Marriage ‘silently preaches’ that ‘love is possible.’
According to Vatican News, Pope Francis stressed this during his daily morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta as he offered Mass in the presence of seven couples celebrating their 50th and 25th wedding anniversaries, and reflected on today’s Gospel reading according to Mark (Mk 10: 1-12), where Jesus affirms the beauty of marriage.
“From the beginning of Creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one,” says Jesus. The Holy Father observed that the Lord “leaves the problem of separation and goes to the beauty of the couple.”
“We must not stop . . . at ‘one can,’ or ‘one cannot’ separate a marriage. (. . . ) Sometimes, by misfortune, it doesn’t work and it’s better to separate to avoid a world war, but it’s a misfortune,” stressed the Pontiff.
“Let us look at the positive,” he invited, telling an anecdote of a couple that was celebrating 60 years of marriage and, to his question: “Are you happy?” They answered with emotion: “We are in love!”
“It’s true that there are difficulties,” the Pope acknowledged, “there are problems with children or with the couple themselves, arguments and fights… but the important thing is that the flesh remains one, and you can overcome, you can overcome, you can overcome.”
“And this,” he said, “is not only a sacrament for them, but also for the Church, a sacrament, as it were, that attracts attention: “See, love is possible!” And love is capable of allowing you to live your whole life “in love”: in joy and in sorrow, with the problems of children, and their own problems… but always going forward. In sickness and in health, but always going forward. This is beautiful.”
Marriage “is not only a Sacrament for them, but for the Church, as if it were a Sacrament that attracts attention: “However, see that love is possible!” continued the Pope. “Marriage is a silent preaching to all others, a preaching of every day.”
Francis lamented that this is not considered news to the newspapers or to the TV news programs.
“This couple, together for so many years… it’s not news. Scandal, divorce, separation – these are considered newsworthy. (Although at times its necessary to separate, as I said, to avoid a greater evil). The image of God isn’t news. But this is the beauty of marriage. They [the couple] are the image and likeness of God. And this is our news, the Christian news.”
Patience is “perhaps, the most important virtue in a couple — both in the man as well as the woman,” he affirmed, before ending with a prayer that God may “give the Church and society a more profound, more beautiful awareness of marriage.”
Pope Francis concluded, praying: “May we all be able to understand and contemplate that the image and likeness of God is in marriage.”
