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Catholic Weddings

Jul 25
0

Tools for Building a Strong Marriage

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

For our love to be life-giving, we need to be connected with one another. Unfortunately, in today’s electronically linked world, we are sometimes more aware of the people on the other side of our phone or the Internet than of the people who are sitting in front of us: the members of our family. How can we provide for their needs and be of service to them if we are not aware of them? John: Invisible People Dave and Diane are a couple in their early thirties. Married seven years, they have two children. Dave is a successful professional, and Diane works part-time at the local library. They are a normal couple and have the problems that all couples have. As I listened to Diane and Dave describe, during a counseling session, their problems and their schedules, I formed a mental picture of their evenings’ routine. It is 7:00 p.m….

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Jul 25
0

How the Sacramental Graces of Marriage Help Couples

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Marriage Preparation, Meaning of Marriage | No Comments

The sacrament of Marriage is not just a ritual you will celebrate on your wedding day. Your wedding rite is the door that opens your heart to the graces you need to be a credible icon of Jesus’ love each day of your life—a sacrament of God’s love. Being married in the Church in a sacramental marriage is an act of faith that brings you many graces. It is because of your faith that you allow yourself to be touched by God and love your spouse in good times and bad. You let the example of Jesus and the prompting of the Holy Spirit guide you and influence you every day. • When you are upset and hurt in your relationship, it will be your faith that urges you to turn to Jesus who will guide you back to each other. • When you bask in the love of your…

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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…

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Oct 30
0

I Would Be Happy If . . .

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

 By John Bosio   During a recent visit with my sister and brother-in-law who are adjusting to the retired life, each of them complained to me about the other. She was saying: “Retired life would be great if he was not so stubborn. When he sets his mind to do something, he does it, and either I go along with it or we fight. The house is a mess. He starts a project, then another, then one more, and never finishes any one of them. His presence at home 24 hours-a–day drives me crazy.”   I heard a similar litany from her husband: “I retired first and I had my own comfortable routine at home during the day. Now she is at home and we get in each other’s way. She criticizes everything I do, including my favorite hobbies. For years I enjoyed tending to our garden. When she was working she had no interest in it. Now she is telling me what to plant and when to…

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Jul 27
0

Family Planning the Natural Way

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

By John Bosio  Do you remember private conversations before your wedding about how many children you wanted? I remember Teri dreaming out loud that she wanted to have six, just like her mother, but coming from a family of three I was secretly hoping it would not be so. I would say, “let’s start with one at a time.”   The conversation about children and when to have them is one that leads couples to choose a method for managing their fertility. Many women today choose to manage their fertility through some form of hormonal contraception—a method that has many side effects and risks. The Catholic Church considers all methods of artificial contraception as misguided. Let me explain.  In a Catholic wedding, just before reciting the vows, the priest asks the couple: “Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”   According…

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Jan 16
2

The Meaning of Love

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Meaning of Marriage, Romance, Uncategorized | One Comment

By John Bosio A few months ago I received an unsolicited email message entitled “The Meaning of Love.” The author had collected many definitions of love given by young children, ages four to eight years old. Here are three that caught my attention: “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.” “Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.” “Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken.” These are truly examples of love that is self-giving through which couples imitate Christ in their everyday life, and when they do they are an example to others, especially to their children, of God’s love. Love…

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Aug 23
1

Don’t Let Your Marriage Go on Autopilot by John Bosio

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Romance | No Comments

During the years of marriage it is easy for spouses to let their relationship shift into “automatic pilot” and to slowly drift apart, writes Bill Doherty, author of Take Back Your Marriage. As life goes on, spouses become preoccupied with the needs of their children and the demands of work.  In the meantime, they gradually neglect each other and begin to feel more and more distant. This drifting happens not because there is something wrong with the relationship but because such is the natural flow of things in married life. To avoid drifting to the point of disconnecting, Doherty recommends that spouses shift out of automatic pilot and take control of their life. He stresses the importance of intentionally doing things that keep them in touch with each other.  He recommends the use of rituals.  Marriage rituals are activities that husband and wife do together regularly.  For example, a couple…

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Jun 18
1

What Makes You Stay By John Bosio

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Meaning of Marriage, Uncategorized | No Comments

“What makes you stay when your world falls apart  . . . when you can’t find any hope . . . Tell me what makes you stay,” sings country music artist Deana Carter. What makes you stay in your marriage?  Whenever I pose this question to couples I receive a variety of answers.  They say they stay because: they love each other they have a comfortable life together; they’ve made a lifetime commitment; they enjoy being together. What all of these responses have in common is a fundamental truth about the marital relationship: Marriage is something good that we desire.  What brings man and woman together and keeps them together is the goodness each spouse finds in the other and in their life in common. As Christians we believe that God intends for spouses to be a gift to each other, just as Adam and Eve were at creation. A…

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May 23
2

What Are You Looking For? by John Bosio

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Romance, Uncategorized | No Comments

Several years ago my wife Teri and I helped lead a marriage preparation weekend.  During one of the sessions the engaged couples were asked to imagine their life together and to draw on a poster board their dreams for the future. Most couples sketched images of big homes, shiny cars, cute children, and successful careers. The poster that caught our attention was that of a young Vietnamese pair who could barely speak English.  At the center of their artwork they had placed a large red heart.  All around it and on a very small scale they depicted their hopes and dreams.  They explained: “What we want to have in 10 and 15 years from now is the happiness we feel today, when we are together.” What all spouses are looking for in marriage is happiness. They dream of a joy that comes from being each other’s faithful companions and best…

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Apr 17
1

Married Couples Called to be Part of God’s Mosaic by John Bosio

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Marriage Enrichment, Meaning of Marriage, Spirituality | No Comments

In the spring of 2004, as Bishop Edward Kmiec of Nashville celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation with the candidates at St. Stephen Catholic Community in Old Hickory, Tennessee, he compared God to an artist creating a beautiful mosaic. Kmiec explained that a mosaic is a work of art, a picture made with thousands of tiny colored stones and gems placed next to one another to form a splendid design. Each one of us, he said, is like a colored pebble, a precious stone in the hands of the Artist. God sees the good and the beauty in each one of us, and places us in his mosaic as he calls us to play a unique role in his work of art. Our Christian vocation is not a call to become rich and famous, but to become people who shine with the goodness and the beauty of God wherever we are…

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