For the past 16 years, my husband and I have worked together in a marriage ministry as presenting team members for Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME). It was not something we ever saw ourselves doing, and certainly not something we were looking for in our lives. But after attending a WWME experience, a team member asked us to consider using our gifts to benefit other married couples.
We thought about this request, prayed over our decision, and eventually said ‘yes’ to trusting the Holy Spirit and discovering how our ‘little story’ could help other couples enrich and deepen their marital love and intimacy. That ‘yes’ has made all the difference in our marriage. Not only has it helped us grow in our own relationship and deepened our communication with one another, but it has opened opportunities for us to meet some incredible couples and priests throughout the United States.
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I recently discovered this quote by Msgr. John Patrick Carroll-Abbing, who wrote in his book But For the Grace of God, “The secret of happiness is to love, and the essence of love is to serve.” This quote eloquently describes not only the call to Christian Discipleship but the Sacrament of Marriage as well. God gives a man and a woman the love and desire they have for each other not only for their own personal wellbeing and happiness but to make a free choice to serve the other. Married couples live out this service in the day-to-day decisions they make to put the other one first and help their spouse become the best version of themselves. As that marital love deepens, so too is the couple’s desire to expand that love by welcoming children into their lives.
While service to family always comes first, God never intended for it to end there. God’s desire is that each of us will transform the love He has for us into a love for all people – not just those in our family. And if, as Msgr. Carroll-Abbing writes, the essence of love is to serve, then God calls each of us to use the gifts we have received to serve everyone.
Before our involvement in WWME, my husband and I both served our communities in other ways, independent from one another. And while we both found fulfillment in those volunteer activities, we have found greater unity in sharing our current ministry together. It has helped us to focus outward on other people and not on our own day-to-day issues or struggles. It has given us a shared purpose and a sense of teamwork and collaboration that has enriched our relationship. Working together has helped us to learn how to compromise with one another, appreciate and affirm each other’s strengths, and negotiate differing points of view or ways of doing things.
There are many opportunities available for couples to share their love in service to others. An ideal place to begin is within your parish. As a couple, you can teach faith formation, help prepare engaged couples for marriage, be marriage mentors for newlywed couples, serve as greeters at Mass, volunteer at parish fundraisers or social events, take communion to the sick or homebound together, or sing together in the church choir. Speak to your pastor for more ideas.
You could work together at a local food pantry or soup kitchen. In each community there are non-profit charities and organizations that need volunteers. When you seek to demonstrate God’s love in service to others, God will provide you the opportunities to do so.
Each of us carries the light of Christ inside ourselves. When you join that light together with your spouse’s, imagine how much brighter others will see the love of Christ reflected in your sacrament. You can make a difference – together.
By Mary-Jo McLaughlin