The poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruelest month,” but I think some of us disagree and believe it is February. Our days are short, and our nights are long. All around us, we see the signs of winter wearing on: the trees are bare, the sky is grey, the air is cold and the ground is frozen. The anticipation of Advent and the joy of the Christmas Octave are behind us, and the hope of spring is still to come. We long for new life, but it still seems so far off.
When Valentine’s Day comes around this time each year, its timing always seems a little strange. It is a holiday about the vitality of love, centered around the promises and plans romantic love inspires, the joys of marriage, the hope of new life, and the gift of family and friendship. But all around us, the world seems bleak and new life scarce.
Maybe that is the point. Perhaps it is in the bitterness of winter that we most need to turn our hearts to the great gifts God has provided in marriage and family. “Marriage is the most beautiful thing God has created,” Pope Francis has said. Out of the depths of romantic love, a faithful, lifelong commitment is forged, binding husband and wife together across all the dimensions of their personality: physical, emotional and spiritual.
God’s love is never minimalist. It grows, exceeds and overflows. The same is true of his plan for marriage. Out of the strength of their bond, God invites married couples to have a share in this overflowing love. From the beauty of their commitment, new life is born, and with it a new kind of love: the love of fathers and mothers for their children, of children for their parents, and of siblings for one another. Perhaps that is why Pope Francis says, “The couple that loves and begets life is a true, living icon … capable of revealing God the Creator and Savior” (“Amoris Laetitia,” 11). The great icons of the East allow us to peer into the life of the Trinity, to witness the love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The “living icon” of the family allows us to feel that love, to have an experience of what the interior life of the Trinity must be like.
Just as the love of spouses overflows into the gift of children, so also the love of the family overflows into the Church. Take, for example, Sts. Priscilla and Aquila, a married couple who St. Paul recognized for opening their hearts and home to the earliest Eucharistic liturgies. The reciprocal love they forged in marriage trained their hearts in a spirit of hospitality. It taught them to make their home a home for love. In turn, the love of their marriage provided a foundation for “the very birth of the reality of the Church,” as Pope Benedict XVI wrote.
The Church and the family go together in this way. The early Church found a home for the Eucharist in the warmth of family life. That same warmth and hospitality still animates Eucharistic celebrations and parish life today. At the same time, the Eucharist nourishes the love and fidelity of spouses and the family life that arises from them. It vitalizes home life and strengthens its bonds. It allows families to be true to what they are, and to give abundantly.
As we endure another bleak month of winter, may we be reminded of the gift of family love and the warmth and light it brings to this world. May we be vigilant in protecting the sanctity and integrity of marriage, and in ensuring that all children know the love of a mother and father. May we love and support young couples in our parishes who are preparing for this beautiful vocation: newly married couples who are just discovering the joys and challenges of life together; new parents who are adjusting to life with children; and families at all stages as they navigate the triumphs and struggles of life.
Along with them, may we share this love with single people who wish to be married, and married people who wish to be parents. Above all, let us share the great gifts God has given us in marriage and family. May they illuminate a world that desperately needs the warmth and joy of love’s abundance.
Lastly, I extend my thanks to all married couples in the Diocese of Arlington who strive daily to live out the holiness to which God has called them. Your faithful witness is a gift to our diocese, and, indeed, the entire Church.
