Patience, Sacrifice, and Love in Marriage
Summary
- Developing Patience in Marriage
- Addressing Personal Imperfections
- Mutual Effort in Resolving Issues
- Communication and Its Challenges
- The Example of Saint Monica
- Emulating the Holy Family
- The Sacrificial Nature of Marriage
- Love Beyond Affection
- True Love in Marriage
Developing Patience in Marriage
And so most importantly, that relationship between spouses is going to be affected by our behavior as individuals and our way of dealing with everything. So it's always a good idea to try to sit down and think about how can I be better at offering up X, Y, or Z? Say, we have a difficulty with patience. How can we become more patient? Well, there's always a step. There's always a series of things that we must do and should do. The first step is always going to be the external expression of that impatience. Well, that's the first thing we work on. The first thing we shut up. We don't let ourselves speak, and we try to suffocate as much as possible. Any facial changes or anything else. We just let ourselves learn to be as calm as possible. That can take many different forms. Work on our breathing, focus half of our mind on something else. Just put up with whatever.
Addressing Personal Imperfections
But then we have to start working on the inside. And that is whatever it is that is causing us this lack of patience. It could be, "My wife knows I hate it when she does this, you know, she still does it." I think, "She knows I hate too much salt in the food. Why is she always putting too much salt in the food?" Okay, well, then the next step, apart from not expressing that as clearly or as brutally or as bluntly as we would like, is okay, why does she do this? Is it because it tastes insipid to her? Maybe she doesn't understand that I don't like it. I haven't expressed that; I've just grunted and groaned a lot about it. Whatever it may be, try to internalize it. Analyze it. Figure out a way forward with it. So it's not enough to just kind of hold it in. Try to work it out on the inside of how you're going to make it better with the other person.
Mutual Effort in Resolving Issues
Sometimes it's just a question of, "I just hate it when he keeps telling me these inane stories. Why can't he just leave me alone sometimes? Give me some quiet time." We tell him that, but nicely. Don't just grumble and find an excuse to run to the bathroom for 20 minutes to get away, whatever it may be. Find a way to deal with it in a way that addresses it as a unit. So whatever these imperfections are, whatever the personal problems are, whatever the crises may be, whatever the difficulties and sacrifices we may be called to make on just a simple daily level, we must understand the fact that because it affects the two as a unit, it needs to also be solved by the two as a unit.
Communication and Its Challenges
One of the worst problems in the world right now, especially for marriages, is the fact that there is so little communication between spouses. Sometimes that's just not possible. Unfortunately, many marriages get to that point where it's just not possible to have an open conversation. Well, that's unfortunate. But then how do we fix that problem? There is a way back for most marriages that are in trouble or have difficulties. There are rehabilitations that can be worked out: talking to a priest, making a series of concessions, second honeymoon, or whatever it may be, trying to figure out how to reignite a little bit of the love and affection that was supposed to be the bonding and binding reason why you got married in the first place. But it always requires a simple element: sacrifice.
The Example of Saint Monica
Now, of course, everyone knows the tremendous example of Saint Monica. She was a convert. She married a fairly wealthy Roman citizen, and he was a drunk, verbally abusive to her, and whatever else. Now, at the time, unfortunately, abuse was not a punishable offense because a patrician, a father, was considered to have absolute authority and power over his family. So while all the wives who would meet up at the local well or the bathing areas or whatever else would show off their bruises and complain about them and tell horrible stories about their husbands, Monica tended to hide her bruises from everybody else. Nobody knew about them, and she protected his reputation.
Now, again, in our day and age, that's not necessary. Thank God you don't have to go through that. However, take the modern lens off, as it were, and try to imagine what it was like back in the Roman Empire in the third century. The result of that was that even though everyone knew he was a terrible character and treated her horribly, everyone respected him, and his public reputation remained intact. And he was considered to be more honorable because he had a good woman protecting him. He openly tried to corrupt the soul of their only son, Augustine. He introduced him into a life of sin and encouraged that sinfulness while his mother, being a good Catholic, was trying desperately to protect him and shield him from that. By the way, Saint Augustine has very little nice to say about his father, while he has wonderful things to say about his mother at the end of his life.
The reason for that is very simple. Everything she did, everything she put up with, how much she protected her family, her husband, her child—everything that she did was done in an act of sacrificial love. One great act of sacrificial love. The tears that she shed, the harangues as she went to Saint Ambrose to try to convert her son, the many prayers and pleadings that she offered to God through countless nights, the petitions she lodged, the way she suffered and offered up all of her sufferings—everything that she did was one great act of love. And at the end of his life, her abusive husband converted and asked her forgiveness. Does that excuse everything he did to her before? Of course not. But at the same time, what an amazing victory. And one won entirely by her patience and perseverance.
Emulating the Holy Family
The fact of the matter is, that's an obviously extreme example of the kind of sacrifice we're talking about. We need to have a spirit of sacrifice that is so absolute that we must do what is right for our relationship, and we must be willing to give almost anything it takes. The example we have of this is the Holy Family itself. Christ came into this world specifically to suffer and die, to sacrifice Himself for all of us. And as one writer pointed out, at the very least, He would have done so just for the fact of being able to see His mother. Because, yes, while she was born before His suffering and death, she was liberated preventatively from original sin and all sins by the merits of His crucifixion and death. And so, therefore, this one writer said, He would have done it just for that purpose alone, just for His family.
The Sacrificial Nature of Marriage
Saint Joseph is a brilliant example of the kind of sacrifice we are talking about. He didn't understand how all of this was possible; he just knew that Our Lady was beyond reproach. He accepted that her child was not going to be his in a natural way. He understood that she was absolutely faithful to him, and he understood that this was something bigger than himself. He was silent about it and accepted it as such. Obviously, it created a lot of confusion: he was getting these dreams of angels appearing to him and telling him to take his wife into his house or go to Egypt and come back when instructed. A life of great suffering, sacrifice, generosity—he understood the importance of what he was doing.
When we consider what it means to be married, we have to understand the greatness of the labor involved. When you got married, you took upon yourselves the labor of participating directly in the creation and salvation of lives. The very first life you created the moment you were married was the life of your family. At that moment, a new entity was created: the family.
Love Beyond Affection
This is why, according to many theologians, each family has a specific guardian angel. Each individual has their guardian angel, but there is a familial guardian angel because it is a distinct entity. Each of us, the moment we marry, becomes part of this entity, the family. A husband does not lose his identity but becomes part of a greater, more perfect identity. A wife does not lose who she is but becomes a part of something bigger. There's a certain sacrifice involved in being part of something bigger and in understanding that we're not the be-all and end-all. This isn't about my happiness, my joy, my pleasure—this is about what must be.
True Love in Marriage
This family was created by God in the service of God. Therefore, that is how married life must be lived. Everyone is in different circumstances, so each marriage needs to be sanctified in its unique way, here and now. The sacrifices you offer will vary according to your circumstances. Your married life at 50 years may differ from what it was at 20, or whether you have ten children or none. Sacrifices for your marriage are specific to your circumstances and relationship.
Any sacrifice to be worthwhile and meaningful must come from love. Love is not merely affection; it is a voluntary act. When we love, we want what is best for the other person. We give the best of ourselves not because they deserve it or for personal gain, but because it is necessary and good for them. Sacrifice born of anything other than love will always be empty. Sacrifice born of love will be fruitful. Love is desiring, searching for, and giving the best for the one we love. That is true love in marriage.