LIVING IN LOVE

CRAIG GALER

My wife Jenn and I have been married for 40 years. We have eight children and nine grandchildren (with two more on the way!). Several years ago, the Lord put a desire in our hearts to get involved in marriage ministry at Resurrection. However, for a variety of reasons, the opportunity never seemed to come along.

Then in 2013, out of the blue, we got a phone call from the leaders of a marriage retreat taking place two weeks later called Living in Love. Unknown to us, Fr. Steve had called the leaders asking if we could be on their next retreat which turned out to be within walking distance from our house! God had finally opened a door for us.

The Living in Love retreat blew our minds, to put it candidly. We’d always considered ourselves to have a good marriage, and we did, but the retreat showed us new possibilities for making our strong marriage even stronger.

Both Jenn and I had studied John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and deeply appreciated his core idea of making a gift of ourselves to each other. But the retreat showed us how to make the teaching practical in our daily lives. We learned more deeply how God designed our sexuality – our masculinity and femininity – and how He uses our built-in attraction to draw us out of ourselves and, thus, to make us more holy.

We looked in-depth at the formation, both good and bad, that we had received from our families of origin and the effects on our marriage of the culture we live in. We saw our need for healing from the various ways we had been wounded over the course of our lives, how those wounds had affected our marriage, and how we can be instruments of healing for each other. As we digested the information presented to us, we began to see each other, and our marriage, in deeper, richer ways. We found our marriage going to a place we had never dreamed possible.

We’d always considered ourselves to have a good marriage, and we did, but the retreat showed us new possibilities for making our strong marriage even stronger.

Jenn and I started with a desire to minister to married couples, and ended up having our own marriage ministered to. The world we live in can be a very hostile place for marriage, especially Catholic sacramental marriage as God intends it to be. But, by the grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can overcome the world. Strong marriages are the key to strong families, strong children, and strong parishes. We owe it to ourselves, and to the Church, to care for our marriages and let them shine as lights to the world.

Living in Love offers marriage education courses and marriage enrichment retreats. Some offerings are on pause due to the pandemic. Visit livinginlove.org for current offerings and more details.