Hi everyone, hope you are all well.

This week we asked our dear friends Pierre and Claire Fernandes to tell us what marriage means to them:

“Thank you so much for asking us to write on marriage for Hozana.

It's our 30th wedding anniversary this month, thank you Lord!

We wanted to lift up a beautiful teaching on the spousal union, and some key principles that have helped us in our marriage, with God firmly at the centre.

Most of what we know about Theology of the Body has come through Christopher West. One of the most inspiring things has been that spouses image, albeit imperfectly, the love of God within the Trinity. As he says in ‘The Good News about Sex and Marriage', “God is in himself a life-giving Communion of Persons. The Father, from all eternity, is making a gift of himself in love to the Son...And the Son, eternally receiving the gift of the Father, makes a gift of himself back to him. The love between them is so real, so profound, that this love is another eternal person - the Holy Spirit” (West 2000, 19). God is always fruitful, overflowing with love!

As human beings created in God's image, WE are “called to love as God loves, in a life-giving communion of persons. and we do this specifically as male and female....the love between them is so real, so profound, that, God willing, it may become another human person”. How amazing! It is profoundly humbling to know that in marriage we are called to this life-givingcommunion, and God willing this love overflows in the creation of a child. For ourselves, we waited many years for our son to come along, and we know that his life is pure gift. But whether married couples have children or not, they are called to love as God loves, making a loving gift of themselves to one another, and reaching out in service to the community around them.

Thinking back over the years, there are many teachings and people who have helped us. Here are some key principles for marriage that we think are important and are still very much learning!

1. Never let the sun go down on your anger (Ephesians 4:26). Saying sorry and forgiving one another is so important. In fact, this is our most important tip! We may not feel like forgiving our spouse, but it's important to choose to forgive and to deal with it before the end of the day. Many times we need to say sorry to the Lord also in confession. An app that we have found helpful is Laudate - this includes an examination of conscience for married people to help prepare for confession.

2. Listen to your spouse. We need to take time out to listen rather than just speak at each other! For us, a good way to do this is on a walk (which needs carving into the busy schedule, or it doesn't happen!)

3. Trust God in everything. We can think that we are trusting God with our worries and concerns, and then pull them back off God's lap and try and shoulder them again ourselves. There is a beautiful Novena of Surrender by Fr Dorlindowhich helps us to continue to trust God. https://catholicexchange.com/the-surrender-novena-let-jesus-take-care-of-everything

4. Pray for and with one another. Find out what is on the heart of your spouse, their concerns, work issues etc and make it a priority to pray with and for them. You might like to pray morning, evening or night prayer with them. Magnificat if helpful for this.

5. Date night! We have recently been reminded of the importance of this one by Chris and Natalie Stefanicks, of Real life Catholic https://reallifecatholic.com/. As they say, you can put any ‘issues' you might have in brackets and have a fun eg meal/walk/silly movie - the issues will still be there when you get back to them! It is so important to have fun and enjoy one another's friendship and company.

Whatever vocation you are called to, we pray that God will bless you with His joy and peace. 

We have chosen this song for you this month: Build My Life by Housefires - https://youtu.be/xLSDBG1OcGE 

Enjoy!