ON FAITH AND 56 YEARS OF MARRIAGE
I think our faith has grown over the years.
I hate to say old, but we’re in our senior years, and I think as a young Catholic it was just memorize the prayers, do this, do that—it’s all memorization, and I didn’t really get into why we take the Eucharist and, you know, why we take the blood and all that. But now, as we’ve gotten older, I think we’ve matured, and I think our faith has matured with us. And now we go to daily Mass, and you know, when we were raising kids it was Sunday morning Mass and that was it. But now we’re going to daily Mass, and I think our faith has grown tremendously.
I think Pope Saint John Paul II really stimulated the youth. He was just so human and so faithful, religious, but he related to the people and he related to the youth. And maybe that’s when we really started getting a little more interested in the “whys” of the Church and why we do things and how special the Eucharist is. That’s what really started our interest in becoming more involved rather than just going to church on Sunday and doing all the things you have to do and not knowing why.
I think we had a good foundation, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say we had a relationship with our faith until John Paul II came along. And then I think we just started thinking more about our faith and I think that helped a lot. We went to McNichols Arena when John Paul II came here for World Youth Day, and we saw him walk in, and it was like (gasp) I’ve never experienced something like that.
I think the priests we’ve had as of late, beginning with Fr. Don—that would’ve been 25 years, more than 30 years ago—I know our faith has grown. I don’t mean any disrespect to my parents. They did it the way they were taught, but back then it wasn’t just them and the way they raised us. I call it Catholicism by the numbers. You made sure you were at Mass every week, checked the boxes, genuflected at the right time, knelt at the right time, and stood. It was somewhat mechanical.
When I grew up, the Mass was in Latin. I get the romance of it and the tradition of it, but the Mass was in Latin, so you sat there and, if you had your missal, you read the English part in your missal, but there wasn’t an interaction with the priest and the Mass, and he had his back to you, a couple servers up there. It was very remote.
And then Fr. Don came, and his homilies related so well to today’s life. He made it relevant to today. Oh, it’s not like it happened 2,000 years ago and this is what they did and said—this is why it matters today. It was true then, it’s true now. The dots started connecting, and I think we’re into an era now of a number of younger priests that seem to—I don’t know—the Church is more alive. In general, for most of our married life, and certainly when I was a kid, the priests were almost unapproachable. It was us and them—not adversarially, but separate. So I think the Church is much more alive today, and Vatican II helped a lot. John Paul II helped tremendously in involving the laity.
It really came alive for me, a turning point that went from “Catholicism by the numbers” to suddenly it was much more personal…alive… that was the point when it really turned for me.
“We met in high school, and I was kind of delighted to find out she was Catholic.”
“I was delighted to find out he was Catholic. After we started dating, we found out we were Catholic, and I was so happy to meet a nice Catholic boy.”
“It’ll be 56 years this month.”
“I admire his deep faith and his trust in God. Everything he does. He’s such a devout man. He’s a devout Catholic. He’s a wonderful Christian, a godly man. Couldn’t ask for more. I just admire him for that. I married the man of my dreams.”
“She’s the best. She’s a gift from God, and I know it.”
“As are you.”
“Well, we’ve been very, very fortunate. I wish that everyone could be as fortunate as we are. But there’s only one of her, so…”
“There’s only one of you.”
“What’s the secret to 56 years? Obviously our faith together. We like each other. That’s pretty important.”
“It’s a good place to start.”
“I know that there’s some people that seem to thrive on a little bit of tension. We’ve never been that way. We don’t even disagree on what to have for lunch. It’s just been a very… I guess maybe when we said ‘I do,’ we meant it. That’s one of the things I admired about my parents. I never wondered once if my dad loved my mom or where he was going to spend the night. So I had great examples. They had 64 years, and we hope to be blessed with that many.
We had great examples. The wise woman that she is, I don’t remember her asking me to promise her very many things, but shortly after we were married she said, ‘Promise me one thing—that we’ll never go to bed angry at each other. That we’ll talk it out.’ I don’t think we ever have. I don’t think we’ve had to have many of those talks. I think we’ve been fortunate to trust in Him and know that He gave us a very special gift. That two become one, but it’s a three-way partnership.”
“I think our faith is the glue.”
“It is. Without that, why would anything else matter?”
“We had a purpose for living.”