Renew our commitment to true married life

This month of February will mark two very important annual observances in the life of our Church. Both observances focus our prayers, attention and activity on the beautiful and unique vocation of true marriage.
 
National Marriage Week will be observed from Feb. 7 to Feb. 14 and World Marriage Sunday will be observed this year on Sunday, Feb. 12. These two observances give us all the opportunity to celebrate liturgically the gift and blessing of marriage, as well as to affirm and support our engaged and married couples. 
 
Promoting and strengthening true marriage must continue to be our priority in this Diocese. When we have strong, faithfully holy marriages and families, our Church is better able to live the Gospel of life, our Diocese experiences a continued growth in vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life for women and men, our Catholic schools are better able to assist our parents and families in Catholic religious education, and our ministries to those in need better serve the poor because spouses and their children give of their time and talents to assist us.
 
So, you see marriage, both as a natural institution and as a Catholic sacrament, is an irreplaceable and a necessary good for our Church, our society and for all people. Last year, 2016, in the United States we began using the revised translation of The Order of Celebrating Matrimony. One of the many benefits of our priests using this revised text is the inclusion of a blessing to be used for engaged couples, and another blessing to be used for married couples on their wedding anniversary. Both blessings remind the couples and all of us that marriage is a God-given vocation to a woman and a man for the salvation of their souls and that of their children; but it is also to be at the service of society especially through the example of the real fidelity of wife and husband to each other. Their married life stands as a living witness to the fruits of permanent, faithful love, and that true and life-long commitment is never impossible.
 
While these two annual observances occur during one week in the month of February, our commitment to true married life and to supporting our engaged and married couples is a year-round effort. To be called by God to the married vocation is not every person’s vocation, but every person has parents and a family. It is here that each of us first learned about true love and its demand to be shared freely and unreservedly with others. It is here that we begin to experience the presence of God in our lives and, like the young boy Samuel, where we learn to say yes to God not because we have to, but because we want to.
 
Let us all now and every day pray for all who are married and who are engaged to be married. Only with God’s grace can two good people say yes to this gift and then live their lives no longer as two but one new person in Him.