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My family is preparing for a great event: My niece Clare is getting married. She and James, her fiancé, have made all the arrangements. Their relatives and friends are overjoyed. We can’t wait for their wedding day, which, as I write, is just a week away.
Clare and James are preoccupied right now with last-minute details, but when it comes to the commitment they’re about to make, they’re serious. They know what they’re doing, and they are doing it with love and joy and the will to make it stick.
Happily, they can draw extra inspiration from recent reflections on marriage by Pope Francis and Cardinal Dolan. The pope, in a general audience last month in St. Peter’s Square, said that couples who marry are brave. The cardinal quoted the pope and added his own wise comments in his column (CNY, May 28) under the headline “Dare to Be Brave—Dare to Marry.”
Cardinal Dolan explained why the pope said that couples who wed are brave: “Because to marry according to the Lord’s will is becoming counter-cultural!” He cited troubling facts: Only half of Catholic young adults marry sacramentally. Many couples live together without marrying. Catholic divorce rates are similar to the national average.
“A man and woman, united in the sacrament of marriage, committed to a lifelong, life-giving, loving, faithful bond, blessed with children, are today’s new minority,” the cardinal wrote. He added that “our newlyweds today deserve more than ever our love, admiration, prayers, and gratitude. They are brave!”
Clare, the busy bride-to-be, might have missed this message; between her many hours at work and the crush of wedding preparations, she has little free time. But she saw it, thanks to her godfather, Frank, whose wife is my sister, Betty. Clare told me that Frank saw the column and sent it to her with a message: “Go ahead and be brave. My prayers are with you, as are Betty’s.”
“It meant the world to me that he said that,” Clare told me. “Marriage is not easy. It does take bravery.”
Clare is 35. She’s had enough life experience and gained enough maturity to be both crazy-in-love and realistic.
“I’ve met the perfect man for me,” she said, but she acknowledged, “There will be challenges.” She isn’t daunted. “I know that this is going to be forever,” she said, “and I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t know it was going to be forever.”
I love her attitude, and I know that James feels the same way. I am certain that when they exchange their marriage vows, they will mean what they say. I believe they will live those vows faithfully for the rest of their lives.
But something else struck me about the story Clare told me. She saw the pope’s and the cardinal’s words because of her godfather. She said that Frank—who, incidentally, was received into the Catholic Church as an adult—has been a wonderful godfather to her.
What a great gift that is.
When Clare and James stand together before the altar of God at their wedding Mass, they will not be making their promises alone. They will be joining their lives within the circle of their family and friends, who surround them with faith, encouragement and love. They will be drawing on the example and spiritual support of those who have gone before them, including the beloved grandparents whose example of faith in God and fidelity in marriage is their most precious legacy.
Clare and James will begin their new life together in the joy of their love for each other, blessed by God in the sacrament of matrimony, and celebrated and strengthened by the people they love most. There can be no better beginning than that, and no surer foundation for their marriage.
To Clare and James and all the other couples who joyfully embark on the great adventure of married love: In the words of Pope Francis, Cardinal Dolan, and Clare’s godfather, Frank Gilbreth: “Go ahead and be brave! Dare to marry!”
Our love and our prayers are with you.
