Marriage and Family Life

Marriage is so familiar a concept that we barely think of it as a vocation, more as the way of being which gives us greatest happiness. And when we have children, we celebrate the wonder of a new life, and then get on with the job of juggling the needs of the baby, the other children and our spouse.

Yet it is in marriage and family life that we learn about relationships. We learn how to forgive and how to rejoice in another’s achievements. We learn kindness and tolerance, justice and respect. Most of all, we learn how to love, and be loved.

These are the tools we need if we want to follow Jesus. We practise them first in our family and later apply them to the wider community. Each small act of love deepens our relationship with God, satisfying that often unrecognised yearning for a perfect love.

We may not have known that we were collaborating with God’s will in giving life when we said ‘I do’. But our response as parents is to be that "precious and irreplaceable means by which our children might discover their own vocation, so that they may have life to the full" (In Verbo Tuo).