English
EspañolDo you seek a counselor, a therapist, an accomplice…for the lights and shadows of your loving relationships? Try God. He is omnipotent. He is free from charge. He is open 24 hours a day, and he knows you better than you know yourself.
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“We pastors have to encourage families to grow in faith. This means encouraging frequent confession, spiritual direction and occasional retreats. It also means encouraging family prayer during the week, since “the family that prays together stays together.” When visiting our people’s homes, we should gather all the members of the family and briefly pray for one another, placing the family in the Lord’s hands. It is also helpful to encourage each of the spouses to find time for prayer alone with God, since each has his or her secret crosses to bear. Why shouldn’t we tell God our troubles and ask him to grant us the healing and help we need to remain faithful?” (The Joy of Love, n.227)
Commentary
The decision to truly love is to open oneself to the meaning, origin, and destiny of one´s life. This profound scenario, which touches you to the core, is particularly strong in conjugal love, in its lights and shadows, in its navigation without shipwrecks.
Sometimes spouses seek advice, consolation, understanding, strength, and light; where? In a thousand places, even in the sections of magazines. Develop this relationship with God, who knows you better than you know yourself, loves you without conditions or reservations, knows what is happening to you, why it is occurring, and how to overcome it by growing, without tearing you apart or devastating others. Talking to God, the God of love, makes us know ourselves better improves our stubbornness, anger, and resentment. It opens us up, softens, and encourages us.
May the spouses, precisely because they love each other better, encourage one another to develop their Christian lives. This does not mean abandoning the family but instead seeking the light and strength to carry it forward. One should never mock the other´s spirituality.
If we genuinely love the other, we should never allow ourselves to hurt him or her with expressions such as: “you who pray so much,” “you who beat your chest so much,” “you who go to Mass,” “you who say you go to confession,” and other similar phrases. To deny the spouse the grace of God or discourage him or her in their inner journey is an evil course; a lack of love, no doubt; but above all, it is enormous foolishness. God is the ultimate guarantee, the most profound foundation, the light that most enlightens everything that happens to us. He does not remove our human condition, limitations, and defects, but he enables us to recognize them and gives us the strength, courage, and joy to correct and improve. Without that …
