Category

Romance

Jan 29
0

Prayer for My Lovely Bride of 27 Years by Brian Doyle, A Book of Uncommon Prayer

By | Marriage Enrichment, Romance, Spirituality | No Comments

May you always be as vibrant and gracious and tender as you are today. May you never again in this blessed lifetime put milk on to heat for your coffee and turn the burner on high and wander away and get absorbed in something else and have to shriek and sprint into the kitchen as you have every! single! morning! since I met you thirty years ago. May you always be as selflessly engaged and fascinated by other people and unabsorbed by yourself as you are today. May you never again lie awake sleepless worrying that the children’s struggles are totally your fault because you were not a good enough mom. May you always have those arresting blue-gray eyes exactly the color and potential fury of the sea. May you always be as graciously and kindheartedly and un-greedily you as you are today. May you someday love yourself as much…

Read More
Jul 25
0

Ritual and Routine Exercise for Spouses

By | Communication, Marriage Enrichment, Romance | No Comments

We’d like to give you an opportunity to strengthen the rituals and routines that bind you together and make you unique as a couple. You’ll have an opportunity to look at or develop the routines you have that make sure you get the time you need to work, play, pray, communicate, and celebrate together. Part I: Rituals A ritual is a regular, scheduled, expected event that enables you to have the time you need to work, play, pray, communicate, and celebrate together. Sit down with your spouse, and consider your relationship. In the blanks below, write the rituals that mean the most to you in the following categories: work, play, prayer, communication, and celebrations. If you don’t have entries for a particular category, discuss rituals you could create to shore up this part of your lives together. Work: Every week, we have regular, scheduled time to work together to keep…

Read More
Jul 25
0

Prayer for a Simple Kind of Love by Haley Stewart

By | Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Meaning of Marriage, Romance, Spirituality | No Comments

I have trouble sleeping if my husband, Daniel, is out of town. The familiar sound of his breathing as he sleeps beside me is what slows my own breath and beckons me into sleep each night. After fifteen years of marriage, if he is far away it feels as if part of me is missing. “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” This is how scripture describes the intimacy of marriage (Gn 2:23). A parent and a child are bound together by blood, but a husband and wife take on this kind of intimacy by choice, reflecting the relationship between God and the Church, his chosen Bride. Through sacramental grace, our spouse—although forever in some ways a mystery to all but God—is made intimately known to us and we to him. The differences between Daniel and me remain a source of wonder, occasional frustration, and frequent bemusement. “You…

Read More
Mar 29
0

Falling in Love by Paul George

By | Communication, Family Life, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Romance | No Comments

What is more difficult, falling in love or staying in love? I’ve had this question posed to me a few times. The soul awakens when one falls in love. My soul awoke when I fell in love with my wife. Falling in love was easy. Sure, I had some fears and doubts, but as soon as I let go of those, I fell hard. My soul awoke too when I gave my life to Jesus. I sur- rendered. I had questions, doubts, and fears, but once I let go of those, my heart fell in love and broke open. My out- look changed overnight, but changes in my behavior and attitudes took time. I’m still on the journey of healing, growth, and conversion. Love requires more of us than falling. It’s the day-to-day process of loving that develops holy grit within us. We all know the feeling when the romance…

Read More
Jan 26
0

Find Love in Small Deeds

By | Communication, Family Life, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Romance | No Comments

In addition to being kind to ourselves, we also need to open up to the gentle presence of others in our lives. There are so many people who, during the day, care for us through little words of affirmation or other small ways. But we take them all for granted and miss the power of their wonderful support. It may take the form of family and friends saying a kind word. They may call just to let us know they are thinking of us. Or, they may do a small chore for us so we don’t have to do it ourselves. Often these are unrecognized graces. We fail to recognize them because we are used to them, maybe too used to them. Then we miss them when they are gone. Being grateful for the wonderful people in our lives now would certainly change our behavior toward them. As in the…

Read More
Apr 25
0

Learning to Bring Comfort and Healing

By | Communication, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Meaning of Marriage, Romance, Spirituality | No Comments

In marriage, loving as Jesus means being aware of each other’s needs and pains and helping one another carry our burdens. One of the early challenges couples experience in marriage is the feeling of drifting apart and the anguish that comes from it. Dr. William Doherty writes that getting married is like launching a trip on the Mississippi River with a canoe. Unless the couple paddles to resist the currents, they will be carried downstream to places they did not intend to visit. Dr. Doherty writes in his book Take Back Your Marriage that after a few months or years of marriage, spouses tend to let their relationship shift into “automatic pilot,” and they drift apart. John: What’s Wrong with Us? The young lady sitting in my office looked distraught. Valerie and John had been married barely six months. They married dreaming of a blissful life together. Now, however, Valerie…

Read More
Mar 28
1

Making Love or Having Sex: What’s the Difference?

By | Communication, Marriage Enrichment, Meaning of Marriage, Romance | No Comments

The Catholic Church regards marital intercourse as the most intimate gift of one person to the other and sees it as more than just “having sex,” which is having intercourse for self-gratification. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and a pledge of spiritual communion” (CCC, 2360). Making love involves a mutual surrender that unites body and spirit and that is the source of pleasure and joy. The Catechism reminds spouses that the physical pleasure of sexual intercourse is a gift from God to be enjoyed (CCC, 2362). It is in sexual intercourse that spouses celebrate their being a communion of persons. In that communion, they place their fertility at the service of God. For Catholics, sexual intercourse is always intimately tied to God’s creative power. Chastity and Tenderness in Marriage The virtue of chastity must guide you in…

Read More
Oct 28
1

The Bride without Shoes

By | Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Romance | No Comments

By John Bosio November 18, 1972: It was the day after our wedding. I remember driving on I-70 East, away from Kansas City toward the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. It was a snowy and windy day, but inside our little car, a 1970 orange-colored Maverick, it was warm and cozy. It was the place where we wanted to be. It was our car. It represented our new world. It was just the two of us, starting our life together. We had dreamed of spending our honeymoon strolling the Ozarks hills and visiting many quaint places. The snow that was coming down, wet and heavy, was redesigning our plans. That did not bother us. What was important to us was that we were together. It snowed for two days. On the third day, although there were ten inches of snow on the ground, we decided to get out and explore the area.  As…

Read More
Aug 18
0

The Power of Touch

By | Communication, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Romance, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

By John Bosio  A few years ago while in Rome, Teri and I visited the Vatican Museums. We had been there before, and on that day our primary objective was to spend time in the Sistine Chapel. We got up early to be first in line, and soon after the Museum opened, we entered its gate and darted across halls and chambers toward the famous chapel.   We finally arrived and we were able to find a seat on one of the benches located on the periphery of the room. It is difficult to appreciate Michelangelo’s masterpiece, painted on the ceiling of the chapel, when standing and looking up surrounded by a crowd. So we were fortunate to find a seat.  My eyes were drawn to a panel in the center of the ceiling, full of light and with a simple composition.  On the right, a dignified and energetic image of the Creator reaching…

Read More
Mar 24
2

Sacramental Blueprint for a Happier Marriage

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Romance, Spirituality | No Comments

By John Bosio  A few years ago I read in our Catholic newspaper an interview with a couple who attended the annual wedding anniversary Mass presided by the local bishop. The reporter asked the wife to share the secret of their successful fifty-year marriage. The wife responded that they had found great strength in their shared faith and in their participation in the Church’s sacraments.    If we were to ask a hundred Catholic couples how their faith helps them persevere and grow in their relationship we would likely hear a hundred different answers. But in these answers we would find a common theme: their understanding of what love is. Catholic couples learn the qualities of Christian love when they gather around the Eucharistic table and when they participate in the sacraments. When gathered as a community in prayer, they hear Jesus’ message: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 15:12)  And as…

Read More