There are few things these days that drive this battle weathered ol’ girl to tears, but the imagery of Robert Cardinal’s Sarah’s reflections on marriage certainly did it to me recently. These were happy tears mind you. That a pious soul like Cardinal Sarah can find such profound beauty in the Sacrament of Matrimony, is incredibly uplifting.
The reflections I’m referring to are a part of a little book by Cardinal Sarah titled, Couples, Awaken Your Love, which is a collection of his talks at a married couples retreat in Lourdes, France in 2019. Since the month of February is one in which the culture at large thinks about LOVE AND MARRIAGE, I thought it would be fitting to share just one powerful image of marital love that leaped off the pages of this book.
Cardinal Sarah takes the reader into a reflection of the spouses, bound in the covenant of matrimony, as being the Good Samaritan for one another.
“Love by its essence, involves a leap into the unknown, a death to oneself, because genuine love is a love that loves to the end. And to love to the end means to die for those whom you love. It also means to forgive them…This is about moving from the ecstasy of delight to the attitude of the Good Samaritan anointing with oil of his tenderness and tact the more or less hidden wound that the spouse discovers in the soul of the who whom he loves undividedly. In other words the disappointment that is felt one day or another when confronting a fault or a defect of the spouse , an unsuspected failing, becomes the matter for an offering of oneself in an absolute sacrificial love, which to be sure is crucified, yet purified of all selfishness as though in a refiner’s fire and in the fuller’s soap.”
Recall the context of the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29). Jesus was teaching when a wise-guy scholar approached to test Him. The scholar’s question to Jesus was “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responded with his own question, “What is written in the law?” The scholar replies, quoting the Greatest Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your being with all of your strength, and all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” After Jesus gives him a gold star for answering correctly the wise-guy doesn’t quit, asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Instead of answering him directly, Jesus teaches him with the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
You may recall this parable. A poor traveler is ambushed by robbers, is beaten within an inch of his losing his life and is left for dead on the side of the road. Two members of the Jewish religious class avoid the injured soul but a Samaritan comes to his aid. The Samaritan approaches the victim with compassion, and provides First Aid, pouring oil and wine over his wounds and bandages them. He then lifts the wounded man up and onto his animal, takes him to an inn and cares for him. He then gives money to the inn keeper to look after him.
It should be a simple mental exercise to see our spouse as that neighbor we are called to love, but it is actually quite challenging. Familiarity often makes it difficult to see those closest to us as that “neighbor” God’s word admonishes us to love.
A couple I worked with some years ago comes to mind. The couple’s greatest conflicts were caused by the wife’s sincere desire to “love thy neighbor” as a Church volunteer, but the sentiment did not carry-over to her home life. Basically, the wife in this case failed to respect her husband and was blind to the many ways he served her and took care of their children, while she was busy volunteering. Just read what St. Paul has to say about how a husband and wife should love one another in Ephesians 5:32, where we clearly hear echoes of the Great Commandment, “In any case each one of you should love his wife as himself and the wife should respect her husband.”
The actions of the Good Samaritan, Cardinal Sarah reminds us, is a beautiful reminder to married husbands and wives that very often, the ones often left by the side of the road, beaten and broken by life experiences are the men and women we love and marry. Very often, the wounds and scars left behind by harsh and sometimes violent life experiences are rubbed raw and are opened up during our marriages and we are called to be the Samaritan who looks upon the other with compassion and care. Unlike the Good Samaritan in the parable that ultimately disappears from the picture, married men and women make a promise to stay. Staying and being the Good Samaritan for each other seems to me to be what the vow of permanence is all about.