Grief + Grace: Suffering a Miscarriage as Newlyweds

/

KATE THIBODEAU

 

As newlyweds, we approach our first years of marriage in a blissful state of faith and hope. We make vows to our spouses to remain with them for better or worse, richer or poorer, till death do us part.

I specifically remember the utter happiness of my wedding day--the very best day of my life--with no thought that sadness could so easily creep into these early days of joy and peace.

God gifts to married couples a specific store of grace to carry them through the learning curves and the hardships of creating a life together. These graces  help us to learn sacrifice and charity and to offer ourselves and our desires up for the better of our spouse.

It is through these graces we are able to heal from wounds given to each other, the daily hardships we encounter, and for my husband and I, the greatest trial of all--the loss of our children.

 A few months into our very ordinary and blissful marriage, my husband and I suffered the miscarriage of our first baby. We had not planned for this little one; in fact, we had prayed for clarity in our decision to start our family and discerned that waiting was in God’s plan for us. However, the short duration of our unexpected baby girl’s life tugged at our heart strings. Despite God’s prudence to call her home so soon, we grieved the loss of his gift.

In our sorrow, I remember both a spiritual darkness and an overwhelming shower of grace that affected not merely my personal grief, but our marriage. My husband and I were called to grieve together; to openly suffer and mourn in a new way.

I remember thinking the honeymoon phase was officially over as I sat speechless, watching my husband sob for our baby girl.

There was no more need for blithely skirting around each other and putting on a happy face, confident our love would overcome hardship. Our strength now was found in experiencing, together, God’s change of plan for our lives.  

Sorrow and tears were followed by anger with God, frustration with my body, and an overwhelming sense of questioning our loss. I found myself sitting in the confessional, telling the priest through tears that I struggled with doubt in God’s decision, failing to understand how his sense of timing could be just or correct.

I fought fears that my husband could not suffer in communion with me, as he did not physically carry our child as I did. I listened to songs that made me think of my girl. I wrote letters to her that she would never read, bought a Christmas ornament to suffer through the holidays without her, and I cried through the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary, searching for the joy in my life.

My husband and I sought out the sacraments for graces and worked together to grow through our loss. We prayed a novena for answers, we picked a name for our little one (Charlotte Rose), inspired by St. Therese, who gave us great peace. We asked Charlotte’s intercession in her closeness to Jesus, that she may petition for the safety of her brothers and sisters to come. My husband and I prayed together through the tears and questions.

Our miscarriage journey is the greatest test of our faith as a couple so far: faith in our strength as a team, faith in our Catholic family, and most importantly, faith in God’s ultimate timing in our lives. 

We are daily showered in grace upon grace. We are gifted humility in trust of God’s plan and his full control of our family. We are gifted patience as we yearn for another child following baby Charlotte Rose. We are gifted contentment in approaching our newlywed existence sobered and stronger to pursue God’s mission for our family.

In sharing our loss with other newlyweds, I hear a common cry of families who suffer their losses both in silence and in community. Their relationships are tried by fire and strengthened by God’s infinite store of grace given through the sacrament of marriage. God calls couples to the joy and pain of marriage together. He does not give us tasks that are beyond our reckoning.

While there is no deadline to the grief that comes with the loss of our child, my husband and I are still learning to grow as one in our suffering, having found a new depth in dependence on each other and God’s mercy.

With the blessing of our “rainbow baby” to come this fall, I am daily reminded of the gifts of life and love to marriages, and those that are taken too soon.

May we always keep those couples suffering in our prayers, that they may not lose faith in God’s timing, but to be encouraged to look for the grace and strength that follows the storm. May we ask our angel babies to intercede for us from their blessed seat with God. May we ask Mary to bring joy into our newlywed struggles and fill us with restored hope.

About the Author: Recently married to her best friend and partner towards salvation, Kate Thibodeau is learning how to best serve her vocation as a wife while using her God-given talents. Mama to angel baby, Charlotte Rose, and soon-to-arrive Baby Thibs, Kate has an English degree from Benedictine College, and strives to live in the Benedictine motto: that in all things, God may be glorified. Kate loves literature, romance, beautiful music, pretty things, wedding planning, and building a community of strong Catholic women.

FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM

Love and Sacrifice Say the Same Thing.

/

STEPHANIE CALIS

 

What is beautiful draws our senses to the sacred. At a recent wedding I attended, a harp, organ, and choir lifted their melodies to the heights. The groomsmen wore tailcoats; the bridesmaids, embellished gowns the color of jade. Even these breathtaking details, however, were nothing compared to the radiance of the liturgy, or the couple themselves.

After a tear-filled procession and Liturgy of the Word, the celebrant’s homily illuminated an essential truth of our vocations, one embodied in a particularly tangible way through the call to marriage: love and sacrifice say the same thing, but only to the extent that we embrace them.

“You love,” he said, “as much as you sacrifice, and you sacrifice as much as you love.”

What does this mean?

As a wedding guest, I took these words as a prayer for the couple about to become one, that they might spend their lifetime willing one another’s good and fulfillment.

On a personal level, I heard them as a call, insistent and clear: along this path, my husband’s and my pilgrimage to the eternal wedding feast, our vows merit that we love with the entirety of our hearts, even when emotion runs dry and when we’d prefer not to make the effort. That we embrace the good times and bad, knowing that in making a gift of our actions, time, and entire selves to one another, we’re free from enslavement to self-serving desires.

I often consider the link between the words integration and integrity when it comes to relationships. That is, the times when the complementary parts of who I am--body and soul, reason and emotion, and more--are well-integrated and not in conflict with each other, are the times I find myself treating my husband with the greatest sense of integrity.

These are the times when my love for him and the sacrifices I’m willing to make for him--taking on extra chores when he’s busy, respecting our budget, putting our kids to bed on the nights he has to bring work home--speak a language of wholeness and good will.

When our hearts are integrated, love and sacrifice say the same thing: I give of myself to you, I place your present wants and needs before my own, I enter into your burdens and carry them alongside you.

In the times I turn to my own selfishness, preferring personal convenience or comfort above what’s best for my marriage and family, I see our relationships being chipped away at. I see them quite literally dis-integrate.

Thanks to grace and mercy, these breaks can be restored to something like their former wholeness, and only in eternity will they be brought to perfection.

Only in eternity. The words of this wedding homily, an occasion of such heavenly rejoicing, drew my attention down to earth and to the tension we live out in our vocations. We are earthly and imperfect, yet our call is focused on eternal life; on bringing our spouses and children (biological or spiritual) to the banquet by way of love.

And how to pour out that love? Through our acts of sacrifice. Saint John Paul II said, “There is no place for selfishness and no place for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when love requires sacrifice.”

By praying for your spouse, by serving and assisting him without keeping score, by keeping your shared goal of each other’s fulfillment and salvation at the forefront--even when it feels too hard--you become living icons of self-emptying love, bearing Christ to the world.

About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

BOOK | INSTAGRAM

5 Saint Thérèse Quotes to Help You Live the “Little Way” in Marriage

/

What could a cloistered Carmelite nun who lived in the 1800s and died at the young age of 24 teach anyone about marriage—especially marriage in the 21st century?

If you look at marriage through a purely secular lens, as a civilly-sanctioned union between two consenting parties who share great feelings of affection—and tax benefits—then not much.

But for Christians, marriage is so much more. And through the Catholic sacrament of matrimony, two individuals become a living sacrament.

There is a spiritual reality in the spousal union that knits souls together for life, “God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

There is unique marital grace that God reserves for those living the sacrament, and there is a mission given to the spouses that transcends time: help each other become the saints you are called to be. Walk with each other to Heaven. Cultivate your family as a ‘domestic church’ that overflows with life, love, grace, and Christ.

But what does marriage have to do with a young Carmelite nun?

Her name was Thérèse Martin—a young, fifteen-year-old girl who petitioned the Holy Father to enter Carmel; her plea was granted. During her remainder of her life in the French convent, Thérèse adopted a philosophy and a spirituality that reflected her own “little soul.” It was a way of simplicity, sacrifice, and, ultimately, love.

In 1997, she was officially declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II. In her much-loved autobiography, Story of a Soul, she writes, “overcome by joy, I cried, 'Jesus, my love. At last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love!’” Saint Thérèse’s spirituality, her most enduring legacy, is affectionately known as the “Little Way:” a simple and direct path to Heaven. Although written by a young nun who never married, this spirituality is a beautiful rule of life for the married home. Through her own words, we learn the little way as a guide for our own vocations to love, through the vocation to marriage.

 

“My whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice, these are my invincible arms; they can move hearts far better than words, I know it by experience.”

Saint Thérèse’s religious life revolved around constant prayer and sacrifice, especially little daily sacrifices like cleaning dishes or helping other sisters in need (especially those she found to be the most difficult). How strong marriages would be if each spouse filled every day with tiny sacrifices and deaths to self, each offered as a little prayer of love to Jesus!

“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice,” she admonishes. “Here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right thing and doing it all for love.”

When you begin a burdensome chore, do it joyfully; offer up the urge to complain as a small sacrifice for your beloved and for Christ. Your joyful “yes” to making the bed each morning becomes a small fulfillment of the call to your vocation of married life. Each little labor becomes a prayer. After all, “when one loves,” Saint Thérèse says, “one does not calculate.”

“I know now that true charity consists in bearing all our neighbors' defects—not being surprised at their weakness, but edified at their smallest virtues.”

Is there anything about your spouse that drives you nuts? When you attend confession, do you feel like you could do their examination of conscience for them?

“How could he leave his clothes on the floor by the bed again? Haven’t I asked him ten times not to do that?” St. Thérèse’s little way notices faults of others through a different lens. The bad habits in your spouse, and in yourself, do not change easily or quickly; that’s the nature of a habit.

When your spouse does something that annoys you, again, refrain from acting shocked. Expect a healthy amount of imperfection or inconsistency from your spouse, and reflect, instead, on even his smallest virtues.

This minor shift in perspective curbs disappointment and hurt of failed expectations. Choose joy. Choose to notice the strengths of your spouse that made you fall in love with them in the first place. There may be profound suffering in marriage, but, as Thérèse says, “It's true, I suffer a great deal—but do I suffer well? That is the question.”

“I understood that every flower created by Him is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our Lord's living garden.”

Do you ever look at another wife and wish you could be as good as her? Her beauty, her talents, her home, and even her marriage seem better than yours.

Envy destroys souls and marriages. But confident humility and gratitude for the gifts and beauty in your life destroy envy. Saint Thérèse wisely notes the perfect beauty of every person’s unique soul and vocation in God’s “living garden.”

“If a little flower could speak,” she explains, “it seems to me that it would tell us quite simply all that God has done for it, without hiding any of its gifts. It would not, under the pretext of humility, say that it was not pretty, or that it had not a sweet scent...if it knew that such were not the case.”

Make a list of all the little things that bring you gratitude about your spouse and the life you share together. Present these things with love to the Lord and praise him for crafting you as the beautiful flower you are. “Holiness (and happiness) consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be,” Thérèse says.

Another woman may have been created as a rose, but your life as the simple daisy adds necessary color and beauty to God’s garden.  

“God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint.”

In one of the most courageous sentences she ever wrote, St. Thérèse confidently hopes in her own sanctity, despite being acutely aware of her weaknesses and faults. She knows that her vocation is love, so “without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.” It is not always the grandeur of holy actions that make a saint, but the grandeur of love in every little action.

On your wedding day, you vowed to love your spouse “until death do us part.” Only then is your vocation complete, when you and your beloved enter eternal life as saints who helped each other through a lifetime of growing in sanctity.

In your own littleness, do not despair. Ask God for the theological virtue of hope to thrive in your marriage. Trust that your desire for sanctity in your vocation is never in vain.

In spite of your faults, in spite of the flaws of your spouse, in spite of the imperfections of your marriage, you can always, confidently, hope to become a saint. Walk the little way of simplicity, sacrifice, and love. Grow through the graces of marriage and the deep, abiding love of God—just like a little French nun who became a Doctor of the Church.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, pray for us!

My Daughter's Storybook Wedding--and How it Helped me Grieve

/

LIZ GORRELL

 

I am a bride, a mother, and a grandmother. In anticipating my eldest daughter’s child (my 6th grandchild), I am eager to share the story of our mother-daughter relationship amidst the planning of her wedding day last year. Celebrating her storybook wedding, and reflecting on that season of life, was a precious spiritual gift to me. I pray that sharing this story will be a gift to a young bride-to-be, new bride, and her mother.

In the midst of planning my daughter’s wedding, I was grieving the death of my mother. The process of mourning my loss filled my soul with emotion and clouded my ability to express myself. It wasn’t until after the wedding when I was finally able to sit and reflect upon my mother’s death, my daughter’s beautiful wedding, and the prayers my mother would have offered--for my daughter, her new husband, and their life together. Ultimately, the moment of pause helped me recognize how her wedding was my “good grief,” a gracious gift in the midst of sadness.

A mother is an integral part of a young woman’s life when she is getting married. Regardless if the two are on good terms or not--whether the relationship is filled with intimate stories and laughter over a girls’ night or strained from wounds and incompatible temperaments--the mother-daughter relationship is emphasized during a transition to marriage.

I believe every mother longs to be close to her little girl as she moves from her parents’ protection to the loving shelter of a kind man. And I believe each young woman yearns for her mother’s support as she enters her new vocation.

I go back in my mind to a year ago when my daughter, Kate, and I were in the middle of reception detail planning and dress fittings. There was so much to decide upon, and of course, I was so excited to bring all my crafty talents to the table and make her storybook wedding a reality. At the same time, the shadow of grief from my mother’s death followed me as I hadn’t adequately processed the transition in my own mother-daughter relationship.

Kate and I often argued about wedding etiquette. More than once I heard, “Mom, people don’t do that anymore!” Eventually I responded, “Well, if I’m paying for it, I want it to be done well and be a classy event.”

The tension and anger were followed by apologies and compromises. The “Please, Mom, understand I want my wedding to be what I envision, not your vision,” was almost always answered with, “I understand, honey, but please don’t steal my joy in giving you something beautiful.” Despite our challenging conversations, we were able to come together to create a lovely and memorable day.

“Stealing joy” was an echo of my mother’s words from years prior--when I had denied her opinion and financial support in my own wedding preparations and newlywed life. I was the youngest of fourteen children, her eleventh daughter, and I shudder at the memory of my reaction to her efforts to help me.

The dual-perspective as both a daughter and a mother allows me to identify these offerings of help as a sincere gift. I wish I had been more gracious and hadn’t “stolen her joy.” Simultaneously, I can empathize with my daughter’s longing for independence and freedom in some of our conflicts of opinion.

I recognize the perspective as a young bride, unable to realize how much emotion a mother experiences as her daughter prepares for marriage. A mother’s emotional investment stretches beyond monetary costs, aesthetic details, and various other niceties. In her daughter’s wedding, a mother comes to terms with the reality that her young girl is becoming a woman, making decisions of her own, and preparing to leave home in order to cling to another. Such a transition is difficult.

When a woman first finds out she is having a baby girl, she holds close to her heart all the expectations of what kind of mother she will be to her little girl. She hopes to be a good example in femininity, holiness and motherhood, and to cultivate a true friendship that goes beyond being a mother and daughter. Every mother has expectations for her daughter, in what kind of woman she will become; as I look with love upon my daughter, I can honestly say she has always exceeded mine.

As a homeschooling family, I had been a long-term support to my daughter--and she to me. Yet, witnessing her maturation and growing independence through the college years was difficult. Though she became the lovely independent young woman and friend I had hoped for, there is an experience of grieving, of “losing” my little girl. Such a bittersweet transition is not easy.

My daughter’s wedding was truly a storybook wedding. I was touched by her and her fiance’s desire for the wedding to be a deeply sacred event. The afternoon of the Nuptial Mass was indeed a true expression of Faith which included she and her guy meeting our pastor to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation minutes before they would line up with their bridal party in the back of the cathedral.

With the classic sacred music, stunning musicians, and reverence of the whole Mass, many tears of joy were shed that afternoon, however, surprisingly, I didn’t cry. In total peace, I looked upon my little girl all grown up, as she stood arm in arm with her new husband presenting, with love, her bouquet and entrusting their marriage to our Blessed Mother Mary. My own mother lived her life devoted to our Blessed Mother, so I imagine she was probably smiling down from heaven.

The fairy tale continued at a most exquisite reception venue with simple elegance planned into the details. The details were very personal from the place setting favors to the gorgeous dessert table spread of homemade pies and cheesecakes compliments of her sister-in-law, Abby and myself. My humble effort at making the wedding cake was a labor of love and satisfaction even if it was a bit crooked! From the Father-Daughter dance to “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder, and the Mother-Son dance to “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong,

all the joy was bit by bit healing my grief.

Everyone celebrated loudly, danced the night away and gathered under the stars sending off the happy couple under a shower of sparklers.

In the grieving of my little girl’s growing up and the grieving of my mother’s death, I lost my familiar positions in relation to the women who know me best. But in my loss, I gained a new level of intimacy with both my daughter and my mother, I gained a new perspective and compassion for how the mother-daughter relationship changes over time, and I gained the love of God to guide me, gently, through a major life transition with peace and joy.

I often think of my daughter and my mother, Edith, as my two closest friends. When I think of the virtues my holy mother possessed--strong love of God, His Blessed Mother and the Saints, humility and patience--I see those same virtues in my daughter; so my mother lives on.

My advice to the young ladies planning a wedding is to seek a better understanding of the gift you are to your mother, and that regardless of the state of your relationship with your mother at this time, know you are a gift from God to her. Your love and joy may help her grieve a loss, heal a wound, and grow in holiness.

To the mothers out there, I pray for grace for you to enter into a better friendship with your girl as she prepares for her vocation of wife and motherhood. Give her your time and love, but most importantly your prayers so she may glorify God with her new life--a life you helped to provide, and nourished the best you could.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Liz Gorrell is a wife, mother to five living children and three little saints in heaven, and grandmother to 5 sweet kiddos. A Midwest transplant to Austin, Texas, she loves gardening, creating mosaic patio stones with Catholic themes, all-things decorating, wedding and party planning, baking, and celebrating big her Catholic Faith. Liz has spent the better part of the last 20 years homeschooling her last four children, creating a domestic Church by way of her love of sacred art, liturgical celebrations and cultivating an environment of goodness, truth and beauty. She enjoys helping young mothers and other homeschooling mothers through her ministry, Heart of the Home. She has a devotion to the Blessed Mother, and strives to emulate Mary and the Saints in living a simple life. Her goal is to hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant,.. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

Comprehending the Cross

/

CARISSA PLUTA

 

Death to Self. That doesn’t sound particularly pleasant, does it? Not only that, but it also seems to stand in direct opposition to our human instinct of self-preservation. We were made to survive.

And yet, we are asked to lay down our lives for our spouse not just once but daily for as long as we both shall live. It just doesn’t make sense.

We remember today the greatest of paradoxes--the Cross, an instrument of death that became a symbol of eternal life.


Beaten, bloodied, hanging naked before all, for a crime He didn’t commit. Christ’s body emptied for fallible creatures who would deny Him. His heart spilled out for the imperfect Beloved who would reject Him.

Hours before, He sweated blood in the Garden while asking that this cup pass from Him. In that moment, we see fear of pain, fear of death.

He didn’t have to undergo that suffering. He didn’t have to stay on that cross; He is God after all.

But He did so to show us that, despite the difficulty we may face, despite the moments where our love isn’t perfectly returned, the sacrifice is worth it.

He was held on the cross by the same force that has the power to unite two broken, flawed humans in the sacrament of marriage--Love.

Love makes the suffering of the cross comprehensible.

We look today in a special way upon the cross, upon the perfect Lover. The example set before us on our wedding day of self-gift at its best. The cross offers an honest look at what we are called to in our vocation-- an emptying of oneself, a rejection of the primal instinct of self-preservation to be brought into the greatest of glories. Death and resurrection.

Suffering doesn’t make sense when taken alone. We want our happily ever after, and God-willing, one day we should have it. But we don’t want the mediocre version of happiness the world offers us. Instead our heart longs for the fulfillment of all our desires and we will never be satisfied with anything less.

We enter a new leg of our journey to our heavenly homeland as we enter into our vocation; the heat of the crucible is turned up and there will be moments when we feel the pain of our impurities being burned away.

There will be joy in your marriage, and those moments will be some of the profound moments of joy you will ever experience in this life. But in order to receive what we were created for, those imperfect parts of ourselves must undergo a crucifixtion of sorts, and brought to new life.

As we clear our hearts of our selfishness, we make room for something that is more beautiful than we ever could have imagined--God Himself.

This is what He vows to us on the cross today. This is what He promises to us with His dying breath. I love you, he whispers in the depths of your heart and I want you to spend eternity with me. So, together with your husband, take up your cross and follow me. Lay down your life alongside me, and I promise you will rise with me. I will show you what it means to Love.

Carissa Pluta

About the Author: Carissa Pluta is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. She is the author of the blog The Myth Retold. Read more

BLOG | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

Our Origins Point us to our Destiny

/

STEPHANIE FRIES

 

The latin root of the word ‘origin’ is oriri, meaning, ‘to rise.’

We study our origin to know the root from which we rise. This truth is simplified in the common saying, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” The apple is precisely what it is and where it is because of what and where it came from. Though related to the origin, each fruit carries its own dimension of unique characteristics.

Reading and studying the beginnings of human nature help us more deeply understand our supernatural purpose and eternity in heaven. I imagine studying our origin is like firing a slingshot. The further back you pull the sling—or the deeper you explore your origin—the higher the shot will launch upon release.

Our shared identity as Christian women offers a common foundation. Each of us can say, “I am a human. I am a child of God. I am a woman.” We could explore the roots of our role as daughter or sister. Many of us can say, “I am a wife.” With each piece of our identity, we rise with a beautiful complexity of strengths, graces, skills, weaknesses, and experiences into a wide variety of individuals, called to glorify God in a variety of ways. Let’s begin exploring our shared identity together to strengthen our foundations of self-knowledge and communion with God.

I am a human.

We hear the fulfillment of the universal human heartache in Scripture, when Adam sees Eve and exclaims, “This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He received her as his own, she was seen and loved in her pure existence; in that moment, Adam and Eve experienced the fullness of perfection, in unity, without shame. Following the fall of humanity to sin, our ability to achieve perfection on this side of heaven faded. Nonetheless, every person’s desire for pure companionship and reciprocal love with others remains a part of our human origin.

I am a child of God.

For an understanding of our supernatural destiny, we study the origin of creation by God. He creates every natural element on Earth as an overflow of his love. He is love. Every piece of creation is a fruitful act of love, made to reflect and share his glory throughout the world and to offer love back to him. As a child and image of God, our origin—and, thus, our destiny—is to love others, to receive love, and to be fruitful.

I am a woman.

Saint Pope John Paul II offers several beautiful texts on the origin of our identity as women. In his 1988 Apostolic Letter, Mulieris Dignitatem, he encourages women to explore the origin of their femininity in Christ in order to know their destiny, “In the spirit of Christ, in fact, women can discover the entire meaning of their femininity and thus be disposed to making a “sincere gift of self” to others, thereby finding themselves.”  

In summary of Mulieris Dignitatem, four qualities inherent to the feminine heart and soul are receptivity, sensitivity, generosity, and maternity. As we identify the specific roots of our womanhood in these feminine attributes, we rise with confidence in our vocations by nurturing these qualities in ourselves and the women around us. We grow in self-love and develop a greater ability to fruitfully share that love through our specialized feminine gifts.

I am a wife.

Marriage, as a social institution, is rooted in legal, structural and financial benefits to society. Through a historically secular approach, marriage functions to offer foundational assets to a community for the greater good of all.

Supernaturally, or from the perspective of the divine, we are taught that men and women who share life in a covenant are empowered to reflect the image of the creator in a special way. Beyond reflecting God who is love in their individual lives, married couples reflect the inextricable union between Christ and the Church. We look to Christ on the cross to begin understanding the calling of married couples.

As Jesus carried his cross in a journey of salvation for all, husbands and wives are called to carry the burdens and pains of their spouse in their journey towards sanctification. As Jesus died on the cross for the sins of humankind, husbands and wives are called to surrender themselves for the sake of love of another. As Jesus’ side poured out blood and water as a sign of his purifying mercy for the Church, husbands and wives are called to forgive and be strengthened through their marriage to become an overflowing of love and mercy to each other, and their community. As Jesus’ death bore the fruit of grace through the offering of his body and blood, celebrated bodily through the Eucharist, husbands and wives are called to be fruitful through the sharing and offering of their own body and blood in creating new life.

We study our origin to know the root from which we rise.

What is another piece of your identity? I invite you to trace back through your life’s journey of memories, experiences, and callings to solidify your origin in that role. How can a deeper understanding of your origin teach you about yourself, God’s presence in your life, or where God may be calling you? How do your passions, desires, and gifts enable you to love others, to be loved, or to be fruitful in the world?

Reflecting on the origin of your personality, joys, passions, fears, and experiences will undoubtedly pull you to a deeper understanding of your roots so you may rise to the highest heights of your destiny. Ultimately, the ways in which we fulfill our vocations point us to our desire for the ultimate and infinite union with God in heaven.

About the Author: Stephanie Fries is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. Stephanie’s perfect day would consist of a slow morning and quality time with her husband, Geoff, a strong cup of coffee, and a homemade meal (…with dessert). Read more

INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

Where Love Dwells

/

CARISSA PLUTA

 

Then the Angel departed from her.

A friend of mine recently gave a talk that emphasized this line from Luke 1. This, he said, was the scariest line in Scripture. The words that proceed it are the words most of us have heard over and over again: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

PHOTOGRAPHY: Laurentina Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY: Laurentina Photography

Mary was invited into something so much bigger than herself, which in itself is frightening. Then she makes this bold statement of faith, and then the angel departed from her. No more questions, no explanation, no other answers.

Mary wasn’t given a roadmap, or a glimpse into the future. She didn’t know that she would have to give birth in a stable and then flee to Egypt to save His life. She never would have guessed that she would eventually watch her son suffer and die on a cross, only to come back from the dead three days later.

But it didn’t matter. When Mary gave her fiat, she said yes to everything that was to come, whether she knew it or not. She willingly said ‘yes’ God and in doing so, said yes to whatever would demand of her.

Like Mary, our “I do” at the altar contains a mysterious and sometimes messy reality.

When we make those promises of love we can’t know everything that will happen between then and that moment when death does us part. We don’t know how those vows will take shape. While we can dream about those good times, the bad times will inevitably come. While we can hope for health, sickness may still find its way in.

The promises I made on a spring afternoon almost three years ago look very different after two moves, big decisions, and a toddler later. And it will look even more different fifty years from now as our lives continue to unfold.

On that special day I, in a sense, made a promise to the unknown. I joyfully and willingly said “I Do” to a mystery.

And, similar to the Annunciation, it is in this mystery that Love dwells.


Love, a radical outpouring of self, is not found in knowing what is to come, but in the present. No matter how hard we try, love cannot be planned; it can only be chosen when the moment presents itself.

It is formed in those times of surrender, of joy, of consolation, and of desolation. It takes root among the laundry and dirty dishes, among the moving boxes and new jobs.

It is strengthened in the sleepless nights and early mornings, in the baby cries and smelly diapers. In wounded pride and tearful apologies, in laughter that makes your stomach hurt.

Heaven and earth intersect in a unique way when a man and woman promise themselves to the other. These earthly vows make room in our hearts for the divine, for eternity itself. Our minds cannot comprehend the depths of this Divine love we are promising. We may not understand what the words fully mean until we reach Heaven.

But like Mary we are called to say “I do” with our entire being. And like Mary, we can trust that God will give us the grace to be faithful to our call and make our “yes” truly life-giving.

Carissa Pluta

About the Author: Carissa Pluta is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. She is the author of the blog The Myth Retold. Read more

BLOG | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

Newlywed Life | What Do You Do When You and Your Spouse Have Different Outlooks on Health + Wellness?

/

STEPHANIE CALIS

 

My husband spent our year-long engagement two states away in his first year of grad school, determined to save money for our life together by shopping and eating as little as possible on his small stipend. The first time I saw him after he moved, he’d visibly lost weight and was more tired than usual--the result of a steady diet of frozen broccoli, boxed mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, and a weekly frozen burrito splurge on Sundays. I bought him a cookbook and promised we could live prudently without sacrificing his health.

Meanwhile, as I embarked on post-college living for the first time, I was sampling kombucha, oil pulling, and debating buying barefoot-style running shoes. Was my husband unnecessarily ascetic? Was I blindly following any wellness trend that appeared on my radar? The answer was probably both.

Even several years into marriage, I frequently observe the ways family of origin shapes your outlook, for better or for worse. My parents, sister, and I would take classes together at the gym and enjoyed cooking together from scratch. My husband and his siblings preferred pick-up sports to gyms, and his family often prioritized convenience and savings over other factors when grocery shopping.

After our wedding, as we began sharing meals and a bank account, my husband and I found ourselves in significant disagreement over how to use our limited resources well and to determine what was actually “healthy.” He called me a snob when I turned up my nose at butter that wasn’t grass-fed. I called him careless when he’d come home fatigued and sick from dipping into the candy jar at work all day.

I look back and see each of our immoderate perspectives on wellness as a typical example of the growing pains of newlywed life. Becoming familiar with one another’s spending habits, tastes, and day-to-day nutritional, sleep, and exercise requirements are among many adjustments in the merging of two individuals’ habits into a new, shared life. I have asked myself, however, why I felt so passionately about health in particular, and why I often insisted my husband conform himself more to my habits than vice versa. He’d press me, insisting he’d cherish and care for me no matter if one of us gained weight or developed an illness.

I truly believe the human body makes manifest God’s glory and expresses the person. I believe taking care of my physical well-being--held, that is, in proper perspective with my spiritual well-being--better provides me with the energy and clarity of mind to serve my husband and children in my vocation and to place my gifts at the service of the Lord.

Yet if I’m being entirely honest with myself, I also see the raw places in my heart that hide in fear: I fear sickness, death, infertility. I fear my appearance won’t be enough for my husband; the lie that, as a woman, how I look equals who I am. It’s a constant struggle for me to embrace the tension of pursuing fulfillment in this life while still fixing my eyes on the next. I desire, too much, to cling to this life in which I’ve been graced with so many gifts.

Eternal preservation, good health, and youth aren’t the ultimate goods. Eternal life, however, is.

Fulfillment without flaw. As I’ve worked to cast down these idols, time has given my husband and I more of a shared, moderate perspective on diet, exercise, supplements, and otherwise.

So where to turn if, like us, you find yourself and your beloved at odds over a major lifestyle matter--health and wellness, or otherwise?

First, I encourage you to accept differences of opinion as a normal accompaniment to your time of transition as newlyweds and, moreover, to delve into them. Like me, you might recognize a root cause that illuminates the parts of you the Father wants to heal, to reconcile, to be invited into.

Second, trust that your spouse chose you, loves you, made a vow to you--a mirror of our heavenly bridegroom. He wants you, no matter if you’re an XS or XL, if you eat or don’t eat gluten, if you’re marathons or Couch to 5K.

And lastly, turn to the Lord. Ask how you, in particular, can put yourself at the service of the Gospel--body and soul--and for him to reveal who you were created to be, and a healthy perspective on wellness will follow.

About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

BOOK | INSTAGRAM

Newlywed Life | Becoming the Sacrament

/

STEPHANIE FRIES

 

He approached the microphone, looked across the altar where we sat side-by-side, and began the homily of our Nuptial Mass, “Today, you have traveled here to commit your vows to each other in front of friends and family in the Sacrament of Matrimony.”

Father Martin pauses, glances around the sanctuary, then looks back at us; the thoughtful pause in his diction builds emphasis and suspense before he puts words on a vital truth,

“Today, you become the sacrament.”

PHOTOGRAPHY: AN ENDLESS PURSUIT

PHOTOGRAPHY: AN ENDLESS PURSUIT

Fast-forward three weeks into married life when my husband and I received a phone call from my parents and the two priests who concelebrated our wedding. They were all together for dinner—and eager to hear our updates.

They asked about married life, routines, work schedules, and dinner plans. Eventually Father Martin took hold of the phone and, with his dignified pause, created some silence across the phone line before speaking. “Ahem, Mr. and Mrs. Fries, I have a question for you. On your wedding day I shared how you became the sacrament through the grace of the sacrament.”

“Yes, that sounds familiar,” we responded with anticipation.

“So, my question: in this first month of marriage, how have you become the sacrament?”

Geoff and I looked at each other with blank stares; we were now utilizing our own intentional pause before we responded. To be honest, that was not a conversation topic that had come up between us since we first heard it from our seats on the altar. We didn’t have our response prepared on the tip of our tongues. But there was the question, waiting to be answered.

How have we become the sacrament?

When something is sacramental, an invisible, theological truth is made visible. Sacrament involves transformation.

Consider, for example, the sacrament of Baptism. As the prayers are said and the catechumen is “freed from sin and reborn as a child of God,” pouring water over their head is the visible component to bring a spiritual reality to life. Beyond receiving the sacrament of initiation, the people of the church are empowered in a new way, ”Faith must grow after Baptism. For this reason the Church celebrates each year at the Easter Vigil the renewal of baptismal promises. Preparation for Baptism leads only to the threshold of new life.”

In the Sacrament of Matrimony, vows are said aloud, rings are exchanged and, if possible, those vows are physically consummated. Through the sacrament, there is a visible and invisible uniting of the husband and wife. Following the sacrament itself, “This grace proper to the sacrament of Matrimony is intended to perfect the couple's love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity.“

I pause to wonder, what truths have we made visible since our sacramental union? How have we been transformed?

In our own experience, married life was initially surrounded by logistical changes, yet our spirits were marked with a consistent, calm embrace of our new shared life. We responded to Father Martin’s question in a dialogue, offering reflections of the peace and joy which resonated in our hearts since our wedding day. We spoke of our experiences of service and generosity to each other in our new home. “But really, we just love getting to start and finish our day next to each other and sharing all of the adventures in between.”

Our answer felt too simple.

When Father spoke next, you could hear the smile on his face. He echoed the shared memory of the tangible joy and peace of our wedding day; he offered praise that we continue to receive those graces from God. He emphasized, again, “I want you to remember, you become the sacrament.”

In the months following our conversation, Father Martin’s question has resurfaced as a frequent point of personal reflection. How do two people become a living sacrament of marriage? How have we become the sacrament?

Just as I begin to feel my heart rate increasing by the stirring of mental over-analysis, I am calmed with a familiar nudge from the Holy Spirit—a reminder to remember. Remember the simplicity. Remember the peace of our first season of married life, the answered prayers which built a foundation of confidence that God is with us.

Now, seven months into married life, my husband and I have shifted in and through a variety of seasons; contrasting seasons of peace, loneliness, adventure, anxiety and joy, woven together by the constant desire for God’s presence. The highs and the lows, different as they may feel, are similar in the way they unite us in vulnerability, communication, forgiveness, prayer and love through our vocation.

The highs and the lows and the learning in-between have all become gifts of grace.  

As we receive these graces of marriage, we receive God’s love.
As we receive him, we are commissioned to love one another.
In loving and being loved, we become visible signs of love—images of God.
As a physical form of love, we are the sacrament of marriage.

Maybe my answer will sound very different this time next year, given more time and experience as a wife. But maybe becoming the sacrament is as simple as receiving the grace of each season and seeking love.

How do you and your spouse become the sacrament in your vocation?

About the Author: Stephanie Fries is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. Stephanie’s perfect day would consist of a slow morning and quality time with her husband, Geoff, a strong cup of coffee, and a homemade meal (…with dessert). Read more

INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

The Bible is an Epic Love Poem

/

JESSE ROSS

 

The word “love” is thrown around a lot lately--it’s no wonder it’s getting a little banged up.

Photography: 31Four Jewelry

Photography: 31Four Jewelry

If we pick up the word “love” off the debate floor, though, and polish it up a little bit, we find that it is as beautiful as can be, a lot older, a lot richer, and a lot more intentional than we usually give it credit for.

Consider the history of love: there is a great epic poem written about it, and it is based in the Near to Middle East. It starts with a lonely man foraging on a planet by himself. The creator of the planet comes down and tells the lonely man that he can have everything on the whole planet: all the weird animals nobody has ever seen before, all the spiny green and viney plants, even all the things swimming and squirming around in the planet’s vast oceans.

The creator of this planet hasn’t even deigned to give anything names. The lonely man gets to  call them whatever he wants. And the place is beautiful (envision waterfalls, coconut trees, and lush flowering landscapes). In fact, the man is placed right in the middle of a veritable paradise.

But something isn’t right. The man is lonely. So the creator who loves him perfectly makes another person for him; so he can experience love and give love. Now this no-longer-lonely man and his fiance (for lack of a better term) stand before their creator, listen to the rules about the creator’s planet, agree to follow them, and are told to “be fruitful and multiply.”

This is the way it starts out: the first chapter, the first marriage.

This poem is printed in every language, and it goes on to tell tale after tale about love in one way or another; love of that original creator, love between the original man’s sons and daughters (and the ensuing drama and murder between them), and eventually love between a God and the entire people he created, ending in a tragic but beautiful death.

This epic poem, if you haven’t figured it out, is the Bible, and it talks about love for thousands of pages.

In fact, a narrative thread can be woven through the entirety of the Bible with the reader as the hero. But not only is there a hero in the Bible; it is largely written in verse (poetry form). Therefore, we can say the Bible is an epic love poem, an extraordinary form of poetic, narrative prose!

As members of the Roman Catholic Church, we claim ownership of this great narrative poetry. Our values are reflected in it because we wrote it, excepting the Old Testament books which we inherited from our Jewish ancestors.

So if we want to know what love is--as Catholics--and how we ought to define it, all we have to do is look closely at how it is represented in our literature. Just as we might look at how the ancient Norse writings represented Beowulf as a warrior who was rich beyond belief. So like Vikings valued war and gold, Catholics value true love.

In the case of Adam and Eve (that once lonely man and his wife), they lived physically and spiritually together. When she sinned, he sinned, and their salvations were bound together. They had children, and eventually they died together. They are prototypical parents but also intimately connected with God, since he is present as they become man and wife.

Also, since we know how the story of salvation history ends: with the new Eve and the salvation of Jesus Christ, despite committing the first sin, Adam and Eve are invited into redemption (much later in the poem) through the sacrificial act of crucifixion.

A logical read of this literature yields that marriage is inherently good. That it is part of God’s plan. But we also learn that everyone will face problems in their marriage, and the path to their salvation will be forged out of it, as well as the salvation of their children.

In the book of Genesis, the very basis of love itself is set forth. It defines the creation of mankind not merely as a set of individuals but as a complementary set made up necessarily of men and women. This is part and parcel of creation.

Moving beyond the popular, political argument of biblical marriage including a man and a woman, this chapter in Genesis says that marriage is not merely about being an individual.  Rather, the next intended stage of life itself is marriage.

Consider that unique value. Marriage isn’t part of life. Life ordinarily culminates in marriage. And if it doesn’t, that life is uniquely and extraordinarily recognized by the lack of the normal marriage state. This is the case of religious sisters and priests--their celibate state tends to be recognized because of its sacrificial lacking in one way or another.

In our Bible narrative, marriage is a divinely created concept. Eve was made for Adam. Adam was there before her, waiting for her, profoundly alone without her. He was made for Eve because he was deliberately created to receive and give love. He waits for his love and helpmate, which leads us into the second great biblical imagery and literature of love: the Song of Songs.

The location of the first wedding is the Garden of Eden. The later, classic Hebrew example of romantic love is the Song of Songs. It is interesting that the bridegroom also talks of a garden, of pomegranates, of “choice fruits.” In fact, this garden imagery is explicitly stated when Solomon writes “you are a garden locked up.”

Again, the idea of marriage as a fruitful garden repeats. This is our value system, being described in poetry. What’s more, virtually every sense--even less common literary examples of senses such as taste, “your lips drop sweetness of the honeycomb,” and tactile sensations, “my head is drenched with dew,” seem to point towards the physicality of marriage.

The Song of Songs celebrates physical love in dramatic and almost scandalous sensory imagery. And this is in the Bible, canonically defining marital love as a physical act between a man and a woman. It is a fruitful act, and one that is celebrated and to be engaged in with every sense you have.

Thus, if in Genesis we accept marriage as a destined purpose of life, and from the Song of Songs we learn the physicality between a bride and groom is a part of it, then we have to consider what else is part of love.

To put it simply, God is.

In Song of Songs 4:8, Lebanon is mentioned several times. What’s more, the bridegroom says to his beloved, “come to me from Lebanon,” which is the modern-day locale of Cana, the first miracle and also a wedding. This leads us, obviously and finally, to Jesus Christ.

In Christopher West’s book, The Word Made Flesh, he reminds us that St. Augustine poignantly describes the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as a marriage between him, the bridegroom, and the church, his bride. St. Augustine goes so far as to refer to “the marriage bed of the cross.”

This crucifixion is a corporal interaction with God and his people. It is a sacrifice, a death, and a rebirth--it is everything that marriage is as we know it.

Even more mysterious is that unlike every other sacrament, marriage is a sacrament that the bride and groom confer on each other, not the priest, though he is the witness. Similarly, Jesus and the world together performed the sacramental crucifixion--witnessed and allowed by God the Father.

It is a beautiful love story with an extremely interesting meta-fictional twist. Because of this death and resurrection, we (the viewers, the readers, the audience) get to relive this day to day. It is our example for marriage, if we do it right.

So how is this cutting edge “meta” literature possible 2000 years ago? Because it is truth. The Catholic Mass is yet another example of literature in action. The Mass can be reviewed and studied as a great drama, whereas we are players in a chorus. Catholics have stood and sat and knelt and recreated this drama every hour of every day for thousands of years.

Literature is art that comments on the human condition.

When used correctly, it is a breeding ground of truth. So true things have their place there, whether or not we understand them yet. Consider, for example, that Macbeth can accurately be diagnosed with schizophrenia long before it was a recognized disease.

Even as a less avant garde read, taken at face value, the Bible is a love story, and it contains a blueprint for what love is. But it is even more than a blueprint for Catholics. It is a blueprint for love to the Catholic Church, by whose authority we receive the Bible, to all Christians who seek to follow it, and to all those of any tradition (or lack thereof) who seek to know the overarching and unifying truth of love throughout the history of humankind.

About the Author: Jesse Ross is a father of four and a proud member of the Knights of Columbus. He holds an MFA in poetry; his fiction, nonfiction, and poetry can be found in several anthologies, Spoken Bride, and McSweeney’s. He is a precious metalsmith and co-founder of the Catholic art company 31Four, artisan jewelry.

WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | PINTEREST

The Feast of St. Joseph | A Fellow Human, A Saintly Spouse

/

STEPHANIE FRIES

 

Today is the feast day of St. Joseph: foster father of Jesus, spouse of Mary and head of the holy family. He was a carpenter, he was a man.

When we look to Joseph, we see a man who surrendered himself to the direction from an angel in his dreams. We read how he obeyed the command of God, loved and served Mary as his chaste spouse, and raised Jesus, the son of God, as his own earthly son.

Have you ever imagined when Mary and Joseph lost Jesus in the caravan, only to find him days later, preaching to adult men in the temple? My heart goes out to Joseph. The parameters of his mission were simple: love, protect, and guide Jesus and Mary. All in all, through obedience and grace, Joseph fulfilled his calling. But in this experience of losing Jesus and consoling Mary, I imagine Joseph was tempted to worry and despair.

Years later, Joseph died when Jesus was 30-years-old, on the brink of his public ministry. I picture Joseph lying on his deathbed, preparing to part from his earthly life. Joseph must have felt both sorrow and joy as he left his family with anticipation for his son’s powerful mission. I imagine the deep sadness of Jesus and Mary who said goodbye to their beloved.

Reflecting on the stories of Joseph bring his humble holiness to a human reality.

As we gaze at Joseph in statues and paintings, recall stories of him in Scripture or reach out to him in prayer, we encounter a friend. He is so approachable; a human man who intimately encountered the divine every day. This man who we rightfully honor with holy veneration was conceived with original sin. He was as human as me and you.

In the vocation to married life, we are sacramentally offered good and holy gifts such as intimacy, vulnerability, and companionship. Receiving and living out these gifts can often send individuals and couples to the heights of love, or can expose a raw wound of human brokenness. Perhaps in a moment of insecurity we believe, “I am not enough.” In the midst of an argument we fear abandonment. In prolonged frustration and anxiety, we despair and lose trust in God’s providence.

It may be easy to admire an icon of Joseph, Mary and Jesus and assume the immense joy in their family life. Amidst the celebration of such pure trinitarian love of the family, I hope against hope that there were days Joseph wished he could love Mary better. Or days when he was disappointed by how he received Mary’s perfect love. Joseph’s imperfections are the only stains of sin in the holy family, yet his entire being—holiness and imperfection combined—was destined for his specific vocation.

Through both his human imperfection and pure intention, God empowered Joseph to love Mary, show Jesus about the love between a husband and a wife, and receive love from his family. In the same way, we are each called to be fully present with God in our unique vocation, to love with virtue despite our own shortcomings.

God has so carefully woven two lives together in your marriage. On the days when your sinful, selfish, or short-sighted human nature is too much to bear, remember goodwill and purity of heart are enough for love. In striving to love and be loved, moments which expose brokenness do not define a limit for love. Rater, these moments help us identify where grace and mercy can provide healing. Joseph’s example offers peace and encouragement to every person, for our hearts to become a channel for God’s love to shine through.

St. Therese of Lisieux offers encouragement to little souls, to those who recognize their long journey to perfection, “Agree to stumble at every step therefore, even to fall, to carry your cross weakly, to love your helplessness. Your soul will draw more profit from it than if, carried by grace, you would accomplish with enthusiasm heroic actions that would fill your soul with personal satisfaction and pride.”

You are human. Joseph was human. If he could fulfill his vocation to the Holy Family, you can fulfill your vocation in your own holy family. You were created for a mission exactly where you are. As you bring your completely human heart to God, you will grow—with an ever-deepening purity of heart—in the capacity to love and be loved.

St. Joseph, you sought to bring glory to God in every action and word. Together with your pure heart, Mary’s Immaculate heart, and Jesus’ Sacred heart, guide me to embrace my human imperfection with humility so that I may receive God’s mercy and grow ever more deeply into the virtue of my vocation. St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie Fries is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. Stephanie’s perfect day would consist of a slow morning and quality time with her husband, Geoff, a strong cup of coffee, and a homemade meal (…with dessert). Read more

INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

How My Running Shoes Prepared Me for Marriage

/

JOHNNA WILFORD

 

I got married on October 6, 2018. A year before that, my husband and I I had been dating a little over a year. And a year before that, I was living by myself in Los Angeles, recently dumped by someone I thought was (finally) a good guy for me. And I wasn’t Catholic. 

How quickly things can change.

It took a lot of personal growth and therapy for me to make the transition from a clingy, single Episcopal girl to a confident, engaged Catholic woman. However, I truly believe the thing that prepared me the most for coming home to the Church--and to my marriage--was running.

Running eased my anxiety. It led me to the Catholic Church. Ever since I became engaged I’ve desired to express the ways my running habit taught me how to be in a healthy, adult relationship.

Below, quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s explanation of the sacrament of marriage, and how they relate to my running life.

God himself is the author of marriage (1603).

 Like anything else, my marriage starts with God. At the time I was dumped by the guy I was dating in Los Angeles, I was training for my first full marathon. The date of that race was February 14th--Valentine’s Day. I don’t think this was a coincidence.

 In my training, I learned exactly how strong I was physically and mentally. At the same time, I was learning to remember I deserved love. Not despite the fact that I was single. But because I was created by God, who knew me intimately and wanted the best for me.

This combination of a spiritual revelation with my physical accomplishment made the race day even more special. It was like I was spending Valentine’s Day with God; the support and encouragement from all of my friends that came to cheer me on during the race was directly from Him.

Marriage helps to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one's own pleasure (1609).

I think running creates saints in the same way marriage does. While training for my marathon, there were many times I had to say no to going out late with friends to prepare for an early-morning long run the next day. Going out was a short-term pleasure, while doing well in my race was a long-term one. Sometimes it’s necessary to forgo one for the other.

Running really helped me distinguish between earthly and heavenly pleasure, a distinction I can now apply to my marriage.

When, for example, my husband is coming home from a work trip on a Saturday at midnight and I need to pick him up from the airport, I get grumpy about the obligation--especially since we’ll need to wake up early for Mass the next day. But I want to be a good person in general by helping out someone in need. I want to show my husband my love by picking him up myself, instead of asking someone else to do it. And I want to experience Jesus in the Eucharist the next day, even though I may be bleary-eyed and would sort of rather be sleeping in.

Though that’s a small example, and though it’s always a struggle to get myself out the door for a run when I would rather be binge-watching something, I think being a regular runner ensures that I experience this rejection of my ego constantly.

Marriage helps to…open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving (1609).

 Before I started learning more about the Catholic Church, I was a little hostile to some of her teachings.

No sex before marriage? I can understand that for one-night stands. But what if you’re in a committed relationship?

No artificial birth control? Puh-lease. I want kids, but I don’t want dozens of them!

 Running gave me the necessary understanding to dive deeper into these teachings once I was open to doing so. My husband and I had engaged in premarital sex, but once I realized sex was a beautiful way of engaging in the marital sacrament, we stopped. We weren’t even engaged yet--and it would be almost a year and a half until we were--but we knew why it was important.

It wasn’t easy, of course. But neither is running 26.2 miles, or climbing a couple of feet off the ground with nothing but a tiny rope (my husband’s favorite form of exercise is rock climbing).

And since we both could do that, we knew we could save sex for marriage, whether it was ultimately with each other or not. 

As for the artificial birth control issue, I am forever grateful to the Church for offering Natural Family Planning. I took up running because I wanted to be the healthiest version of myself I could be. The sport taught me to pay close attention to my body and discern what was normal, and what needed to be addressed through self-care or the help of a professional.

So it was easy to translate that mentality into tracking my fertility once I learned about NFP. I wasn’t even engaged when I started using the sympto-thermal method, but it was so useful for me even without the prospect of marriage. I am now in the process of becoming a sympto-thermal teacher myself, since I hope to teach single women in particular that fertility awareness can point out health issues long before marriage is even on the horizon.

 Whether you’re single, engaged, or married, I encourage you to try running. It’s a great way of learning more about the virtues Jesus and all of the saints modeled for us. And I believe it cultivates a mindset that will help your marriage flourish.

About the Author: Johnna Wilford helps women design health and wellness routines that fit into their lives. She is a RRCA-certified running coach, a POP Pilates instructor, and a SymptoPro Fertility Educator in-training. She is also the Co-Founder of the online community Catholic Women Run.

 WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

The Confidence of a Covenant

/

STEPHANIE FRIES

 

As husband and wife come together as one body in the profession of marriage vows, man and woman are united through covenant. Though it is not only their participation in the sacrament which binds them ‘till death, but God’s active presence as the third member of the triune union. This truth of trinitarian love can become a source of confident peace “in good times and in bad.”

God desires to fill our minds and hearts with faith, hope and love. In our human experience, we are often tempted to despair. I invite you to reflect on the triggers which test your resilience against fear or doubt in your vocation. When we collaborate with God, he promises to give strength to our weakness and drive out fear through the grace of the sacrament.

PHOTOGRAPHY: ALEX KRALL PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTOGRAPHY: ALEX KRALL PHOTOGRAPHY

The deep intimacy of marriage and call for ongoing transformation is an experience of vulnerability and exposure. This vulnerability has the potential to reflect beauty itself, imaging the original nakedness and shamelessness of the human heart in God’s perfect design—before the fall to sin. Yet for some, myself included, the raw exposure of body, heart, and soul can initiate feelings of self-doubt, lack of trust, or worry for the future.

We are only human; we are not immune to fear.

Fear can take many forms in our lives, such as tension, defensiveness and a short-temper towards others, or apathy and hopelessness towards important matters. Whatever its form, fear affects our relationships.

In my own experiences, I can internalize my emotions, over-analyze circumstances, and seek means to gain control. Fear also materializes in the form of a question, a litany of asking, “what if?,” in times when God is calling me to surrender and trust his providence.

Any number of circumstances can provoke personal discord, such as separation over a distance, challenges with fertility, conflict involving extended family, financial burdens and professional stress. This list is nowhere near comprehensive of the challenges in family life. Yet no conflict or origin of fear is too big or too ugly for God to redeem, especially through the unbreakable bond of covenant.

Despite our brokenness, here is the source of unfailing, sanctifying hope: the sacrament of Matrimony is indefinitely bound to the gift of grace. “Christ dwells with [married couples], gives them 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 out of reverence for Christ,” and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love.”

He pours out his love to us and through us. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ created an unbreakable promise of love from God to his children. The vocation to married life is an invitation for us to participate—with God and our spouse—in this promise. Our responsibility is, simply, to remain in him.

When our value, security or identity is threatened by fear, the courageous Christian response is love. 1 John tell us, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.” We do not acquire this perfect love through our own effort. Rather, we remember “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. In this is love brought to perfection among us.”

If we honestly identify our source of fear—as an individual or as a couple—and share it with God in prayer, he can begin to restore our hearts and our lives. We eventually break free from the chains of fear, love others in greater abundance, and receive love without hesitation or doubt. In essence, we fulfill our human design to love and be loved. We catch a glimpse of sanctification in our marriage, family, and community.

“Jesus has not placed on spouses a burden impossible to bear, or too heavy… It is by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses that spouses will be able to “receive” the original meaning of marriage and life with the help of Christ. This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ’s cross, the source of all Christian life.”

Marriage is a party of three: man, woman, and God. Through our wedding vows, we are infinitely bound to both our spouse and our Creator. In seasons of sorrow or despair, courageously choose love. Enter more deeply into raw intimacy with trust. Enter more honestly into prayer with hope. When temptation to fear abounds, we are invited to stand with confidence upon our unbreakable sacramental covenant, in union with the presence of God, and anticipate the fulfillment of perfect love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie Fries is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. Stephanie’s perfect day would consist of a slow morning and quality time with her husband, Geoff, a strong cup of coffee, and a homemade meal (…with dessert). Read more

INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

Newlywed Life | There Is Grace in Recalling Your Wedding Day.

/

HANNAH GRAHAM

 

Shortly after my husband and I were married, I mentioned to a friend that I thought about our wedding day a couple times a week, if not more. I recently ran into this friend again at a wedding reception, not long after our first anniversary. Seeing me again, she inquired as to whether or not this was still the case, curious if marriage had impacted that habit of regularly remembering our wedding day.

I was happy to answer that experiencing the realities of married life is part of why I still contemplate and reminisce about that day just as often. The ceremony, Mass, the wedding party, the friends and family, the dancing, speeches, and pictures. Even after having our first child, I think about how profoundly those moments impacted us.

That day crosses my mind often, not only because it was the beginning of my vocation and the best day of my life, but because my life with my husband has become a reflection of that day.

The individuals who witnessed our vows still hold us accountable in our faith and vocation. We are still challenged by the Church to live our marriage as a witness to God’s love, in the same way we chose to that very first day. In the trenches of parenthood, two jobs, and living away from family, we are still asked to give ourselves--body and soul--over to the other.

I play through those grace-filled moments to remind myself of the high call my husband and I entered into, particularly when the crosses feel heavy.

In the midst of a million distractions, looking back on the intense desire my husband and I had—and continue to have—for the Lord refreshes the dusty parts of my soul.

I once heard it said that the grace God gives a couple in the sacrament of marriage is just as powerful as the grace he gives a priest to change ordinary bread into the body of Christ. Despite the heaviness life can bring into a marriage--financial struggles, misunderstandings, family tensions-- the wedding day is a reminder that laying down one’s life for another is a joy when done in love. This is what married life truly demands of all those who enter into the divinity of the sacrament.

If you haven’t done so, consider bringing your wedding day to prayer when you face challenges in your vocation. Doing so can remind you of the grace you are capable of calling upon, as well as the joy with which you entered into this union.

Even if you don’t face any immediate crosses in this particular realm, reflecting on the day with your husband can renew your desire to love selflessly and foster gratitude towards the Lord for how far you have come. Regardless of how long you have been married, reminiscing on that very first day will keep you aware of the truly divine romance you became a part of.

About the Author: Hannah holds a Bachelor of Arts in English along with minors in Theology and Catholic Studies.  She currently pursues her passion for freelance writing from her home in Minnesota, where she lives with her husband and son.   

Ash Wednesday Reflection | Memento Mori + Marriage

/

MARIAH MAZA

 

Memento, homo quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.

“Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:19)

Ash Wednesday begins a period of deep internal reflection and penance. So as we walk into the dimly lit churches on the first day of Lent, let the solemn silence enter your spirit, and enter again with a vulnerable heart into the Paschal Mystery: the Passion, death, and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

“Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.” (Psalm 90:12)

The cross of ash we receive on our forehead is both an external sign of our sinful mortality and a reminder of the Divine death that was suffered for our salvation. An often-forgotten ancient spiritual penance comes to mind: the practice of memento mori, a Latin phrase that reminds us, especially in this season of Lent, to “remember your death.”

“Let us prepare ourselves for a good death, for eternity. Let us not lose our time in lukewarmness, in negligence, in our habitual infidelities,” admonishes St. John Vianney. And so, let us not remember our inevitable death with fear, but instead illuminated in the Christian hope of Eternal Life that awaits us beyond the threshold of our earthly lives.

In her devotional Remember Your Death, Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble reminds us “Jesus has defeated humanity’s greatest foe—permanent death in sin. All that remains for us to endure is bodily death. And Jesus has transformed even this fearsome reality into the doorway to heaven.”

“The Cross changes everything.”

Yes, let us remember death. Because “in whatever you do, remember your last days, and you will never sin.” (Sirach 7:36). Because each numbered breath, starting today, is one more reminder to live, to hope, and to love.

And for those who are engaged, newlywed, or veteran married couples, allow the practice of memento mori to become something even more profound: as you prepare to become one flesh--or already live one in flesh with your spouse--remember the death of your beloved.

Remember your vows you will make, or have already made. Remember you vowed “until death do us part.” Remember that part of the sacramental vocation of marriage is to prepare your beloved for a saintly death. You are called to help each other to Heaven.

“Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24)

Beginning today, with your fiancé or your spouse, help each other to carry your crosses as we walk the Way of the Cross with the Church. Whoever follows Christ will die with him, the God who didn’t even spare himself from the pain of death, but whoever follows Christ will also rise with him.

“Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55)

Memento mori.

Further reading: Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble’s first 20 pages of her new Lenten Devotional Remember Your Death.

About the Author: Mariah Maza is Spoken Bride’s Features Editor. She is the co-founder of Joans in the Desert, a blog for bookish and creative Catholic women. Read more

BLOG | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | PINTEREST

Why I Value My Love Story's Flaws

/

ABIGAIL GRIPSHOVER

 

Sometimes it seems the best stories are the ones that involve the most hardship. As a writer and bit of a romantic, I always hoped my love story would be a good one. However, I did not realize until after I was married that the many difficulties my husband and I faced while dating were the very things that would make our story exactly what I hoped for, one worthy of retelling.

This theme has continued into our marriage, and I have come to realize that our struggles are cornerstones, forming a strong foundation for the life we are building together; one that will hopefully last many decades and weather even the worst storms.

My husband and I were very fortunate, because we were each other’s firsts. We shared and experienced those magical little romantic things together: the specialness of the first date, the thrill of holding hands for the first time, the shyness of the first kisses lightly placed on cheeks. We made the most of our tiny college town, slowly filling every corner of it with memories that would never be forgotten.

But we also had to learn love’s hard lessons through each other.

I slowly came to the realization that this other person did not always see things the way I did, and I had to accept that his fears and opinions were different than mine, yet still deserving of respect.

We experienced the difficulty of growing up and changing while spending late nights and stressful study sessions trying to understand who we were after all of this.

During those formative years, it was all too easy to blame our own individual problems on each other.  After too many cycles of forgiving, forgetting, then falling into the same harmful patterns, it seemed like we were doomed to keep hurting each other, and we parted for what I believed to be the last time. He transferred schools and went back home while I returned to a very lonely campus to finish the second half of my junior year.

We were young, gullible, and at times, very dramatic. But we loved each other, and in the end, after some space and time, desperate prayers and tireless persistence on the part of my dear husband, we called our friends to tell them that we were not only back together, but also engaged and getting married in a few months.

Even though we were long distance, both of us living and working from home at this point, being engaged was truly incredible. It felt like the world was sparkling and everything we planned, whether it was the flowers for the church or the layout for our new apartment, promised to be perfect. We were married on a beautiful, warm day in February, and the wedding was even more than we hoped. It was intimate, elegant, and full of visible love.

But as our married life began, a distance fell between us we had never experienced before, and it seemed to grow and warp as the first week of marriage stretched into the first six months.

There was so much we didn’t understand, so many ways we were unprepared for what was coming. New responsibilities caught us by surprise and normal mood swings were interpreted as personal attacks. We felt like we came from different planets, and the peace we had reached together only months before seemed to crumble in our hands.

In our first year of marriage, we moved twice, changed jobs, lived long-distance for over a month, confronted broken promises, and fell under the curse of chronic illness. Money was tight, tensions were high, and hurts ran deep. And so we prayed. We prayed harder than we ever had before, reached out for help, and remembered our vows. We had committed to each other, and we were not going to give up now. Scott Hahn once said,

“The grace of the sacrament does not make marriage easy, it makes it possible,”


We called upon that grace to save us. In response, God healed us and gave us the eyes to see the reasons for our hardship. We were able to recognize him guiding us as we renewed our promises.

When we stood before our family and friends on our wedding day and vowed to forsake all others for each other, we had no idea those vows would be tested so quickly. I always assumed the “for better” part came first, and the “for worse” part came later, and learned that is not always the case. Yet through our Lord’s grace we stayed. Our love became like a broken bone, stronger once healed than it ever was. As we live through our second year of marriage and continue to face new hardships, we have been able to lean on each other.

When we wake up side by side and look into the eyes we fell in love with, we both feel so grateful God gave us to each other. We both are brought to tears when we think of everything we would have lost, had we given up during the hard times. And now, as we both wonder at the movement of our little baby still growing inside me, we cannot wait to watch our life continue to grow through the hands of the Lord into so much more than it ever could have alone.

In the song “Enough to Let Me Go,” the band Switchfoot writes,

“If it doesn’t break your heart, it isn’t love.”


Even though I liked the song, I never understood that verse. This love story of mine has changed that. Marriage can be truly heartbreaking, but not always in bad way. Sometimes it breaks my heart because it is just so incredibly good.  My poor, feeble brain cannot comprehend or process the outpouring of love, delight, and gratitude that surges through me when he wakes up and smiles at me or takes my hand in the grocery store while we talk about ridiculous things.

Our love story is only beginning. Though I may be biased, I can say I’m thoroughly hooked and cannot wait to see what the next chapter holds, even if it’s a difficult one.

After all, God is the original author, and he knows how to write a good ending for every type of story. Especially a love story.

Contibutor headshot MEDIUM 200px.png

About the Author: Abigail Gripshover is a part-time editor/social media manager and full-time housewife.  When not working, you can find her catching up on book club readings, rearranging furniture, or organizing her planner while listening to music.  She lives at the beach with her wonderful husband, and they are expecting their first baby. 

INSTAGRAM

What's in a Name? | Married Names, Maiden Names, and the Decisions We Make

/

STEPHANIE FRIES

 

As the dust begins to settle around the whirlwind of wedding planning, a new journey begins to unfold. Together, and with time, you and your spouse will grow into your identity as a married couple. In the midst of this exciting season, there is a vital decision to confirm your new family’s identity in choosing your last name.

When it’s time to fill in that blank on the legal documents, couples generally have the option to take either the bride or the groom’s last name, hyphenate both last names, or create a new name. Although the decision surrounding a married couple’s last name is morally neutral, many women are convicted in their beliefs on a wide spectrum between keeping her maiden name and taking his. If you are curious why a woman would willingly abandon her own family name or if you desire to articulate the reasons why you did, understanding the physical and spiritual nature of men and women may help.

PHOTOGRAPHY: OCULI CORDIS MEDIA

PHOTOGRAPHY: OCULI CORDIS MEDIA

The history of a bride taking her groom’s last name is rooted in English common law. The practice for creating a thread of surname lineage was centered around establishing both a legality of marriage and set boundaries for couples in regards to acquiring property or business. These standards were eventually adopted in practice in the United States. With the onset of “family names” passed from a father to his newborn child or from a groom to his bride, additional laws, norms, traditions, and opinions began to take root throughout growing cultures both nationwide and worldwide.

Of course, from a legalistic point of view, an immediate perspective assumes that the man claims dominance over the woman when she officially takes his last name. This misguided belief has been the origin of women’s oppression, including, for example, a woman’s right to vote. Because we are a world of imperfect humans, a tradition with the potential to celebrate the gift of marriage and family has been twisted into oppression and abuse.

As a reaction to oppression or because of shifts in the secular definition of marriage, women identify several reasons to keep her maiden name, such as convenience, preference, personal identity or equality of power. Other times, academic careers or professional publications are the cause for a woman to maintain her identity through her last name.

Regardless of the history of societal wedding traditions or the secular, modern approaches to marriage, our legal actions cannot be separated from our spiritual being. Because a human being is body and soul, our physical actions and decisions—including changing our name—proclaim what we understand to be true about being a human.

Therefore, when a woman accepts the last name of her new spouse, she emphasizes the dignity of her femininity as she reveals the legal, physical, emotional and spiritual union with her beloved.

This statement may sound like a surprising contrast to the general “feminist movement.” Many feminists through decades past—and present—would argue that a woman should keep her maiden name in order to claim equal rights, stand up for herself, and maintain her independence. But if we carefully define “what is feminine,” we will find empowering support for woman to fulfill part of her femininity by receiving her husband’s last name.

To understand what it means to be woman through a Christian anthropology, we go to the story when woman was created: in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. “So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman.”

Eve received life, physically and spiritually, by the rib of Adam and the hand of God. With her first breath, Adam received her as a gift to fulfill his desire for union with another. We hear Adam’s joyful relief when he says, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” And as he accepted her, Eve simultaneously received man as a gift for her own fulfillment of self-knowledge. Saint Pope John Paul II explains, ”The exchange is mutual. In it, the reciprocal effects of the sincere gift and of the finding oneself again are revealed and grow.” This cycle of giving of self and receiving the other between man and woman is the epitome of holy, joyful, spousal union as God intended.

Scripture shows us woman’s initial receptivity to life and the love that followed. Although both man and woman are called to give and receive in acts of love, our bodies help define receptivity as a naturally feminine quality. Consider the intimacy of the wedding night and the bride’s physical receptivity of the groom. Or at the moment of conception as the woman receives a child in her womb.

This is not a gender stereotype, but a celebration of what it means to be woman and how we are called to love man: by receiving every part of him as a cherished gift.

Yes, when a wife takes the last name of her husband, she surrenders her maiden name and, perhaps, part of her identity which was secured in that name. The emotional struggle of letting go of a maiden name emphasizes the reality that a name has value to a person’s identity.

For a husband to offer a meaningful gift of his identity—his name—is a beautiful and masculine act of love. When a woman accepts his last name, she is not practicing an outdated, man-driven tradition; she fulfills her femininity in a selfless act of receptive love. In the way only a woman can.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie Fries is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. Stephanie’s perfect day would consist of a slow morning and quality time with her husband, Geoff, a strong cup of coffee, and a homemade meal (…with dessert). Read more

INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

What Does it Mean to Belong to Your Spouse?

/

STEPHANIE CALIS

 

The song my husband and I chose for our first dance includes the line, “I want to belong to you.” The words resonated deep within, evoking something free, intimate, permanent.

As we said our vows at the altar I felt the weight of commitment and distinction, grace made tangible and distinctively binding us together. The very gravity of our promises made them romantic to me: faithful love forsaking all others, fruitful love that wouldn’t stop at the two of us, free love that willingly desired exclusive belonging, total love that saw all of me.

I thought I got it at the time. I thought my husband and I shared a healthy sense of vulnerability and a spirit of loving encouragement and correction. In many ways we did, and continue to.

But in the months and years since, I’ve seen the ways in which seemingly small matters make me fall short of letting myself belong entirely to my husband, calling me into communion over division.

There have been times I’ve clung to wounds received and inflicted in past dating relationships, allowing them to hold sway even after I thought I’d moved past them. It’s only been more recently, as I’ve waded fully into this pain for the first time, that I’ve shared the fullness of embarrassment over my past actions with my husband. I hadn’t intentionally withheld these thoughts earlier in our relationship; their magnitude and resulting unrest only surfaced later on, the fruit of deeper insight and self-examination.

Holding on to the past, I realized, was a distraction from my present.

I was sacramentally united to my husband and desired to rid my mind and heart of the past. He loved me still. He encouraged me to offer my humiliation--a true sense of being humbled--to the Lord, praying for freedom and interior peace.

There have been times I’ve retreated inward, too embarrassed and ashamed to admit fault in actions both minor and major. Yet each time I’m tempted to keep my mistakes to myself, I feel the restlessness creep in. The overwhelming desire to share, tempered by fear. Being seen in the fullness of who you are is thrilling, though terrifying. He loves me still.

Even in my shame, I am loved. Even in admitting the regrets and misjudgments I’m scared to bring up, my husband is gentle and forgiving. I’ve come to understand belonging to him as an invitation to take off my masks. An invitation to reveal who I am and who the Father calls me to be.

A healthy sense of belonging to my spouse has, for me, amplified an awareness of ways in which I ultimately belong to the Lord.

However imperfect in this life, the purpose of each vocation is to make manifest God’s love. My husband’s love—so patient, merciful, total, and accepting—shows this to me. I am known; I am seen; I am beloved. It’s not unlike the sacrament of reconciliation, in which we find ourselves tenderly embraced in our brokenness. We leave armed with the grace and resolve not to remain the same, but to stay the course in pursuit of greatness. The word reconcile, after all, is rooted in the Latin word for “to bring together.”

Are there small cracks and nagging divisions tugging on your own heart, drawing your attention to ways in which your relationship can grow in total honesty, trust, and intimacy? Though always a work in progress, I can’t attest more to the joy and freedom of transparency and accountability that embody the Father’s love. Saint John Paul II has interceded for us from the start, and I frequently recall his motto, totus tuus. This phrase, “totally yours,” expresses his trust in Our Lady to bring him to her son; in our marriage, we make this our same prayer.

If you find yourself, like me, suddenly seeing ways in which you can belong to your spouse more entirely, I encourage you to enter into them, even when you’d prefer to run. Sit with your mess, let yourself feel any pains of your shortcomings, and move forward--with prayer, practical steps, and, if necessary, spiritual direction or counseling--knowing you’re not just moving for movement’s sake, but toward a beautiful pursuit: being brought together--reconciled--with both your earthly and heavenly beloved.

“But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, Jacob, and formed you, Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine. When you pass through waters, I will be with you; through rivers, you shall not be swept away. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, nor will flames consume you.”

About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

BOOK | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

Becoming Radically Available to Love

/

STEPHANIE FRIES

 

Nearly 18 months ago, my friend returned from her inaugural FOCUS missionary training with a palpable enthusiasm to build community, love others, and make her love for Jesus visible in the world. She returned with a suitcase full of books, business cards, pamphlets, and ideas. She was eager to fundraise her salary and move to a new college campus for the start of the school year with the undergraduate students she would come to know, mentor, and disciple towards Christ. She was ready to serve where God had called her.

Her selfless demonstration of service as a missionary has influenced and inspired my identity as a wife.

PHOTOGRAPHY: MEL WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTOGRAPHY: MEL WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Although I admired my friend’s zest and zeal through her process of discerning missionary life, I was cautiously curious about the details of her new routines. What was it, exactly, that she would do once she arrived on campus? I have not forgotten her response to my question:

“It’s about being radically available for others.”

This use of radically enlists a sense of wonder and mystery. Being available for someone is standard, like answering the phone but calling back later if something is going on. But being radically available means clearing the schedule and committing the rest of the day to talking on the phone.

While she committed to a dating fast for her first year on the job, I discerned my vocation to married life. Months later, her commitment to be radically available for her students has influenced my understanding of what it means to be a Christian wife in service of God and my husband. All in all, we are talking about vocations to love.

A holy missionary is wholeheartedly committed to being a faith-filled friend, mentor, confidant, and image of Jesus. We can look at the way Saint Mother Teresa befriended families in India and how Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati gave the coat off his back to the underdressed stranger. We may recognize missionaries in our midst and see how they surrender their plans and expectations to answer a call from God to build community with others.

Although I am not called to serve as a missionary in the world, do I bring a missionary heart of charity, service, and friendship into my own home?

To be radically available to another reminds me of the standard “stop, drop, and roll!” response when a person catches on fire. Yet when a significant matter arises in someone’s life, it is the one who is radically available who lovingly stops and drops everything in order to roll to the other’s side.

Saying I do on the marriage altar opens a door to the daily invitation to love my spouse. To love is more than an emotion, it is an act of the will. There are a number of factors that affect our heart’s approach to service: external pressures, internal insecurities, hormonal mood swings, lack of exercise or sleep, political conflict, social conflict, and simply feeling overwhelmed (to name a few). But we make a vow to love--and to serve--on the good days and the bad days.

Yet, in truth, I wrestle with the tension between selflessness and self-care. Christ tells us, “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Does this mean we can momentarily push pause on loving others so we can escape to love on ourselves? How much am I willing to surrender for the sake of my spouse’s joy? Or comfort? My God-given responsibility as a wife is to work for my husband’s salvation; is his earthly happiness worth sacrificing my own personal pleasures, comforts, and opinions on certain matters?

Consider decisions as small as keeping the thermostat at a certain temperature, agreeing on specific holiday traditions, or choosing between music, television or silence as background noise in your home. Then there are decisions to read a book alone or spend quality time together, to sleep in or wake up early to make breakfast for your spouse.

Even in meager moments of surrender, I am encouraged by C.S. Lewis’ wisdom to “submit to death of your ambitions and favorite wishes… and you will find eternal life.” I am increasingly intrigued by the invitation to be radically available than by the alternative to be content in my own pleasures.

In every decision to choose the other, our individual identities fade and we become more fully united through acts of love.

As Catholics, we are privy to the benefits of the sacraments—and prayer—as fuel to keep loving when our tanks run low. Christ also says to “love others because he loved us first.” He makes himself radically available so that we, too, may love with an everlasting love—on the good days and the bad days.

Living a life of service and radical availability can challenge both our human nature and cultural norms. Who do we look to as models of charity? How often do we receive God’s merciful love to refill our tank? Do we elicit affirmation from others as permission to turn inwardly or as encouragement to serve others with virtue?

My prayer is that you and I can make a choice to fulfill the call to love by being radically available to someone this week, with the persistent hope of establishing ever-deeper bonds of charity in our homes and communities.

Contibutor headshot MEDIUM 200px.png

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie Fries is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. Stephanie’s perfect day would consist of a slow morning and quality time with her husband, Geoff, a strong cup of coffee, and a homemade meal (…with dessert). Read more

INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

The Gift of Tears.

/

STEPHANIE CALIS

 

“Well,” deadpanned the priest, “that was the most emotional rehearsal I’ve ever done.”

The details of the last wedding rehearsal I attended are blurry, obscured by the veil of tears that flowed freely from the minute I set foot in the chapel. Seared in my heart, however, are the memories of the bride and her father both weeping, exchanging joyful glances as they practiced their walk up the aisle for the following day, toward a bridegroom equally radiant and also overcome with emotion. The tears as the Maid of Honor presented the bride with a spiritual bouquet from friends and family; as the couple stood hand in hand, the words of their vows nearly ready to burst forth from their lips; as the priest showed them where they would kneel, saying, “this is one of the only opportunities of your life to be this close to the consecration.”

Photography: Visual Grace

Photography: Visual Grace

A wedding feast is truly that--a banquet, a taste of heavenly joy. It wasn’t until this particular rehearsal that I considered the deep significance of the hours preceding the feast, as well: if a couple’s actual wedding day is anticipation of eternity, then the rehearsal has the potential to be anticipation of the anticipation. A few hours where the distance between heaven and earth seems not so far, and when excitement over the union to come is so palpably real. Quality time with the bride and groom in a more intimate setting than tomorrow’s reception; time to worship and rejoice.

My constant crying at this rehearsal was like being pushed out of myself to the very surface and heights of life.

I found myself surprised by how emotional I still felt the following day at the wedding Mass, struck all over again with beauty and tears. I hadn’t been emptied yet. I cried again during the procession, the vows, the dedication to Our Lady, their first kiss as man and wife. During their first dance to Matt Maher’s “Set Me as a Seal,” during toasts and during a bubble-filled departure. I cried the first time I visited their new home. I teared up again each time someone asked me what the wedding was like.

What is it about this love that made me constantly overflow, unable to contain myself?

It’s become my belief that every couple takes on particular charisms, gifts of the Holy Spirit, that develop and flow forth from their love: the gifts of hospitality, of empathy and suffering for others, of service, of creativity. At this wedding, for me and for so many other guests, there was the gift of tears. A love so visible and free, as if no one else were in the room, it felt nearly impossible not to be pierced.

The Gospels illuminate the significance of tears. The sinful woman who bathes the feet of Christ with her tears, whose sins are forgiven; Jesus’s own weeping over the death of Lazarus. Both instances convey a preconception shattered--that mercy is conditional, and that Christ’s humanity doesn’t show sorrow, respectively--and a wall come down.

Crying is an invitation; letting others see us as we are and inspiring resolve, a moving forward. Something raw, something anointed.

A wedding feast, then, where bride, groom, and guests find themselves in tears is an occasion of true seeing, of meeting each person where they are. Pure and holy love leaving a long-term imprint on those who witness it.

If the tears come on your wedding day, let them. Whatever charisms you and your spouse are gifted with, embrace them. Ask the Father to reveal to you the gifts he wishes to share with his children and your wedding guests, with you as the instruments. Cry out his love, outpoured and unfettered.

About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

BOOK | INSTAGRAM