Love Is Something We Do
Look honestly at a typical Sunday. The soccer team has a 9 a.m. game, so the family skips Mass. One of you has to work through the weekend because there's a big contract bid due next week. The other worked late almost every night this week and wants a day off from everything. The kids have friends, games, and streaming.
You did not plan to push God off the calendar. It was more like letting the calendar make the choice for you. And nobody--not you, not your kids, not your spouse--pushed for time with God or each other.
Maybe not every weekend is like this. But if you recognize elements of your family in this, you may want to start thinking about best ways to reduce this trend.
In this Sunday's Gospel, a scholar of the law tests Jesus by asking which commandment matters most. Jesus gives him two.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two, Jesus says, hang all the law and the prophets. He pairs them together. Why?
God does not need our love. He asks for it anyway, and he shows us how to give it. We love God by keeping his word, and we keep his word in how we treat others. In marriage, your spouse and the other people under your own roof are your nearest neighbors.
What the Research Shows
Psychologist Annette Mahoney and her colleagues studied 97 married couples to examine how religion relates to marital functioning. They distinguished between two kinds of family religion:
general religious characteristics, such as an individual's prayer life, and similarities between husband's and wife's religious beliefs and practices; and
direct connections between the couple's religion and marriage. That included joint activities like going to mass together, and also viewing the marriage as a relationship in which God is present.
It the marriages involving direct connections that turned out to be the strongest.
Marriages in which couples prayed together, attended mass together, and believed God was present in their marriage were associated with better marital adjustment, less conflict, and more constructive discussion of disagreements. And this was true across different demographic factors like race, class, where you live, or educational level.
The findings suggest that understanding religion’s relationship to marriage requires looking not just at how religious spouses are, but at how their religion figures in the marriage itself.
In other words, your marriage is sronger when you both love God, and you show it by keeping his word together, and loving each other as God calls you to do.
A Weekly Calendar Meeting
Set aside 20 minutes each weekend. Sit down together, phones away, with your calendars open.
List the week. Each of you names your commitments: work, kids' activities, appointments, social plans.
Place the anchors first. Before anything else goes on the calendar, block time for shared worship, at least one family meal, and one hour for the two of you.
Settle conflicts together. When a game or a work deadline collides with an anchor, decide as a couple which one gives way. You might find a different mass time, or you might tell the coach your child will miss one game. Present the decision to your kids as a united front.
Close with thanks. Each of you names one thing your spouse did last week that you appreciated.
The meeting turns your values into appointments. It also stops the slow drift where one spouse carries the family's faith alone and resents it. We strongly advocate a weekly State of your Union meeting for all couples, and urge you to incorporate this into it.
Loving God at the Kitchen Table
Jesus joined the two great commandments for a reason. When you and your spouse protect Sunday Mass together, you love God and you love each other in the same act. Your children watch where you spend your hours, and they will learn what you treasure from your calendar more than from your words. This week, open the calendar together and give God the first slot.
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