Married Couples
Lent: A Marriage Make-over Opportunity
Lent – the annual invitation to lean in closer to the Lord in our pursuit of holiness through fasting, prayer and almsgiving. This year, we’re looking to do something together to grow both in faith and love. It’s typical to approach Lent as individuals, each of us committing to our own plan of renewal. Yet our marriage vocation reminds us that being…
Read MoreRomance and Mystery
One of the things that makes a new romance so exciting and attractive is the element of uncertainty: Is this person really interested in me? Will this person really be the one I’ve longed for? We can all relate to the thrill of the start-up relationship where the other is essentially still a stranger…
Read MoreTogether with Purpose
The theme for Marriage Week prompts us to reflect – what is our purpose as a couple? Are we together merely by luck, or is there something more? It’s not uncommon to hear people refer to couples in long-lasting marriages as ‘lucky’. It’s as if marital longevity is a roll of the dice, like winning…
Read MoreHoly Spouses – Holy Family
The Church has long valued the spousal dimension of Mary and Joseph’s relationship. It encourages us to see marriage not just as a social institution for the purpose of raising children, but as a divine calling to personal holiness through service to each other. We’ve all heard of major Marian feasts like the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption,…
Read MoreMarriage: to be happy or to be holy?
“And they lived happily ever after”… it’s the ending of the fairy tale love story and has become the expected story line of most modern day couples. Swept away by passion and the overwhelming experience of ‘falling in love’, couples expect the wedding to seal their happiness in permanent (and effortless) marital bliss. Of course,…
Read MoreResolutions to Have and to Hold
It’s a new year, a new beginning. Among all the goal setting, consider what you can do to transform your marriage. Have you ever noticed that New Year resolutions often have a repentance nature? Resolutions such as ‘to drink less’ or ‘to give up smoking’ directly identify behaviours we readily associate with vice. Even those…
Read MoreLove in the Waiting
Advent is the season of waiting; we wait in anticipation of the coming of Christ. But are we the only ones doing the waiting? I (Francine) was hurrying to get out the door for 7am Mass. I looked at the time on the car clock and sighed in defeat: 6:58. There was no way…
Read MoreGratitude: Plant Now, Reap Later
As we look forward to the new year, lots of us are making resolutions, setting goals, planning for the coming months. Most of our colleagues in the marriage education field are posting articles about setting relationship goals – an excellent idea, but we’d like to propose something different. It has been well established that gratitude…
Read MoreThe Honey-Do List Standoff
How do you get your husband to do the household jobs you really care about? How to do you get your wife to stop nagging and micromanaging? These are questions to which almost every couple across the globe can relate; the never completed ‘To Do list’ wives prepare for their ‘honey’ on the…
Read MoreTIME – The Currency of Relationships
There’s an old adage in the world of parenting advice: Kids spell LOVE as T.I.M.E. Kids don’t need things nearly much as they need a parent’s attention and availability. It’s a classic mistake we make all too often; we give them stuff we’ve bought instead of the thing they most need from us – our…
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