Faith and Family / Sean Gallagher

Marriage is a mysterious paradox of Christ’s love for his Church

In a little over a week, my wife Cindy and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.

Actually, we won’t be doing any celebrating on the date of the actual anniversary, which is June 9. On that day, Cindy and I will be volunteering at our parish’s annual festival.

Which is kind of appropriate given how married life has been for us over the past 25 years. For much of that time, it seems like our life together has been one busy day followed by another. Such is the life of the parents of five boys, ranging now in age from 24 to 12.

At times, that can be really tiring. Cindy and I aren’t getting any younger, and our boys still need a lot of attention, as do our commitments to our parish, our boys’ school and our extended family.

Thankfully, in the midst of all of this coming and going, Cindy and I take time for prayer in our daily lives. Both of us, in our own ways, are reminded in those moments of just how much God has blessed us and our family through all the ups and downs that happen in our shared life together.

The grace he showers upon us in times of prayer and throughout our days empower us to keep putting one foot in front of the other in our busy lives as spouses and parents.

But it goes far beyond that. The grace of the sacrament of marriage that God poured into our hearts, which he joined together as one on June 9, 2001, actually helps us to thrive through all the challenges. It empowers us to give even more than we thought was possible, both in the moments when we’re facing those tests, and most certainly on our wedding day.

If Cindy and I had known on that bright and sunny day in Columbus the challenges that neither of us could have foreseen that our heavenly Father was going to allow to happen in our lives, we might have both gone running up the aisle and out of the old St. Bartholomew Church.

On the other hand, had we known of the many tremendous and unimaginable blessings that our heavenly Father was going to give us in the next 25 years, I feel certain that Cindy and I would have kept our feet firmly planted in front of the sanctuary at St. Bartholomew as we faced each other and professed our wedding vows.

The sacrament of marriage, like so much else in the beautiful life of faith given to us in the Church, is a mysterious paradox that we’re invited to embrace with the grace of faith. Our minds alone cannot fathom the divine logic that makes the marriage of two very fallible people that God shapes into a living sign of Christ the bridegroom’s nuptial relationship with his bride the Church.

A couple of weeks ago, Cindy and I were at a celebration of the 50th wedding anniversary of an uncle and aunt of hers. In June and July, we’ll attend the weddings of a sister of Cindy and of a niece of ours, who is also our goddaughter.

I feel confident that Cindy’s uncle and aunt would join us in inviting the brides and grooms at these weddings to live each day of their marriage like it was their last. Cindy and I have been blessed to live 25 years as husband and wife. We must not presume, though, that we’ll have 26.

Far from being a morbid thought, though, viewing married life in this way can help husbands and wives to open their hearts to the infinite grace that God offers them on each day of the life that they are blessed to share together.

This will not only make their marriage sweeter for them amid all of life’s challenges. It will also make them all the more clear and convincing sacramental signs of Christ’s love for his Church. †