Making Love - the Christian Way

I spoke to a dear friend of mine today who told me she can’t live with mediocrity; she has to do everything with excellence.  I’m sure this is one of the many reasons we are friends because she shares the same desire I have for greatness! 

I think that drive to ‘do well’ in everything was a part of what reinforced the necessity to be a missionary family.  In formation, two afternoons a week we study Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical Mission of the Redeemer (Redemptoris Missio); during this time of study I have been blessed by the enthusiasm and primacy JPII has placed on the need for missionary activity and missionary evangelizers, especially as it relates to the whole Church and each believer of Christ:

“missionary activity is a matter for all Christians, for all Diocese and parishes, Church institutions and associations”, RM 2 (emphasis not added)

“what moves me even more strongly to proclaim the urgency of missionary evangelization is the fact that it is the primary service which the Church can render to every individual”, RM 2

“God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for the sowing of the Gospel.  I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church’s energies to the new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes.  No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples.” (emphasis added)

Being a missionary is faith in action: “every disciple of Christ…has the duty of spreading the faith” (Ad Gentes, 23).  We are all called to be a missionary where we presently are first and foremost.  So because I’m not a missionary in a third world country yet, I figured the greatest struggle during my time of intake would be to live in community with 39 other people – kids included!  But being charitable to people I am just getting to know and who live in their own houses at night seems to be proving itself far easier than being charitable within the four wall of MY home!  My wonderful mother would always repeat (and I can hear her now saying): “charity begins at home Natalia”

On several occasions, at least two this past week, I got frustrated with Ben, upset with him, made a snide remark, hollered at him from the kitchen or made a selfish demand.  In the moment, I believed all warranted my spit and venom.  But, not 30 minutes later, Ben and I would be praying Morning Prayer (Liturgy of the Hours) and the reading would put my attitude to a screeching holt!  I’d read from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2: 2-4, 14-16):

“never act out of rivalry or conceit…in everything you do act without grumbling or arguing”

“each of you looking to others’ interests rather than his own”

Or from first Peter (4:8-11):

“Let your love for one another be constant, for love covers a multitude of sins.  Be mutually hospitable without complaining”

“put your gifts at the service of one another…the ones who serves is to do it with the strength provided by God.  Thus in all of you God is to be glorified”

I was CHARGED by the Word of God to be kinder to my husband, to think of him as superior to me, to serve without complaining, grumbling, arguing; to seek his interests above my own and in all my actions that is where God is glorified, hence will I be living excellence!  Needlesstosay, I had to apologize to Ben, mend my ways and start over, right there in that moment. 

I think humility in front of my husband is the hardest kind because it’s humiliating to go from “I am right and you are wrong” to “I’m sorry Love; I was wrong and treated you poorly.” 

All this to remind me of something we read a few weeks ago  in our studies.  One of my favorite paragraphs in the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church (Ad Gentes) is paragraph 24 which speaks about who the missionary is and how he lives.    

“By a truly evangelical life, in much patience, in long-suffering, in kindness, in unaffected love, he [the missionary] bears witness to his Lord.”

Through my love for Ben, my unaffected love, I can bear witness to Christ who’s love is unaffected, truly faithful and never ending!  After all isn’t this the sacrament of matrimony – that our marriage would be a visible sign of the invisible grace of God.

Jesus, you bore all things out of love, including our sins, help me to love with the love you have, unaffected, unconditional, forever faithful…and most importantly not to grumble, complain or argue with my husband.

taking a SINK bath!