 talk to you about marriage and mercy because I know we needed that conversation we had yesterday morning. Part of what we need to hear is what we need to bring to our culture in terms of really speaking to the heart and speaking with truth. And part of it is we need to live marriage better. We need to live marriage in our public, in our culture, better so that they know the truth. And that's what I want to share this morning. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for your mercy that drew Scott and me into the church, Alan, so many others. And I pray that you will use this last hour before we go out to encourage us and to call us to faithfulness in marriage, to pray for the marriages around us, and to be that clear witness. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, I will pull it together. I promise. Okay. There's a priest who came into a First Communion class and that's always a little bit intimidating. And so he looked around the room and he said, can anyone tell me what Jesus taught about marriage? And there were sort of some furtive glances around to the left and right and then all of a sudden one little boy raised his hand and he said, oh, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. There's a little bit of truth in that. Recently we attended a wonderful wedding and in the liturgy there was this amazing line that marriage is the one blessing not lost through original sin and not washed away by the flood. From the beginning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created man and woman in his image and blessed that union with something that was both a blessing and a command. He said to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. God is the one who designed marriage. God is the one who designed the act of marriage to bond a couple in deep unity and possibly through them to create with their cooperation a new human being that otherwise would never have existence. It's a communion of persons that becomes a community of persons imitating God as life giving lover and life loving giver. He enables our bodies to speak his language of life giving love. I think we could change the conversation about what marriage is if we can understand the Catholic vision of marriage the truth about marriage and commit by the mercy of God to live it faithfully. So how do how do a man and woman enter into a valid marriage? There are two key principles. The first has to do with consent and the second with openness to life. A man and woman with the knowledge of the church's teaching about marriage fulfill a promise they make to each other by stating vows before God and witnesses and calling on God by an oath to seal this covenant so that he will give them the grace they need to be faithful. The free consent comes into play because they need to be able to not be coerced into this decision. That means parents who are embarrassed about a pregnancy should not pressure their children into going ahead and making that commitment. Maybe someone who has dated for a long time can apply too much pressure. You know we've dated so long let's just go ahead and get married. It needs to not be coerced. Spiritual directors shouldn't arrange a marriage. There shouldn't be forced marriages like the Muslims who in Boko Haram in Nigeria who stole those girls and then forced them into supposed marriages. And there are examples of communities that have urged people who struggle with same-sex attraction to go ahead and get married because that'll prove that they've been healed. We have to be very careful. There is no coercion. It's to be freely consented to. It also implies that there are no impediments. As Father said yesterday it has to be possible for the couple to complete the act of marriage. There can't be a previously valid marriage and it can't be too close of a relationship like a brother and sister. So the couple commits to lovingly receive children from the Lord and to teach them the faith. Now how do we view children? It was interesting. I actually began to look at this when we were in seminary at Gordon Conwell long before we ever considered becoming Catholic. I'd been doing pro-life talks on abortion and people kept asking questions about contraception which I truly did not know was even an issue. And so one of the first questions I looked at was well how did scripture view children? Psalm 128 3 and 4 says your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Lo, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. In other words children are a blessing and what I found was there wasn't a negative scripture about children. I think we can assert children are only and always a blessing. Each child refracts our love in a new and distinct way. One of my dear friends Molly Kelly had children, 10 children, sorry eight children, ranging in age from 14 to 4 when her husband, a beautiful pro-life physician, was killed in a freakish sledding accident. One in a million chance and he was killed. And I once said to her, did you ever feel in all these years of single parenting like it would have been easier if you had had less children? And she said if anything I wish I could have had more because every child revealed something different about my husband. They're not a possession to acquire. They're not a great adventure to take. They are a gift to receive. The catechism in 2366 says a child doesn't come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses but springs from the very heart of mutual giving as its fruit and fulfillment. You fall in love all over again. The child is a gift of God from the heart of marital love and it's just as true in adoption as it is in natural birth. The Vatican two document Gaudium at Spass says this children are quote the supreme gift of marriage and they contribute very substantially to the well-being of their parents. Attach that. I mean we know that we contribute to their well-being right? I mean we don't walk in from the hospital and say okay sweetheart your bedroom is second door on the left. I typically grocery on Tuesdays so you can count on the fridge being stocked you know help yourself. I mean they are dependent on us for everything except maybe breathing and keeping their heart beating. But do you know that they contribute substantially to us? How? Because we get new opportunities to grow in holiness, to overcome selfishness, to give until it hurts and then give a little bit more. And we'll mention a few more things in a little bit. When I was examining these things one of the one of the teachings I had not understood previously was the idea of natural law. There's an order to things. There's a purpose God has given each thing. For us to have moral sexual health we need to act in accord with the purpose that God has invested in marital intimacy. And I want to give you an explanation here that I picked up from John Kipley in his book Sex in the Marriage Covenant. He illustrated it with food. Why do we eat? Well we can think of a lot of purposes for eating. We're hungry. It tastes good. We want to celebrate. We want to commiserate. It's there. There are lots of reasons for eating but why would we eat something just disgusting, horrible like I don't know. For me snails or maybe for you you'd enjoy that. Bugs. I know there was a show years ago about eating really horrible things. And the only reason you would is because you want to live. Right? I mean I would probably pull bugs out of trees if that was the difference with you know being able to survive. In Roman times they had something called vomitoriums. You can probably imagine what the purpose was. They would have a big feast and these tall vases were in the corners of the room and as a guest had eaten a lot and wanted to eat more guess what they did? Yes. They went over to the corner of the room, vomited and then came and sat down to eat some more. Now today when people eat and throw up, it's bulimia, what do we call it? We call it an eating disorder because it isn't ordered for the purpose of eating which is nutrition. Why do we have sexual relations? Well experiencing oneness is one of the reasons conceiving new life, pleasure, but we can actually experience unity and pleasure in other ways. The primary purpose of the act of marriage is new life. In the covenant of marriage we have the possibility of speaking with our bodies the most profound truth. I am a gift to you and I receive you as a gift to me completely, fully. Now what contraception does in marital intercourse is it's like feasting on love and vomiting out the contents. I accept you and love you unconditionally except actually I reject your life nurturing womb and I reject your life giving sperm instead of speaking this profound truth with our bodies that total gift of self we actually lie. We imitate Adam and Eve and we decide what is good and evil and where is God in that decision? Accepting children is one thing and I think lots of people who contracept still would say I accept children but not using contraception is another and that's what I want to address. First does scripture say anything about it at all? In Genesis 38, 6-10 we have the illustration of a man and I'm not going to go into the details now but he was supposed to make love with this woman who had been married to his brother and this was fulfilling a special law the Leveret Law in Israel and that offspring would then be accounted as his brother's offspring. He would marry her but that offspring would be his brothers and instead he goes in and intentionally commits coitus interruptus and spills his seed on the ground. Now the punishment for not following through on the Leveret Law was that people would shake their sandal at you. You'd be publicly shamed but that was it but God strikes him dead because what he did was so onerous and in fact even last century in school books there was a reference to onanism as what you confessed in the confessional if you had used contraception. It's actually named for him. What's been the witness of the church? Did you know that before 1930 every single denomination including obviously the Roman Catholic Church was united in saying that use of contraception was evil, was sinful and what happened in 1930? The Anglican Church of England decided that just for the life of the mother it was possible to use contraception. Now the same year the Holy Father wrote this beautiful document on marriage and it's just beautiful from beginning to end but in it he addressed this issue and said this. Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of grave sin. I don't know what you've understood before today but I don't want you to leave here not clear about what the Catholic Church's teaching is. Contraception and sterilization are intrinsically evil. They go against nature as well as the teaching of the church. Not only that we have this call to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and really when Scott and I first began to look at this it never even had crossed our minds that we were actually telling God some whole area of our life that we expected him to have hands off that we were going to make the decisions. I never had prayed about whether or not he wanted us to be open to life and we were very committed Christians. My father who is a Presbyterian minister prepared us for marriage and all he said was what kind of contraception are you going to use and when I said the pill he said well as your as your father I'm a little bit concerned about you know the effects of it but he said is your pastor that's perfectly acceptable. Jesus said in Luke 9-23 if any man would come after him sorry me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me we are to say every day Jesus I want to follow you like like Jeff Caven said the first night I want to be your disciple I want to say yes to you in every area of my life yield my heart my mind my will and my body but I have this American reaction you know I'll decide that and I through the study of Scripture really felt like God was saying this is an area you need to yield to me 1st Corinthians 6 19 and 20 don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you which you have from God you are not your own you were bought with a price so glorify God in your body we want to glorify God in our bodies through marital chastity many Christians don't know this because as Catholics were not living it faithfully I didn't know I had Catholic friends I had never heard of the idea that Catholics didn't believe in contraception thought it was wrong even evil in fact I asked a friend once who said well of course Catholics are against contraception and I said why and his response was well there are only two reasons number one the Pope isn't married and number two Catholics are just out to make all the Catholics they can in the world and I said I can't imagine that's what what Catholics would say I'll have to look into that and I did Proverbs 3 5 to 8 says trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths don't be wise in your own eyes fear the Lord and turn away from evil it will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones so we are not to make our own way we are not to make our own decision about what is good and what is evil what God is called good is we say is good what God has called evil we acknowledge is evil so then the question becomes how do we live this well my favorite verses I think in sacred scripture although there's so many is Romans 12 1 and 2 and I want to go over that with you briefly first of all 12 1 St. Paul says I appeal to you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship we begin with the grace of God the mercy of God we can't do this on our own but God does not ask us to it's God's grace that helps us to live the law instead of exempting us from it and God will provide what we need to do as well our bodies are a living sacrifice it's not just our hearts it's not just our minds and I think pregnancy really calls this in or brings this into sharp focus I know I would say I would love to be pregnant but I really didn't say and I hope I'm nauseous for certain number of months I'm counting on some stretch marks hey we've done c-section sideways why don't we go up and down the next time never forget the first time a doctor did a c-section the opposite direction and I said think of it this way it looks like an anchor yeah that's what I really wanted so I've got to cut up and down I've got cut side to side and Scott says he thinks that maybe it'll be on my resurrection body because these are wounds that I have borne for Christ stretch marks varicose veins and we're not even talking about after the birth there are so many opportunities to lay down our physical bodies for life and this is wholly unacceptable giving our bodies to him as an act of worship it's a gift of ourselves it's the physical side of being spiritual and you know what's so difficult is that we're not dead yet see if we were dead we would just lay there but we we say Lord I want to give you myself and hopefully you'll leave today saying Lord I want to give myself to you in new ways but then it begins to pinch it gets difficult so I want to fast and we get hungry well you know maybe it'll just be a fast from meat today not all food you know or we say we'll get up early to pray and then we're so tired just I'm just gonna pray from my bed and meditate you know I love this I have a granddaughter Eliza who at four years old came bounding down the stairs she is so full of energy and she said to her mom mom today I want to be holy I want to be a saint and Sarah said great and she goes so don't ask me to do anything I don't want to do okay you know let me pick the sacrifices let me decide what the challenges are so we go on to Romans 12 to the next verse don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect we are too close to our own time and culture to realize all of the ways in which we do not think God's thoughts and by the grace of God through the church we can have a better understanding of what God thinks about being a man and a woman and what is marriage and what is the act of marriage and what is the value of a child we need to be transformed by the renewal of your mind it's part of why you and I are here this weekend we want to think the way God does one of my friends who's a bank teller said that the way you get to know as a bank teller counterfeit money is you touch a lot of real money so we need to be in touch with a lot of real true thoughts so that we recognize what is not of God we want to do God's will what is good and acceptable and perfect now how do we do this on a day-to-day basis not only with openness to life but now living it out I want to look briefly at the vows the vows that we take most of us are young when we get married and we have no clue what we are signing on to I remember watching our first child to get married who was our second child Gabriel and Sarah and when they knelt all of a sudden I had this image of a combined bullseye on their backs and I almost shook inside because I thought I have prayed a lot leading up to this moment but it was I think I was approaching it almost like job done and I realize I've got to pray more I watch them say state their vows and I had the sense that they were hearing it the way I did which is I'm committed to joy and in sorrow in sickness and in health for richer or for poorer for better or for worse you know it's almost like yeah yeah we have to acknowledge those other parts but you're so focused on the positives and every anniversary you celebrate clarifies why you take that bow in the first place given the realities of life I am sure in the wisdom of God it's important that we have no idea what it actually is to which we're committing so I want to look briefly at each element to be my loving and faithful spouse in joy and in sorrow Romans 12 15 says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep it's the art of coming alongside each other imitating the Holy Spirit who is the comforter who comes and fortifies we make that decision to reach out and to console even when we're having maybe a very happy day or to enter into the joy of the other even when we're having a difficult day it doesn't mean that we don't have the right to our own feelings but we lead with compassion Galatians 6 2 says bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ so the call to follow Christ is focused to serve rather than to be served to listen well when you feel like you are talked out from a very verbal child to affirm your spouse when you don't feel particularly appreciated that day at work or at home to touch your spouse even though you have been touched all day long by very small children and you don't feel like more physical contact I will tell you one night and we had three little children got them all to bed and Scott came down I was sitting in the dark in the living room and he turned on the light and I said oh that's okay I don't need light and so he turned it off and he said would you like some music and I said no he said are you available and I said no I said I I need 30 minutes and then I'll come see you but I just have been touched and talked to all day long and I just had to regather myself and I'm an extrovert I can't even imagine for introvert parents what they go through we bear each other's grief we don't bear grief the same way we've had three miscarriages we both experience loss but not the same way that's not the measure of sharing grief as if you grieve the same way but you do it alongside each other you do it together Scott has lost his father and now he's lost his mother and I have not lost my parents so I can't say I know what you're going through but at the same time I love him and I grieve with him and I have my own sense of loss over losing my father-in-law and my mother-in-law there's a little four-year-old whose neighbor had lost his wife and he asked his mom if he could go next door because the man had come out on the porch and so the little boy went over next door and after a while he came back and the mom said what did you say to him and he said I didn't say anything we just cried together we commit to being a loving and faithful spouse in sickness and in health we need to genuinely care for each other in illness and I am a choleric I am sure that I am going to be just the worst wife ever when it comes to long-range illness if that comes to Scott before it comes to me and I'm trying to learn I'm trying to be more patient I'm just like ready to make a list okay what do we need to do what doctor we do we need to go to let's get the medication let's get things healing and we really have to grow in compassion we also need to learn how not to or how to meet the challenges that can come in the midst of suffering self-pity blaming God doubting God's love and care being frustrated with the limitations or dependency on others and even depression and despair and really frankly this is the human condition that we that we are going from challenge to challenge and if you're not suffering at the moment I want to tell you it's a lull okay because it's going to come it's going to come I think of Job's wife you know we don't really talk about his wife ever but you know she lost everything Job lost she lost all 10 children their home was destroyed they lost all the servants except those who ran to tell the horrible news of all the different things they lost she lost all of the crops all of the livestock her grief was extremely intense but she seemed to hold it together until her husband got ill and then she'd had it she comes succumbs to the sin of despair then his wife said to him do you still hold fast your integrity curse God and die and thank God that Job had enough faith left to give her a very important rebuke you speak as one of the foolish women would speak shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil and in all of this Job did not sin with his lips we don't know how much faith she had but satan targets him because of how righteous he was Job's wife despairs and he doesn't and when she despairs what she does in fact is actually increase his suffering because she should have come alongside him even if all she could do was weep right but instead by telling him to curse God and die she increases his suffering now but the interesting thing is and I know we don't have a verse that says that she repented but there's no mention that he ever had another wife and at the end of the book of Job God restored everything that was lost including 10 more children and I think there's a little bit of humor in it the good news is I'm going to restore everything and I'm even going to give you 10 more children yeah 10 more pregnancies and 10 more deliveries and you're older we need to guard our hearts against the temptations at the end of life because there's so much talk now about assisted suicide and suicide and euthanasia and we need to see these for what they are of the taking of innocent life and the church warns us we need to safeguard life from conception to its natural end and and the Lord has given us St. John Paul the second as a beautiful example where he with great difficulty suffered in front of us teaching us how to suffer and die Colossians 124 tells us something we can do with the sufferings in a very very important and positive way now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church Jesus in his mercy allows us as the body of Christ to offer our sufferings in union with his to build up and strengthen the body of Christ we're really united to him we commit to being the loving and faithful spouse in health and I'm just going to mention a couple things Proverbs 157 says better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted ox with hatred with it when we're tense we're not hungry when there's lots of love it doesn't even matter what served physically we need to fix how we think about things the goal is not to look like you never had a baby I don't know why that's the ultimate compliment I'm really serious about this I delivered my first child on the same day that someone in our church I won't even say the state delivered her third at the six week checkup I knew what my doctor had told me that we could resume relations and so I figured she got the same news and so when I saw her I said so did you get the all clear from your doctor and she said well I did but then I went home and I told my husband and he said when the lat when that five pounds comes off your hips I'll be interested I could still smack him and that was 33 years ago two words I don't think should ever be together sexy mom unless that's coming from the lips of your spouse and buff grandma my son once told me my my caboose he said mommy you are squishy in all the right places and I think ever since that movie gone with the wind came out people have allowed their minds to to fixate on if I look like I had a child that's gonna be devastating and people have said no to each other and closed the door to our lord because of in fact what happens to our bodies as we have children my husband and I mean I do I have yeah my body's a roadmap with all these scars and everything but you know what my husband says to me your body says you have loved me enough to bear my children that's beautiful that's beautiful one more verse proverbs 16 24 pleasant words are like a honeycomb sweetness to the soul and health to the body and one of the ways we've tried to have our dinner table reflect that is we share a good thing we go around the table every dinner and everyone shares a good thing from their day part of the fun of that is when you have little children even two year olds can get something out and everybody gets listened to it keeps the conversation positive and then that aids digestion and then what we do is now I think we've done this for about 12 years we have a journal that we record the good thing on Sunday for the week and what a beautiful record of seeing how God has been at work in our lives moving on we commit a vow in our vow to being a loving and faithful spouse for richer or for poorer now you can you can make a lot of applications to this but I'm just going to mention a couple things first Timothy 6 6 to 10 says there is great gain in godliness with contentment but those who desire to be rich fall into temptation into a snare into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction for the love of money is the root of all evils it's not money it's the love of money so we need to be content to set financial goals to work together to live within our means we don't always know when we first get married how we approach money and if there's a lot of work to be done in being good stewards together of our funds and what are some of the longer term goals that we have we need to talk about money and then we need to to work on that I actually have a whole chapter in chosen and cherished on how to work through finances and budgets faithfulness over a little helps us to be faithful over something more and tithing and almsgiving are a wonderful check on our spending of money and being a good steward of god's funds Philippians 4 11 to 13 not that I complain of want for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content in any and all circumstances I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger abundance and want I can do all things in him who strengthens me how about to be your loving and faithful spouse for better or for worse Romans 15 one says we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the week and not to please ourselves and that includes our spouse okay socks strewn about the room are not a sin even if they're a challenge we need to pick up on cues from each other and no preferences even accommodate idiosyncrasies go ahead and remove your hair from the sink don't use his razor he learned that I learned that the hard way flush the toilet and put down the seat put the cat back on the toothpaste tube or squeeze it from the bottom instead of the middle throw away the newspapers care about what bothers the other person is it a sin to do those to not do those things no but our goal is not to do the minimum it's to really accommodate each other as best as we can we do need to bear with each other's weaknesses and failings at first Corinthians 13 5 says love isn't irritable or resentful and I will say just one word of wisdom the women do have a different biological makeup and we have hormonal shifts that can be very challenging on the one hand women I don't believe that we should give ourselves a pass just because we have more going on in our bodies one time I came out into the the kitchen and my daughter who was 13 was out there and we we not only have five sons and one daughter but we also had lots of men live with us sometimes up to three or four at a time so we had a very testosterone rich environment and I came out and and I could just sense from my daughter it was like a cat like I could just feel this irritation and I looked at her and I said do we need to have a conversation and she just looked at me she said no and I said okay we're good yes and she walked out of the kitchen and Scott looked at me and said what was that and I said we just had a conversation we're not going to have and it's all good now ladies do you know what I'm talking about yes I don't know why they find us difficult to understand gentlemen my one word of caution is this if you get what's going on have the wisdom not to put it in her face adjust and then at a time of non-confrontation say you know what we really can't have behavior that's just gonna be unkind or impolite or rude just because you're PMSing or whatever you know but you have to choose that time of non-confrontational well okay our tongues can get us into trouble Proverbs 12 18 there is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts but the tongue of the wise brings healing I don't know it was kind of a revelation to me that every thought I had didn't have to be spoken it simplifies confession Proverbs 25 28 a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls I mentioned this yesterday but men you have strength you have physical strength you have strength in your voice and you can help your family feel very secure or you can make them feel insecure so be careful what you do with that strength ladies Proverbs 21 9 it is better to live in the corner of a rooftop than in a house with a contentious woman when we lived in Milwaukee Scott's office was on the third floor actually the same in Joliet was on the third floor and every once in a while he would look at me and say I'm going to the rooftop I watched the Ted talk the other day that I found surprising the question this woman asked was how does it feel to be wrong how does it feel to be wrong what do you think embarrassed humiliated frustrated angry that's how you feel when you realize you're wrong being wrong feels a lot like being right until you realize you're wrong that's really an aha isn't it we need to humble ourselves my father wisely had us memorize a particular passage on family vacation we always memorize scripture but we were heading to the west coast with hours a day in the car so we memorized James 1 19 and 20 know this my beloved brethren let every man be quick to hear slow to speak slow to anger for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of god he had us recite that every morning and when it was appropriate during the day forgiveness is crucial we have to keep remembering this is an act of the will we do not have to wait until we feel like we have forgiven the other to extend forgiveness that goes for spouse and children as well we need to respond yes I forgive you and when it comes to mind and we find ourselves getting worked up again we need to remind ourselves that we have forgiven that person if we need to we'll say it again but we don't mull it over I remember going to confession one time to father ray rylan and I said an incident in the family you know just keeps coming to my mind and I get angry all over again I said is it wrong to mull things over in your mind and he said actually that's the sin itself because god has already dealt with that you've extended the forgiveness you need to walk in that forgiveness some people and some of you maybe have really lived a dark night of the soul in your marriage I think in those initial months after Scott became well even before Scott became Catholic and after he became Catholic I would I would describe that I mean it was it was deep deep suffering I thank god I believed in hell because I remember instances where I walked the block or walked away from the situation contemplating can I just leave can I just leave leave him with the boys and just escape because I can't take the intensity of this pain and I just honestly believed in hell and that I could not say to god that it was a godly reason I would walk away and so I would walk away not just from Scott and the boys I would be walking away from god himself and so I would just walk back in that apartment and say I gotta stick this out we need to really pray for perseverance we need to call on the holy spirit because the catechism in 1624 says the holy spirit is the seal of their covenant the ever available source of their love and their strength to renew their fidelity so we call on the holy spirit in this dark night in a marriage and say bring your light bring your wisdom bring the mercy of god now you know Jesus is the key he said I'm the vine and you're the branches he who abides in me and I in him it is that bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing so we've got to stay connected to him he's the key he's the key as you go home and you face again whatever the situation or circumstances that were going on when you when you came here or maybe new circumstances and situations will be there when you get there that the holy spirit is the seal of your promise call on him ask him for that mercy Pope Saint John Paul II in his encyclical rich in mercy said this merciful love is supremely indispensable between those who are closest to one another between husbands and wives between parents and children and between friends where to be a channel of grace and mercy to one another and what clogs that channel it's sin and yet even God in his mercy has provided a way of dealing with that of cleaning out the channel because we can go to confession we can go to confession to have that that priest who stands in persona Christi hear our genuine from the heart plea for help and we leave forgiven and and given an opportunity to then build up the body of Christ that we've torn down with our sin I want to challenge you not only to choose Christ every day to wake up in the morning and say I want to follow you as your disciple I want to be your man or your woman but I want to challenge those of us who are married choose your spouse every day choose your spouse every day focus on the things that drew your heart to him or her realize that that is that true person that you are in love with and when he or she acts up remember the idea that when you know you go to take a photograph and someone yawns or closes their eyes we give them a pass don't we we say the photograph doesn't do him or her justice we know that that's a more beautiful person than what that photo captured well when we see the sin when we see the selfishness or the failings or the weaknesses of our spouse let's ask God for the mercy to be able to extend that grace to our spouse and to believe that that just doesn't do him or her justice and to set our heart on that beloved does it seem overwhelming is it beyond our own natural ability I would say yes the message is not to this world that if you're Catholic you're you're going to have a perfect marriage you're not going to have any struggles you're not going to have any difficulties no what our message is to this world is God's grace can overcome anything God's grace and mercy is available to strengthen our our promises to give us that resolve to say yes to being vulnerable in openness to life and knowing that that commitment is for life so that I can risk being open to life because my spouse is going to be there in Ephesians 3 20 and 21 St. Paul says now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do abundantly more than all we ask or think to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever endeavor amen he is able he is able and and if you ever start thinking oh I just it's just too much remember Mary's response to the angel you know she doesn't say oh you picked the right gal I'm perfect for the job she just said I'm available be it done unto me according to thy word that needs to be the cry of our heart be it done to us according to your word and he will do this work in us his desire is godly marriages and godly children and his mercy is abundant to do that let's pray together for the marriages around us if you're married for yourself for your parents for your siblings for all those around us and may we be a clear witness to what marriage is by the grace and mercy of god