A loving relationship open to the presence of God

Commentary

This text of Pope Francis reminds me very much of a phrase my mother would say: “if a loving relationship is not open to God, then that love will hardly survive.

Sometimes we believe that the strength of the love one feels for the other is enough to keep us together forever. We believe that love is different from its lovers. We forget how many defects, inexperience, and mistakes we commit. How many couples marry before the Church, and after that big day, they never return there. We have to overcome this mistaken idea that living our faith makes our life dull when God wants most to fill us with happiness and help us stay united and faithful to the person we love. To do this, we must stop naively believing that our strength alone is enough. Together as spouses, we must ask Jesus Christ, in the Eucharist, to accompany our marriage and perform the miracle of growing ever more alive in our love. The miracle of Cana of Galilee: the best wine or love for our depleted love.

The truth is that we need to nourish ourselves from the source of love itself. That is why Jesus stayed in the Eucharist. To nourish and strengthen us in the act of loving through participation in his very soul and body, which is the soul and body of the best Lover. Moreover, this is not just a beautiful and abstract phrase because those who have God and want to be nourished by the Eucharist, truly change their lives, improve their defects, grow and bring this love, endlessly reborn, to their ordinary life with their family and friends.

Love and do what you will, said St. Augustine. When you prefer the good of the one you love to your own satisfaction, that love is transformed into good deeds. This is what God asks of our heart to transcend its selfishness. And he helps us achieve it.