Beloved Family:
I owe an apology to all married couples, as well as widows and widowers. Why do I say that? I failed to highlight last weekend that Sunday, February 8, officially kicked off National Marriage Week. This is not an excuse, but I suppose the “split weekend that began the month (Saturday, Jan. 31/Sunday, Feb. 1) may have contributed to this confusion on my part.
In any event, I pray we agree that it is never a wrong time to highlight the essential value of the vocation
of Marriage for the Church and for the world. The following comes from a Catholic parish in Bogota, NJ:
World Marriage Day salutes the faithfulness, sacrifice, and joy that are part of daily living for husbands and wives and their generous love that gives rise to new life.
…we celebrate married love whose enduring power comes from the total gift of self a man and a woman give to each other. In celebrating this day, we remember that God, in Jesus, is always with us and with his help and grace assists us in all our efforts to live the love he calls us to give to each other.
I would ask that all of us pray actively for all husbands and wives, as well as for those couples in the phase of immediate preparation (who have set a marriage date) AND those who are in an earlier point on the journey of relationship.
Leading up to this weekend and the observance of Valentine’s Day, most of us have seen a lot of heart-shaped items — including one butcher offering heart-shaped steaks! We recognize that the heart serves people of faith as symbolic of much more than a cut-out ornament or decoration. As Sr. Scott Hahn writes:
The law of the New Covenant is a law that God writes on the heart (see Jeremiah 31:31–34). The heart is the seat of our motivations, the place from which our words and actions proceed (see Matthew 6:21; 15:18–20).
Jesus this week calls us to train our hearts, to master our passions and emotions. And Jesus demands the full obedience of our hearts (see Romans 6:17). He calls us to love God with all our hearts and to do His will from the heart (see Matthew 22:37; Ephesians 6:6).
This weekend, along with all the parishes of the diocese, we are asked to participate in the annual Catholic Charities Appeal. Yes, that does involve generously opening up our wallets and purses to make a monetary pledge. As importantly, it serves as an opportunity more fully to open our hearts to the suffering figure of Christ, who takes as many “disguises” as there are humans on the planet. This is what those many ministries and programs of Catholic Charities demonstrates.
Thank you for your prayerful participation. Let us pledge our prayer for those who provide and those for whom we are providing.
Let His Peace be with you,
Fr. Stephen
