For the Christian, being a master of marital skills has little to do with being a good earthbound companion and everything to do with being a collaborator in God’s plan of salvation for you and your mate. If your spouse isn’t even worth a couple of flowers, a card, some good conversation, or some physical affection from you, how will your mate ever learn to accept the immense bounty of love that God has prepared for her in his heavenly kingdom?
Helping your mate get to heaven involves a great deal more than getting to church on Sunday and praying your Rosary. It involves all that — plus being the loving, attentive, generous spouse Christ would be if he were married to your partner. Have you ever really appreciated the importance of your role as a husband or wife in God’s plan? Grasping this importance is the essential first step of answering the call of the Church, “Families, become what you are” (Familiaris Consortio, n. 17).
Exercise: Creating Shared Meaning — Partners in Christ
At the beginning of this section, we mentioned research showing that couples who create shared meaning for their lives and marriage have much happier and more stable relationships than other couples who are less intentional about sharing a mission (VanderDrift and Lewandowsky, 2010; Gottman, 2011). The following exercise is intended to serve two needs. First, it will help you to clarify both your identity in Christ and what you must do to live out that identity more consistently in your life and marriage. Next, it will help you identify how to make your marriage a partnership in fulfilling that Christian destiny. In essence, by the end of this exercise, you will have developed a basic “mission statement” (or “marital imperative”) around which to build your life and marriage. Don’t expect to fulfill every part of that mission statement today. Rather, view it as a plan of action, an itinerary for what you will be working toward over the course of your lives together.
Part One: Your Christian Identity
Directions: Just like there are different religious orders (e.g., Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, etc.), with each emphasizing a different mission or charism (teaching, preaching, hospitality, simplicity, etc.) that witnesses to another facet of God’s face to the world, God calls each family to be its own religious community (i.e., “domestic church,” cf. Lumen Gentium) that witnesses to his goodness through the qualities they live out in their household (generosity, faithfulness, hospitality, joy, etc.). Take some time to prayerfully meditate on the questions below. Do not share your answers with your mate at this time. This first part is about your identity in Christ, the identity that you would be responsible for living out, whether or not you were ever married.
1. Most of the virtues listed below were given to you freely and automatically at your baptism. Of them all, which virtues do you believe God has made dearest to your heart? Identify a few virtues that are most important to you. Use the list below, or write your own in the space provided. (If you have a hard time answering, try thinking of the qualities you wish to be most known for at the end of your life.)
2. Write the virtues you indicated in the form of a personal motto. (For example: “With God’s help, I will spend my life pursuing the following virtues: love, wisdom, and service.”) Now it’s your turn.
3b. When your spouse does these annoying things, how, specifically, will you change your behavior to more adequately reflect your chosen motto? (For example: “How can I respond more lovingly when my wife is late?”)
4. We all hold back from our mates. What do you hold back? How will God’s grace and the virtues you identified help you overcome this selfishness? How will you motivate yourself to give more generously to your mate?
5. What steps must you take so that your work life, parenting life, and personal life can more adequately reflect your personal motto? (For example: take a parenting class, go on a couples’ retreat, do more spiritual reading, go to daily Mass, get additional job training, etc.) What role would you like your spouse to play in helping you achieve these goals?
6. What goals or accomplishments do you believe God is asking you to pursue at this time in your life? (Think of those most heartfelt desires that you have dismissed as silly but somehow won’t go away.) What role would you like your spouse to play in helping you achieve these goals?
Part Two: Your Partnership
Directions: You and your mate should now share and discuss your answers to Part One. During this discussion, keep in mind that your mate has arrived at her answers to Part One through prayerful discernment. Her answers reflect her genuine beliefs about the identity God is making her responsible for fulfilling. This identity may involve things you don’t appreciate, think are silly, or don’t like; but God didn’t ask your opinion when he gave your mate this mission. He only demands that you be faithful to the promises you made in your marriage and help your partner fulfill her identity. Remember, your mate may not make it without you, but you are responsible to God to make certain she makes it with you.
Discuss: In order to become the partner God asks you to be to your mate, what specific actions must you take, what skills must you develop, or what choices must you make in your daily life? What must you do to increase your mate’s chances of fulfilling his identity in Christ?
Part Three: A Promise
Take turns pledging the following:
[Say your partner’s name] I genuinely respect the person you are, and the person God wants you to be. To that end, I promise that I will work to see the good in the things you value, especially when I don’t understand. I will never say that the dreams, goals, or values God has placed in your heart are silly or unworthy of my time and attention. I promise to be the most important influence in your life, second only to our Savior, Jesus Christ, because I love and honor who you are and who God is calling you to become. I promise that I will love you and support you with all of my life, all the days of my life. And I promise that with the Lord’s help, I will be your best hope for arriving, properly attired, at the heavenly banquet.
Conclusion
In this chapter, you discovered that the phrase “the two shall become one” is more than mere poetry. It is a promise. God wants to use your marriage to restore the unity that existed at the beginning of time between Adam and Eve, and to show the world that men and women are not meant to be enemies or mysteries to one another, but true, intimate helpmates for each other. Further, he wants to unite you in a mission that will bring his face to the world in ways only you and your spouse can, and to empower your marriage to be a blessing to everyone who encounters you. And by committing your lives to all of this, God plans to give you the grace each of you needs to help each other become everything you were created to be in this life and to enable each other to get to heaven in the next! Clearly, God is giving you a great deal to celebrate!
But wait! There’s more!
In the next chapter, we’ll explore the second blessing God wants to give you, a blessing that will be a cause for celebration for generations — literally — to come; the blessing that accompany a life-giving love.