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 placed.
This is a wonderful image that helps us understand our call to Christian marriage. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reminds us of that married couples are not just two people in love doing their own thing. “Marriage is not merely a private institution,” the USCCB said in its pastoral letter on marriage.
You and your spouse are a part of something that is bigger than the two of you. Like Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, and Mary and Joseph, you and your spouse have a role to play in God’s mosaic. On your wedding day, when you said yes to each other, you also said yes to God. You agreed to serve him as sacraments of his love. The call you answered on your wedding day—and the call you are invited to respond to each day—is God’s summon to fill your house with love and to make it a home where your children can feel God’s goodness. Your home is a place from which God’s love overflows into your communities.
Your Christian vocation to marriage gives meaning to your life as a couple. In his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John Gottman—a researcher who spent almost forty years studying married couples—says that a couple’s common meaning is one of the important factors that contributes to their success. Your Christian vocation to marriage gives you a common purpose and a common understanding of the journey you are traveling together.
Fulfilling your role in God’s mosaic is not easy and it is a work in progress that lasts a lifetime. However, the Artist is not leaving you alone to figure it out. He has given us a model and a mentor: his son, Jesus, who stands by our side to help us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us: “Christ dwells with them [the spouses], gives them the strength to take up their crosses and to follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to be subject to one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love.”
In your daily interactions, especially when you struggle, remember that together you and your spouse have a role to play in God’s design and that Christ stands by you to help you with his graces and to teach you how to love.
Have you ever thought about the fact that God has called you and your spouse to play a role in his design for humanity?
John Bosio is a former marriage and family therapist, director of religious education, and diocesan family life coordinator. He and his wife, Teri, are the authors of Joined by Grace, a marriage preparation program from Ave Maria Press.
