the three persons in the Holy Trinity.

Pope Benedict XVI offered high praise for the family in one of his audiences. Here is what he had to say about the gift of marriage and family:

God’s gift to us of marriage and family life enables us to experience something of the infinite love that unites the three divine persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, are made for love – indeed at the core of our being, we long to love and to be loved in return. Only God’s love can fully satisfy our deepest needs, and yet through the love of husband and wife, the love of parents and children, the love of siblings for one another, we are offered a foretaste of the boundless love that awaits us in the life to come.

Marriage is truly an instrument of salvation, not only for married people but for the whole of society. Like any truly worthwhile goal, it places demands upon us, it challenges us, it calls us to be prepared to sacrifice our own interests for the good of the other. It requires us to exercise tolerance and to offer forgiveness. It invites us to nurture and protect the gift of new life. Those of us fortunate enough to be born into a stable family discover there the first and most fundamental school for virtuous living and the qualities of good citizenship. I encourage all of you in your efforts to promote a proper understanding and appreciation of the inestimable good that marriage and family life offer to human society. May God bless all of you.[1]

Married love gives witness to the love of God for His people; that is everyone of us, living now or deceased, and all future generations. As husbands and wives, you have the duty to live out your sacrament of marriage well so that you give witness to the Father’s love in a world increasingly darkened by sin. This is part of your mission as married Catholic Christians.

We live in a world full of broken families and broken people. Most have not experienced the joy of a stable and loving family, with a mother and father committed to each other for life. Be that light in the darkness. Share your family with others. Be a beacon of hope in the darkened world. Your witness will speak volumes to the love of God for us.

May you live out your vocation to marriage with the joy that can only come from having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!

We [can] love, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

Peace and blessings,

Dennis & Rose

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[1] Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, St. Peter’s Square, May 5, 2010; internet: http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100505.html (accessed February 20, 2018).