FORETASTE OF HEAVEN | KAIROS GLOBAL | FEBRUARY 2024

Author: Anil Israel

Intro: Anil Israel points to Scripture to show what the secret of a happy married life entails.

Love is the most important word in human language, for the essence of life is love. It is apparently misunderstood and sadly largely misused. It is often perceived as an emotion or a feeling. Holy Scripture however teaches us that God is love (1 John 4:8), so love is attributed to a person. Love is both a noun and a verb. Created in the image of love, we have been entrusted with the mission to love: to love God above all and to love one another (John 13:34) in imitation of the example set by Jesus himself. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).

Since God himself is a family – a communion of persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we too are created for family life. God created Adam and Eve and instituted the first family. The very first command: Be fruitful and multiply (Genesis1:28) reveals that families are essentially God’s plan. God designed family, it is his creation. Therefore, for any family to reflect the family that God desired, God must be part of it. Every family is called to be a Christo-centric family: built on the Rock-of-Christ – built to last. 

Today the definition of family itself is seriously under threat. In the midst of confusion and distortion, the faithful are called to uphold God’s original plan for family. Catechism explicitly emphasises that the matrimonial covenant is ‘ordered towards the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring’ (CCC 1601). 

Now God has made us for himself – to participate in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). We are destined for eternal life (Acts 13:48) for our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). In short, we are made for heaven and our life on earth is designed to help us prepare ourselves, to reach our eternal destination. So the purpose of marriage is to help us to grow in holiness. The duties of the spouses intrinsically include helping one another to be holy – to be saints. To love is to will the good of the other (St Thomas Aquinas). Isn’t this goal of reaching heaven – ‘the good of the spouses’ – intended in matrimonial covenant?

Human nature, mistakenly assumes that one’s happiness or peace of soul, can be kept intact, by convincing the other to one’s own point of view. Since, both husband and wife are attempting to win over the other to one’s own frame of mind, the battle only worsens. Marriage gradually teaches us to grow in the biblical definition of love as described in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. If we try to replace the word ‘love’ by our own name, we are enlightened to the lack-of-love in the person ‘me’. To grow in love, is to grow in the image of the divine.

By our own fragile, limited human efforts, we cannot love as God loves. We therefore need supernatural grace to help us love – to ‘will the good of the other’. Jesus sets the example of giving up one’s life for the good of the other. Marriage is therefore a preparatory course for growing in humility. I must decrease (John 3:30). I must be the change I wish to see in my marriage. We cannot change our spouse (or for that matter anyone else – only God can), but we can make humble attempts to change ourselves. Not my will, but thine be done (Luke 22:42).

To grow in love, I must be willing to be more patient, more kind, more gentle, more giving, more forgiving. I must not insist on having my own way. I must be willing to accept the other, with all that I perceive to be their limitations. What I perceive to be a limitation, could eventually be a blessing in disguise. So we need the serenity from above to accept the things we cannot change and the divine wisdom to change the things we can – ‘me’. 

When we love – ‘will the good of the other’, we begin to let go of our selfish self-will. We begin to die-to-self. In the process we avoid ‘other actions’ which we would have attempted, had we pursued our ‘ill-self-will’. Thus by refraining from ‘other actions’, we are saved from having done wrong to others. Could it be thus that love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8; Proverbs 10:12)?

The more we are immersed in charity, the more we put on love (Colossians 3:14). The more love we put into doing, the more we live heaven on earth. If we love one another, God lives in us (1 John 4:12). It is the indwelling Holy Spirit in me that enables me to love. So when we live in love, we live in heaven, for heaven is where God is. 

The covenant relationship is a relationship of exchange of person. There is mutual self-giving, mutual self-donation, mutual life-giving. When we offer our life, we deny our self-will and accept God’s will. When we love – ‘will the good of the other’ – we raise ourselves to the peaks of sanctity and cherish a glimpse of heaven on earth.

The secret of a happy married life is revealed in Ephesians chapter five verse thirty-three: every husband must love his wife as he loves himself, and wives should respect their husbands. The keywords here are ‘love’ (the greatest need of every woman) and ‘respect’ (the greatest need of every man). When needs are met, there is peace, there is joy, there is a foretaste of heaven. Marital life on earth is therefore a sacrament – a sign of the invisible – earthly union pointing to the divine union in heaven. May we cling on to His grace to bear lasting heavenly fruits – ‘be fruitful’– in our temporary earthly lives.