By Brea Cannon
Connecting Faith and Life
Family — from the very beginning of time, family and connections have been written on our hearts.
This year, two of my grandparents celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary. My grandparents, 90 and 92-years-old, grew up in the same community, attended the same high school and at young ages shared many values. As I look back on my grandparents’ life together one word comes to mind —faithfulness. My grandparents are faithful to God, each other, their family and their friends.
Over and over in the Bible we read of God’s people and how God is always faithful. We, too, must remain faithful to God in all circumstances.
My grandparents have been a solid witness of love to all of our family, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health. They attend and are active in their church, openly share the desire to read scripture and to use the gift of time to grow closer to God. Their daughters and grandchildren have seen the love and hard work put into their marriage and aspire to foster in their own marriages the virtues witnessed.
At my wedding reception my grandparents, heaving been the longest married wedding guests, were asked and shared some “advice” about marriage and how to make it last: “You just do it, you choose to love every day.”
This advice is golden — it can be applied to anyone or any relationship, even a relationship with God. Life is not easy and family and friendships can bring both the best and worst out in people. Faithfulness and love are choices we all get to make.
Our world is filled with disorder, it has been that way since sin entered the world. We see it in the culture, in politics and in some aspects of the Church. Let us not be discouraged. We can start the healing and choose to love and restore right order in our families and in our friendships in ways that lead us all closer to God.
Faith, hope and charity, the theological virtues, infused by God into souls, are the foundation of Christian morality. These virtues, by the power of the Holy Spirit, restore order and bring peace. When faithfulness is valued and practiced, hope blossoms and God’s beauty and goodness are made visible. Hope is the weapon that protects us in the struggle of salvation; it affords us joy even under trial.
“We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will” (CCC 1821).
With hope of what is to come, charity “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (CCC 1827), and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to a supernatural perfection of divine love. Charity is itself the fulfilment of all our works.
Marriages that welcome the Holy Spirit by living out these theological virtues become bonded and sanctified by grace. It is in these relationships that healing and peace begin to form. When we as Catholics enter into a sacramental marriage, we become a means of grace. The sacrament of marriage, like holy orders, is directed towards the salvation of others; a spouse, family, friends and the world.
In our world where disorder and confusion seem to be in a constant cycle — and have been for generations — reflect on what kind of legacy faith, hope and charity or love can leave for future generations. Marriages are a place where the Holy Spirit can dwell and help restore right order to this fallen world one generation at a time. We must all work for this peace in our marriages and family life. Take it from my grandparents, it is in the everyday encounters in marriage and family life that we all have the ability to live out these virtues and start to turn our world back to our heavenly father.
I know my time with my grandparents will eventually come to an end on this side of heaven. I am extremely grateful for the faithfulness and love they have shared with each other and their family. Joy, peace and mercy, are the fruits of love; I see these fruits rooted deep in their family. They have created a family legacy; a legacy of faith, hope and charity.