"Marriage needs to be worked upon every day, it is like doing a ‘craftsman’ job! Man helps his wife to be a better woman, and the woman helps her husband to be a better man.”
--Pope Francis
Abraham Lincoln once said, “marriage is neither heaven nor hell. It is simply purgatory.”
Since Purgatory was often depicted as a place of torment and punishment, in which souls writhed in flames, this statement was often taken as a reflection on Lincoln’s own troubled marriage. And no doubt it was.
But in Catholic teaching Purgatory is not a place where people passively receive punishments over which they have no control; rather, it is a place where souls eagerly accept often harsh disciplines as a way to scourge themselves of their sinful habit and rise to become better persons. Purgatory is a place filled with people who want true love but have fallen short, and are willing to do whatever it takes to become worthy of giving and receiving true love.
Now imagine family in the light of this allegory. Marriages have times of joy but also times of sorrow, anger, jealousy, frustration, hurt, and wounded pride. What if we understood the hard times not as signs that there is something wrong with the marriage, but as challenges that we must overcome in order to grow into better spouses, better lovers, and better human beings?
This is the Introduction to Part Two of our book. Click here to read the rest of this chapter.
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