Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Reflecting on Luke 9: 18-24

I was reading a Time magazine cover article on marriage in the beauty salon the other day. It’s no surprise that marriage is under fire in every corner these days, but it turns out that 100% of those who have sustained a long and successful marriage say that their marriage is the greatest satisfaction of their lives.

A slew of marriage counselors weighed in, noting what a drudgery commitment can be, that a happy marriage is mostly just the luck of the draw, and that couples who are determined to stick it out do so by finding every imaginable thing that they like to do together.

While I was reading this, an elderly woman came over to me and said, “I was so disgusted with that article that I stopped reading it. I’ve been married for 46 years. Listen to what my husband did.” She then recounted for everyone within earshot her rage at something he had done that day.

It sounded like a sitcom. Insert laugh track here. But she was truly enraged over something that a simple conversation could have put right. Clearly, a long marriage isn’t always a master class in great communication. That’s sad.

Meanwhile, it must be out of vogue, at least for the Time’s psychologists, to suggest the real key to a happy marriage: both people putting the other person first.  We’ve all seen, I hope, what a marriage like that looks like. It’s a little glimpse of heaven itself.

Lose your life to find it, Jesus said.  Hold on to your life and you’ll lose it, he said again. That was Jesus, the Bridegroom, giving us the best advice on marriage, and our life with him in glory.

What do you observe about the great marriages you know?

Kathy McGovern ©2016

Ordinary Time - Cycle C