Marriage takes sacrifice, laughter, forgiveness, and love … for baking bread
When the pandemic first hit, my wife and I had been thinking about what fun extended trip we might plan to celebrate our 15th anniversary. Two years later, our kids are bigger, our hair a little grayer, and we sometimes forget what day, month, or even year it is now. Fortunately, we have a new hobby of experimenting with a bread maker. Since many of us have lived in our pajamas for much of the pandemic, we now wonder if a trip around the block instead of around the world is the right level of excitement to plan for our upcoming 17th!
As we recognize National Marriage Week and couples try to figure out how best to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day this year, I’ve been reflecting on just how we’ve managed to offer support for engaged couples as they’ve chosen to move forward in faith, hope and love despite all that continues to challenge them.
As the director of the Office for Family Life Ministry in the Archdiocese of Newark, I’ve had the privilege of hosting marriage preparation sessions for more than 2,000 couples during this pandemic time. While much has changed (and been uncertain) for the last two years, the need to find strength and support to live out one’s vows remains. Many of our plans have had to change, and it’s no secret that relationships have been strained in ways we hadn’t thought of before. We’ve dealt with isolation, grief, and loss in entirely new ways in addition to possible added work and family stress.
Christian families have faced many and varied challenges over the centuries. As a leader in a difficult period of Christian history, St. Valentine was courageous in the face of persecution. The Catholic Church not only recognizes him as the patron saint of engaged couples and happy marriages for his commitment to both but also (among others) as the patron of beekeepers and travelers, suggesting he looked out for families in other everyday aspects of life.
Looking towards bright days ahead and the upcoming Anniversary Masses being celebrated in the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart this spring for those celebrating their 25th or 50th anniversaries, I think of the witness of love shared in a Catholic marriage. Due to Covid coinciding with my move from Youth Ministry to Family Life, this spring will be my first time getting to see these couples who have lived and loved in faith for so many years recognized in a joy-filled way. I hope and pray that the same couples we have been sharing faith with remotely over time and distance these past two years will be falling in love year after year and that in 25 or even 50 years, they will be the ones whose example of love and service to God and one another we will be privileged to witness in such a way.
When a man and a woman prayerfully enter into a covenant of marriage promising to love one another all the days of their life, that is truly a way to guide one another towards heaven. Sacramental grace offers us the support and strength we need to carry on through difficult times. Promising to love one another and be committed to a marriage professed before God takes prayer and steadfast resolve. It also takes sacrifice, laughter, forgiveness, and sometimes a newfound love of baking bread at home, which from what we’ve tried ourselves and as I’ve heard from other married couples, is something many of us have learned being at home much more often!
I encourage each of us to pray that families have the strength to weather whatever comes their way in good times and in bad. To be sources of strength for one another, a place where faith is taught, lived, and loved. And a sign to the world of Christ’s enduring love.
St. Valentine of Rome, pray for us!
Brian Caldwell is the director of the Office for Family Life Ministry for the Archdiocese of Newark.
Featured image: CNS photo illustration/Mike Crupi
