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July 10, 2016

Pope Francis reflects on joy as an essential aspect of married love. It is joy, he says, that “increases our pleasure and helps us find fulfillment in any number of things, even at those times of life when physical pleasure as ebbed.”126 In a very real way, this reflection allows us to appreciate the complexity of our marriage relationships where love is not about just falling into it and falling out of it. It is joy that allows us to hold with an expansive heart all that life brings to us. “Marriage is an inevitable mixture of enjoyment and struggles, tensions and repose, pain and relief, satisfactions and longings, annoyances and pleasures, but always on the path of friendship, which inspires married couples to care for one another: ‘they help and serve each other’”.126

Then the Holy Father’s reflection goes on to consider how couples grow together when they are able to behold,one another as only they can, and seeing what only they see, perhaps. He speaks of the love of friendship recognizing and treasuring the great worth of the other person. In this, he suggests that individuals begin to appreciate the sacredness of the other, without necessarily feeling the need to possess it. Rather than trying to take and keep that sacredness, as though it was a possession to have and keep, a lover shows their tenderness as they hold the other with such deep respect and an almost fear of causing the other harm or depriving them of their freedom. “Loving another person involves the joy of contemplating and appreciating their innate beauty and sacredness, which is greater than my needs.”127 It is real love that allows us to see with open eyes and mind the great worth of another human being, beyond ourselves, beyond our own needs, beyond everything else.

This kind of loving, this kind of abiding joy of friendship is often grown in the pains and sorrows of life’s experience. As such, difficult challenges are not necessarily to be avoided by a couple, and nor should a couple necessarily try to shield their beloved from such difficulties. Going through a challenging experience together allows a couple to learn together, to grow together, to support one another, to come to appreciate what they have together. “Few human joys are as deep and thrilling as those experienced by two people who love one another and have achieved something as the result of a great shared effort.130

Turning then to young people who are marrying for love, Pope Francis offers some profound words of encouragement. He speaks of the challenges of leaving the home of our upbringing to build with another person our own home. This building involves working with the one we love to develop ever stronger ties together, taking on responsibilities with and for one another, growing into a life of meaning and significance unlike any other. These realities and opportunities of grace are often missing in a casual relationship without the commitment that marriage implies. Marriage is so much more than a mere spontaneous association for mutual benefit and gratification. To choose marriage is to choose a genuine and firm path that will be walked with another, no matter what challenges come, and so benefitting from an abundance of joy and goodness.

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