Marriage fellowship

I will cheat a little. I have missed one day. But to my defense I have written it yesterday. I just did not have time to edit and publish it.

Few years back we were lucky to come upon a marriage fellowship in one of the RI parishes.
Back then the group consisted of a good number of couples with big number of kiddoes running in between. Fortunately the babysitting was provided :)

I said lucky, because it was good to find ourselves among people who share the same values and have the same outlook on life. And we share the same faith too.
The topics of the meetings were always centered around family, parenting, or marriage or prayer etc, etc.
Sometimes we agreed on everything, sometimes we had friendly but quite animated discussion.

But to a lack of time two years ago we decided to stop going to the meetings. The meetings fell on Tuesdays, and it became impossible to juggle work, dinner, homework and different activities .
I asked to be kept on the list though, just in case if the day changed.

This year I was happy to see that the meetings were moved to Sundays. With Kiki being thirteen, she could stay at home. Zuzia enjoys company of others and Kubus graduated from holding on to us,  to willingly staying with children his age.
I and Andrzej could have grown up conversation without interruptions.
And luckily we did.

The topic of marriage will never get old. Either because there are new couples or because we need a reminder of how great vocation of marriage is, and how much work it requires.

I felt that everybody contributed a little with their wise advise or shared the experiences of their married lives.
It did not matter how long the couples were married, the work is still the same.

I won't hide that with a twenty one years behind us, I and Andrzej outlived the other couple for few good years. While I won't pretend that we are wiser because we are older, nevertheless it struck me, that it seems that so far we went through everything. The romantic love, the honeymoon, the separation, the loneliness, the loss, the suffering, the parenting problems, the chores, the decisions, the compromise and the lack of it.

And sometimes it felt like a lot of burden to carry, but with God's help we made it work. And we continue work everyday.  The vows that we took in front of God and others are not to be taken lightly.
The opportunities to love with sacrifice are meeting us every single day.
They are only sweeter, because of their are done with the good of the loved person in mind.

At the fellowship we have based our discussion on two writings.
One of them was the homily of pope Francis on marriage from past September.
He compared marriage to a journey.

"The love of Christ can restore to spouses the joy of journeying together. This is what marriage is all about: man and woman walking together, wherein the husband helps his wife to become ever more a woman, and wherein the woman has the task of helping her husband to become ever more a man".

Let the journey continue for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, forsaking all the others until death due us part.

 

 

Kinga.