The Holy Family Reflection
Merry Christmas!
As we celebrate and reflect on the birth of our Lord, I had a unique thought. I’d like to share it with you on this great feast!
Jesus was born into a family. Mary and Joseph, living in the marriage covenant, provided the stability He needed as He grew, developed, and learned. Jesus was like us in all things except sin. As I hold my own son, that thought blows my mind.
There was a time when baby Jesus couldn’t hold up His neck. Then came the day that He started smiling and cooing. It is extraordinary that He was just like my son is today.
In that way, I’m living the experience of St. Joseph. A new dad, experiencing the miracle of life. A new dad, shepherding a child’s heart.
The beautiful truth that comes out of this is that we, as married men, reflect the Holy Family. We go through the same difficulties, challenges, and struggles. We, like Mary and Joseph, have access to the same graces to help us live out our vocation.
So as you celebrate this Christmas with your family, remember, your family is a reflection of the Holy Family. Bound in love, united in truth, and together for the greater glory of God!
From myself, Alison and our son Benedict, Merry Christmas!
Couple Friends
The relationship between a husband and wife is both exclusive and complete. By its design, it can meet almost all of the emotional needs of the spouses, but that can be difficult.
One of the challenges for young people is their first exclusive dating relationship.
A major challenge for young people in their first exclusive dating relationship is managing that exclusivity.
The young couple is enthralled with each other and find more and more of their emotional needs met in their relationship. A great danger is for the couple to segregate themselves from their friends. The danger comes when they lose sight of their healthy need to engage in relationships outside of their dating relationship. Marriage can have a similar pull.
Being a husband, you should find the vast majority of your personal fulfillment in your wife and the activities that you enjoy together. You share a life with this woman, you share everything. From the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep, you are living in total, complete connectedness. This is even more true if you are raising children together. Your life is full of communication and connection.
While your wife is able to meet most of your needs, and she, yours, it is wise to actively seek out other couple friends. Having relationships with people in a similar state in life can be a tremendous benefit to your marriage and it can also provide many mutual benefits.
First, you have a sounding board. When you have a difficultly at work, you probably turn to your wife to see if you are wrong. When you and your wife have a disagreement, her objectivity could be called into question. If you have some really close couple friends, you could bring them in and get some outside advice. They might have also been in a similar quarrel and could share some tips as to how to successful navigate the situation.
Next, they can provide quality relational interactions. If you’ve ever babysat for a young child, you know just how draining giving your full attention to a single person can be. With couple friends, you don’t have to overwhelm your wife with your emotional needs. Perhaps one of your needs is to go to a sports game or watch a war movie. If you have great couple friends, you can arrange for the husbands to hang out and the wives to hang out and do something they each enjoy.
Finally, good couple friends can provide opportunities to share the joys and challenges of the married life with. Being married is hard, especially being happily married. You may find people trying to pull you down because they are envious. Having great couple friends can reaffirm the good of marriage and remind you that there’s nothing wrong with living an authentically Catholic marriage.
In order to find good couple friends, you must be proactive. Engage in Church activities and local young adult outings. When you find them, hold on tight. You’ll both be glad that you did.
Saying Sorry
Masculine pride will tell you that apologies are weakness. It will tell you that the person who apologizes first, loses. Masculine pride has also gotten you into a few tight spots before, hasn’t it?
My wife and I learned something very important early in our marriage. We’re bad at fighting. I would withdraw because I wouldn’t want to make her more mad. She’d shut down because she needed more time to think. What we had was a failure to communicate. Over time, we’ve gotten better. Thankfully, I learned a few things along the way.
The biggest threat to your marriage doesn’t come from the outside. It doesn’t come from her catty cousin or your bumbling friends. It comes from unresolved arguments. Like a festering untreated wound, it only causes more and more marital discord. When you refuse to treat the wound, you let it get out of hand. It will completely destroy your marital peace.
By time you get to the point of an argument where you assign blame, it’s usually pretty deep into the discussion. You may be in so thick of a forest that you can’t really remember what this fight is all about. Even if you aren’t the original person at fault, you probably hurt your wife by mishandling the process. After all, is there really a correct way to handle a fight?
The important thing to know about apologies is that they are almost like ice breakers. When one side concedes fault, it makes it easier for the other party. Then they can feel secure enough to apologize and the situation can be resolved. I’m not saying that men are always wrong, but I am saying that we don’t have to peacock with our wife. We can lead well by readily acknowledging that at some point in the process, we injured her, though we didn’t want to.
Most importantly, apologies can’t be fake. Don’t say “I’m sorry” to just resolve the fight. It won’t work. Trust me.
Marriage is give and take. We can give her a great gift by taking responsibility first.
Family Prayer Time
Prayer is the bond that keeps the family together.
If you think about some of the strongest families you know, there is at least one common characteristic that they all share in common. They are a family that makes time to pray together.
Prayer in community dates back to the earliest days of the Church. The faithful would gather in each other’s homes and pray. It is a ritual that is both spiritually rejuvenating and essential in the Christian life.
Yet, we struggle to find the time. Part of the reason for me was that I was nervous about praying out loud. When I pray privately, in my head, the words flow so smoothly. It’s a different story when I pray out loud.
At the same time, Alison and I recognize how important this practice is. A family gathering together to offer prayers of adoration, petition, penance and thanksgiving is a powerful event. The gathering of the domestic Church to recenter itself in God is essential to the health and growth of the family.
As Benedict was going through the Sacrament of Baptism, Alison and I promised to raise him in the faith. We promised to make it our “constant care to bring him up in the practice of the faith.” At the conclusion of the Rite, the Priest prayed over his ears and mouth saying, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. May He soon touch your ears to receive His word, and your mouth to proclaim His faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”
While listening to those words, it became clear in my mind again how important weekly, if not daily, family prayer time is.
When setting up a prayer routine, it’s important to frequently change the type of prayer that you engage in. For example, you may pray the rosary together, the Liturgy of the Hours, or maybe even have a Scriptural Reflection. Prayer is a conversation, so make it lively!
I hope that you’ll consider incorporating family prayer time into your family life. In the words of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, “The family that prays together, stays together."
The Genius of Marriage
The place of marriage in society is something that is being fiercely questioned in our world today. What is marriage? What is its purpose? Why do we give married couples certain benefits? As Catholics, it is quite clear. Marriage is both unitive and procreative and benefits are granted by the State because the State has a vested interest in the regeneration of its population in stable homes.
While some make the argument that marriage is based solely on “love,” my experience as a new dad tells a different story. My experience has illustrated quite clearly that the genius of the architecture of marriage is the gender differences.
As a man, I think quite differently than my wife. We can approach the same problem with two different solutions. It’s during the times when we take advantage of our different approaches that we really succeed.
A few days after bringing our son home, he was crying inconsolably. Since I have never really been around young kids, I didn’t know what to do. My wife, however, tapped into her maternal instincts and put some sugar water on his pacifier and he calmed right down. My solution was to hold him, hers was to medicate. One or the other may not have worked, but together, they both did and he calmed right down.
There is something special in our gender differences. Neither of us is better than the other, but together, we are better than alone. Our thought processes, our emotions, and our intellects meld together to create the best possible outcome. The diversity of thought provides the best chance for the right solution.
When we turn the world selfishly towards us, we neglect the innate architecture that makes it so powerful, so beautiful. Sometimes it’s best to realize that God has the bigger picture in mind, and we know that things end better when we place our trust in Him.
Why Culture Isn’t Prepared for Us
Culture only wants boys.
Culture tears down men.
Culture celebrates immaturity and selfishness.
Culture celebrates boys who neglect their family for their own wants and desires.
Culture is weak.
Culture is wrong.
Culture isn’t prepared for us.
We are strong.
We are steadfast.
We stand up for our beliefs.
We fiercely protect our family.
We put others before ourselves.
We enter into decisions thoughtfully.
We accept the consequences of our actions.
We live in the light.
We are men.
Understanding Christ’s Wounds
Living in Western Society today, we can easily have a sterilized view of Christ suffering and dying for our sins. For the most part, our experience with the death penalty is very clean. To the best of the ability of modern science, those who are condemned suffer very little, and do it mostly in private.
This was not the death that Jesus suffered.
Based on the advice I was given before getting married, I make regular use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As a part of the Sacramental process, I started reflecting more deeply on how my actions today are the direct cause of the brutal torture that Christ suffered. It was an incredible moment of clarity for me.
Our sins today are what caused the necessity of Christ’s suffering. Since God is outside of time, He only needed to redeem us once, and could do so at any point in the spectrum of time in which we exist.
One of the reasons why sin can be so easy is because we often can’t immediately see the damage they inflict. Sin is usually private and personal, and so it feels distant. By reflecting on the wounds of Christ, we can take that power away from sin. We can make it stand in the light and show us its true self.
Sin wounds the Body of Christ. Sin wounded the corporal body of Christ, but also His body in the Church. When one member suffers, we all suffer. Yet, at the same time, when one finds strength and forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we all rejoice.
Contemplating Christ’s suffering as a direct result of our actions can help us to make better choices. By understanding that my sin affects me, my wife, my family, my community and Christ Himself, I can gain perspective to help me in moments of temptation. I can use this tool to do good and to avoid evil.
Sin likes to lurk in the shadows. Sin likes to shame you into more sin. Don’t give it the chance. Bring it to the light in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Children are Truly the Fruit
My son is rapidly approaching the one month mark and the experience for me, as a father, has been something truly amazing.
As I was preparing for his birth, many people gave me lots of advice. They’d joke about their days as new parents or even try to drop some helpful tips, such as “sleep when he sleeps.” What no one mentioned was how children truly strengthen your marriage and amplify the love you have for your spouse.
It’s truly sad that there is a strong undercurrent that pushes young people, and even young marriages, to avoid bringing a child into the world at all. Why would we rob ourselves of the joy of sharing our lives with our family?
We are selfish. We think that anytime we have to give something, we are going to be unhappy. We think that the reduction in disposable income, the loss of some sleep, and the loss of some freedom that a new baby causes is going to lessen the enjoyment we get out of life.
I haven’t found that to be the case.
My wife and I communicate even more now than we did before he arrived. Some of it is about him, but most of it is just about our life as a family. I will often look at him and be reminded physically of my intangible love for my wife.
Yes, there are things that are hard to deal with. The sound of crying isn’t the most pleasant, but it’s more like the alarm clock for love. When he makes that crying noise, he needs me. It’s my time to tend to his needs and thus, my time to love him.
I can also find ways to love my wife through him. For example, on Black Friday, I gave Alison the day off. She got to go shopping in peace without having to worry about his needs and I was able to take him with me to a museum. Had he not been here, we may have just spent the day apart with no real act of love rendered.
Plus, he’s just so dang cute.
Don’t believe the myth that you have to “childproof your marriage.” Change your paradigm and see your child as a new way to love your wife.
Faith is A Gift
The term “Cradle Catholic” is a phrase that is tossed around quite a bit. It refers to those Catholics who were given the Faith at their birth. This is, of course, as opposed to “Converts,” or people who converted.
I would fall into the Cradle Catholic category. I’ve never really been fond of the term, though. Sure, most of the Converts that I know are amazing Catholics who have great fervor for their faith. But that fervor shouldn’t take away from my own. As you probably know, your faith life is a marathon, not a sprint. It isn’t always perfect, and there are some seriously dark times in everyone’s faith walk. At the end of the day, we share the same faith, no matter who gave it to us or when we accepted it.
We have a tendency to want to control things. If we can’t control something, or we can’t fully understand it, we can easily write it off. Yet, the mystery of the faith was a genius design. As humans, we get bored, fast. As soon as we figure out the mystery, we move on. That’s why movies are (almost) never as good the second or third time around. It is the mystery of something that keeps us interested and engaged.
With our faith, we don’t have to have all of the answers. In fact, that’s part of what faith is. Believing without seeing.
The other day in Mass, the thought crossed my mind. How will I explain who God is to my son? Children, as you may know, can only truly comprehend what they have seen. My 7 year-old brother-in-law didn’t believe that I had a brother until we showed him pictures. So, how will I tell my son about God, a being who’s Resurrected body he won’t see until death?
Despite being a mystery, faith is truly a gift. It’s a gift that we must cherish, because it’s the gift that will carry us through any situation. It won’t always be glamours, it won’t always be fun, but it will be steadfast.
Heroic Virtue
Sainthood is our goal. But, sometimes we start to believe it is impossible. In those times, we fall into sin.
My recent experience of the birth of my son was unlike anything I could have ever imagined. My wife was admitted into the hospital for three days and I was her primary caregiver. Having had some experience with life as an inpatient, I knew that it was my role to manage her care, advocate for her, and make sure that we both had thorough understanding of her treatment.
As I reached the third day of very little sleep and several bumps in the road, I noticed that over the previous three days, I had completely abandoned my own needs. She and my child’s needs were always first. Nothing grossed me out, nothing got me upset, nothing bothered me. Whatever needed to be done, I did.
As I reflected, I found how I had felt those “honeymoon” feelings again, that springtime of love. The act of caring, the non-stop acts of love provided a boost not only to her, but to me.
I felt as if I had begun to understand what the term “heroic virtue” means.
On the road to canonization, the first step is for the Pope to recognize an individual’s heroic virtue. A recognition that their life truly exemplified the life that we are called to as members of the Body of Christ. It is easy to think that heroic virtue is reserved to only a few, but we are rapidly loosing that excuse.
We are riding on a wave of canonizations of people that we have lived with and met. Perhaps most notable is Pope John Paul II. During his decades long reign, we learned from him and watched his every move. We watched him bring down Communism, kiss lepers, and bravely persevere through a debilitating illness.
We learned about the dignity of the human person and the proper place of our human sexuality. He is someone that we could easily see as a person living the Christian Life well. He lived this life not because it was easy, not because he was the Pope, but because it was who he truly was as a human person.
Attaining sainthood is our goal. We aren’t going to make it if life is about us and our needs. We are provided countless opportunities every day to chose to live with heroic virtue. I, too often, chose the opposite because it’s more comfortable. But we aren’t supposed to be comfortable. Selflessness will help us reach our goal.
Marriage is a great incubator of Saints. We both know that being a husband is not easy. It comes with great satisfaction and fulfillment, but we are challenged daily. The best way for us to make that next step, that orientation towards the path of sanctity is to actively and daily chose to love and serve our wives before ourselves. By placing her needs before our own, we reduce our selfishness and make more room for love.
As I transition back home, I’m going to make a solid effort to maintain the level of love and concern I had for my wife in the hospital. I hope you’ll join me… just with your own wife.