The Foundation of Marriage

​NOTE: about every 5 weeks, I show up on Salt and Light Radio’s Blessed and Beautiful Segment for 15 minutes to share thoughts and experiences on an assigned topic. While the interview plays out spontaneously, this is a more comprehensive reflection of what aired on Friday, February 28th, 2025.

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I didn’t find Mr. Right at a good Catholic college but in my own backyard. Though Mark and I lived in the same small town, we didn’t really know each other, nor were we related (something that only makes sense in a small, rural, German Catholic community). We were both blessed to be raised in fairly healthy family environments, in which our parents stayed married. Our first date was incredibly romantic. We met at a wedding, tried and failed to sneak into a local bar (I was underage), and then ended up along the Salmon River on a full moon night dancing to country music. Mark and I were married in 1998 and have four children, with three littles ones looking on us from above.

When people ask me for marriage advice, I keep it simple, typically quipping, “ride out the waves.”  Every couple encounters the ebb and flow, the joys and sorrows, the smooth and the rocky roads. It’s inevitable. It is precisely when things are hard that one needs to hold on, work through the situation, and continue loving. Only when we persevere through the difficult of giving will we know the sweetness of receiving. The key is to ride out each wave with a faithful love. The sweet moments, where each is honored and cherished, are irreplaceable and priceless here and now but also hint at the glory of eternity with the Lord.

Granted, many come from incredibly dysfunctional backgrounds, histories of abuse, and may struggle with Church teaching on various marital topics. Some are in abusive and/or invalid marriages, warranting divorce and/or annulment. My heart goes out to you in your struggle, and I honor you. It is precisely because you and your story matter that the truth of marriage matters. What do people need to know about marriage today?​

​Do not be afraid! Marriage is the original and fundamental unit of society. In the beginning, God made man and woman on the sixth day, stated that they were “very good,” gave them dominion over the earth and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1-2). Then, Jesus lifted primordial marriage to that of a sacrament at the service of communion at the wedding of Cana and when He decreed, “what God has joined together, no man should put asunder” (Jn 2, Mt. 19). Marriage is a permanent and loving union between one man and one woman, both baptized, open to children, and until death. Matrimony gives the grace to persevere in love, raise children, and navigate life. Healthy and holy marriages are the pathway to human flourishing, Church renewal, and world peace.

A good marriage is forged, not necessarily in the spectacular, but in the daily grind. I love this quote from G.K. Chesterton: “The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” For too long, we have looked to exciting beginnings and devasting ends, without considering the critical middle. We have come to Church for baptism, marriage, and funerals. However, with the advent of attachment theory, we now know that absence and/or neglect of a parent through death, work, addiction, and other dysfunction impairs the holistic development of the children and, naturally, the adult they become. Today, some say that children raised in a wholesome traditional family are now the elite, given the best opportunity for a robust faith and successful life. In the end, it’s the little things of everyday life that count the most, and prepare us the best. Everything from changing car oil to changing baby diapers carries immense weight for family dynamics. And sometimes it’s not in the what but the how. After loving God first, there is no greater endeavor than to focus on building intimate, virtuous, and meaningful relationships with one’s spouse, and in due course raise the next generation.

What additional advice would I have for today’s young adults and newly married folks? Recently, Mark bought a book by Eduard Hapsburg called The Habsburg Way, which offers a few “rules” connected to the theme of marriage that sustained centuries of the Habsburg dynasty (if you like history, you’ll like this book – please consider purchasing). To spin off “the Habsburg rules for turbulent times”:  

1. Get married. It’s unfortunate that something this simple needs to be said. Living together outside of marriage isn’t a good pilot system to guarantee the right person for marriage, nor is it building up a flourishing civilization. The stats reveal that compared to single people, married people have more and better sex, do better financially, and live longer. A healthy and holy marriage is itself a powerful force for personal happiness and world engagement. Not only is marriage one of the best images of God’s love for His people and our love for Him (Song of Songs), but mutual support makes the earthly pilgrimage better. Marriage is its own “power base” (Habsburg, 27).
2. Have children. In Genesis, the blessing of God upon Adam and Eve included the mandate to be fruitful and multiply. Children are certainly a gift, though not a right. A valid marriage requires willingness to have children when marriage vows are spoken. Because we are co-creators with the Lord, our call is to be discerning as to having children according to Humane Vitae, appropriately using Natural Family Planning. Stats eventually and always back up Truth, and it is now widely acknowledged that we are in a demographic winter. Best yet, we don’t really grow up until we have children. It is often our children who call us out to the more that God has instore for us.
3. Be Catholic. Pm 127: 1b speaks to this: “Unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build.”  Only when we build the house of our marriage and family with the Lord, will our efforts bear real and lasting fruit. The family is a domestic church. “It takes three” is not just a cute cliché but a sustaining truth. Only in living Catholic Christianity wholeheartedly, with God at the center and with devotion to spouse and family flowing from that, will marriage work. We ought to become familiar with Church teaching regarding the dignity of the person and the sacrament of marriage, with emphasis on the teachings of Pope St. John Paul II called, Theology of the Body, which integrates Scripture and Tradition to bring in incisive teaching for this era.
4. Battle hard. “What” are we battling, and “how” do we battle? The human person is a unity of body and soul so both must be addressed. Since “grace builds upon nature” (St. Thomas Aquinas), it’s important to work with body or nature through “human formation”. This means building lives of virtue from the inside out and outside in. Most couples will need counselling or coaching at various times in their marriage. Inner healing, human development, and relationship skills can’t be skipped.  Yet, there is also a spiritual dimension. “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more” (Rm. 5:20). His grace is abundant for those who ask and will receive, and even more so through the sacrament. We must tap into the sacramental grace of marriage, as well as the sacraments of Confession and Eucharist. Indeed, we must put on  the whole armor of God in this culture we live in (Eph. 6).

​In closing, I return to G.K. Chesterton, but this time, his Ballad of the White Horse."Over the iron forest, He saw Our Lady stand; Her eyes were sad withouten art, And seven swords were in her heart – But one was in her hand." ​Life brings many swords that pierce our hearts but we fight confidently for what is worth fighting for. May we live like Mary within the context of marriage and family life, with great fiat and surrender as well as with great courage and power.