Marriage Spirituality

How Spiritual is Your Marriage

Spirituality is a difficult topic. It is another word for holiness. Some folks see Priests, Religious, Rabbis, and Ministers as spiritual and judge that lay people don't have the same sense of holiness. This happens because people think that someone has judged them to be less spiritual, or they judge that others are more holy.

This isn't true.

Couple Holiness

Your holiness as a couple stems from your every day decisions to love one another and your children. Every married couple who love one another is showing to the world their marriage spirituality. It is important for you to realize this spirituality within your own relationship.

Examples of Couple Holiness

You and your spouse are holy when you

• Change a dirty diaper
  
• Sit quietly with another
  
• Share your family dinner with each other.
  
• Make love.

Experts Weigh in on Marriage Spirituality

William Roberts of the University of Dayton has said that shared family meals are one way of fostering spirituality within your marriage. "Family prayer and forgiveness are other forms of Christian family living that support spiritual commitment," he says.

The U.S. Bishops wrote in CALLED AND GIFTED, their pastoral statement on the laity in 1980, that "Lay men and women hear the call to holiness in the very web of their existence in and through the events of the world, the pluralism of modern living, the complex decisions and conflicting values they must struggle with, the richness and fragility of sexual relationships, the delicate balance between activity and stillness, presence and privacy, love and loss."

Don't Complicate Your Marriage Spirituality

You may make spirituality too hard and too complicated. It is not. You can easily complicate something that isn't complicated.

In years past a person's spirituality was based on how often they prayed, went to church or penance, fasted, and how open they were to forgiveness. Although those aspects of spirituality are still important, in today's world, your marriage spirituality is synonymous with how you live your married life together.

There is an old saying, "You may be the only Gospel that others will ever read."

• How do you as a couple reflect your love for one another to our world?

• When people see you at the supermarket, or stuck in traffic, or in church... do they see a couple in love?

• Do they see your spirituality in your togetherness, faithfulness, commitment, acceptance and respect for one another?