Writer, Speaker, Catechist
It takes three to make Love in Heaven –
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It takes three for Heaven to make love to earth –
God, Man, and Mary, through whom God became Man.
It takes three to make love in the Holy Family –
Mary, and Joseph, and the consummation of their love, Jesus.
It takes three to make love in hearts –
The Lover, the Beloved, and Love.
– Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Three to Get Married
With Valentine’s Day approaching, I wrote “The Art of the Love Letter” last week to give men — who think they’d rather show their love instead of talk about it — an insight into the heart of many women for whom the words of love are important. Yes, even long past the “honeymoon” stage of the relationship, there’s nothing like receiving a handwritten testament of the love of one’s mate. I made the case that in Catholic life both words and deeds are important because they reflect the sacramentality of our lives. We are both body and soul, and marriages are both physical and spiritual. Of course, a woman wants her man to demonstrate his love with the things he does, and while some men may balk, I continue to stand by the notion a love letter is a physical demonstration of their love for their wives.
By the same token, there’s no reason a woman shouldn’t compose a love letter to her husband or husband-to-be. So, of course, good women, write away! Just because I wrote my piece from a woman’s point of view, does not mean that woman could not return the favor in kind.
In fact, the point of this whole post, is that marriages need acts of kindness to support the relationships between husbands and wives. I’m happy to report that Frank Weathers at Why I Am a Catholic gives an excellent reply to the invitation to write a love letter for his wife by issuing his own Valentine’s Day challenge to the women…
As Pat Gohn shames us men into drafting epic love letters for our sweeties this year, will us men be rewarded in kind? Here’s an idea, ladies. We’re pretty easy to please… 
…Think STOMACH! Just give him Bacon Roses.
Do read the rest!
Just today, the Wall Street Journal has an excellent article by Elizabeth Bernstein: “Small Acts, Big Love“ that describes that a recent study finds that “small acts of kindness boost marital satisfaction.” The husband of the first couple cited in the article, Mr. Kline, mentions that he’s not one of those tell-her-I-love-her kind of guys…
Chris Kline doesn’t like to tell his wife of 17 years, Tara, that he loves her. He prefers to show her—by loading her favorite songs on her phone and warming up her car on cold mornings. While she was away on business recently, he surprised her by painting her home office in her favorite colors, Mardi Gras purple and gold.
“Saying ‘I love you’ is just words,” says Mr. Kline, a 42-year-old engineer from Shoemakersville, Pa. “I like to do things that require effort, planning and a little bit of sacrifice. It shows you are putting the other person first.”
Researchers call this “compassionate love”—recognizing a partner’s needs and concerns and putting them ahead of your own. “It’s not just making people feel good,” says Harry T. Reis, a University of Rochester professor of psychology. “It’s a way of communicating to the other person that you understand what they are all about and that you appreciate and care for them.”
Illustrations by Kyle T. Webster
Since 2009, Dr. Reis has been studying 175 newlywed couples from around the U.S., asking how they show their spouses compassion. His findings, not yet published, indicate that people who discover ways to regularly show their spouses this kind of love are happier in their marriages.
Small selfless acts between spouses aren’t just nice—they also are necessary, experts say. When acts of kindness and caregiving disappear, it is an indication the relationship needs help.
You’ll have to read to the end to see if Mr. Kline changes his perspective on using words of love to his wife… but I stand by my advice when it comes to love letters from husbands to wives. There’s a separate side bar that includes “10 Marriage Sweeteners” such as:
“Put your partner’s goals first. Giving your husband the last cupcake is easy. Spending your vacation—again—with his family is hard.
“Go out of your way to ‘be there.’ Pay attention when your partner seems particularly stressed and try to help.”
“Show respect and admiration. Celebrate successes, even little ones. Did your spouse handle a touchy situation well, or make you laugh? Point it out.”
Finally, here’s a video with tips from the article.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
In which I kind of get to brag on my husband a little as I encourage men to commit their love to paper in honor of St Valentine…
In the rush to go green and paperless, and in the never ending screen-related communication that we face daily, the love letter will never lose its power. Sure, there’s flowers, and candy, and dates, and tokens of affection that warm the heart. But a letter… an offering of thought and emotion and whimsy and truth — surely I hope a few men will look to try their hand at it, especially if they’re shy about it. Here’s an except from my latest column at Patheos:
We are looking for words that endure, that are authentic, and worthy of being committed to paper in a moment that cannot shut off or erased. (And yes, you can buy that awesomely tender card in the store and sign your name, and really, she will love your thoughtfulness. But stick with me here, guys, go for something a bit more customized, and permanent.)
Remember: If you’ve found a woman who loves you, then you’ve found a treasure.
Do you see all those empty and counterfeit “loves” out there? Do you see the heartaches and the pain that exists between women and men today? So does she. It grieves her soul. Do what you can to sure up the foundations of love in your life. Make sure she knows what she’s won, when she has won your heart.
For Valentine’s Day, or really, for any special occasion — her birthday, your anniversary, you name it — you want to do the uncommon thing, the heroic thing, the thing that sets you apart from anyone else in the world, the thing that she will carry in her heart, or in her top dresser drawer, or purse, until next Valentine’s Day and beyond.
She wants to hear and know the words that only you can give her: words from you that describe how you cherish her and value your love together.
How does a guy accomplish this love letter thing? I give him a few tips in this article – writing prompts for writing for a woman’s heart.
You can thank me later, ladies and gents.
So, my latest column at Patheos is the requisite nod to the liturgical calendar, but its more about ALL the comings of Christ in my experience… that the season of Advent really lights up an awareness of the sacred found in every day.
Here’s a excerpt:
Advent is not just a liturgical season, it’s a spiritual reality that has been touching, moving, and changing me all my life. In Advent, we prepare ourselves to celebrate the anniversary of the Lord’s coming. In this season, I reflect not only on the coming of Christ in history, but Christ’s coming to my own personal history. His presence is tangible in all the advents of my life.
Advent means “coming,” “arrival,” or “appearance.” These all makes sense when I relate “advent” to the coming of Christ. By the miracle of the Incarnation, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. Through that same incarnation, I can understand the Lord’s coming in all the “advents” of my own life.
Let’s start with my conception and being alive in my mother’s womb—my “coming.” My mother was, and is, an active Catholic. During her pregnancy with me, she received communion during Mass. As she “received” the Lord, in some way, so did I. As the Lord touched my mother through those frequent communions, he also touched me. For as a mother is fed, so is her unborn child. All nutrition passes from mother to child. The body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist pumped through my veins even as a tiny baby hidden from the world but known to God and my parents.
The next advent or appearance of Christ was at my baptism. Even if I was not fully aware of my being baptized as an infant, I didn’t need to be. I was baptized into the faith of the Church. Christ’s presence permeated the process of my “becoming.” “In him, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28 RSV).”
Thanks for a clever jokester and all around new media creative guy Ashley Collins, my gal pals and I ended up in a fun little meme-like photo op. (From left to right: yours truly, Kelly Wahlquist, Maria Johnson, Sarah Reinhard, and the ringleader in getting the photo — Lisa Hendey.)
Bob and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary this week. Dang! Has it been that long? It went by so fast!
My latest column at Patheos is a look back, and a testament to the graces of living the Sacrament of Matrimony these thirty years. It’s one part our experience, one part what we have learned, and one part verifying that God’s plan for marriage is still a viable, and noble, and satisfying enterprise. Bob and I often joke that we’ve seen it all, done it all… all the having and holding… and all the cycles of better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, and health… and that we’d do it again. Here’s a small section of a much longer missive…
People ask what makes our love special, or what “works” for us, and we tell them: long before we fell in love with each other, we fell in love with Jesus. There’s an old proverb in Scripture that says, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiates 4: 12). Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote a whole book on the subject that it takes three to get married, and we believe it.
We have faith in God, and faith in each other. When we said our marriage vows in the church that crisp fall morning in 1982, we knew we would vow for life… and that what we lacked in our own strength would be made up for by grace.
Talk to any Catholic couple married for a few decades or more and the subject of grace is bound to come up. They may not always use the word itself. It might be their reference to “God only knows” or an indescribable or halting acknowledgement of something that is bigger and grander than they are. But what they will say next is also true: that this love has changed them, made them better, even transformed them.
There is a glue that is stronger than our human love… it is divine grace. Sometimes we think it is just because we were fortunate enough to marry someone better than ourselves — that we lucked out — or discovered someone who believes the best in us despite our frailties, a soul mate. But what we’re really seeing is the truth of the matter: the radiant beauty of God is in our spouse. God magnifies their best human qualities, attracts us to them, and then He give us the privilege of knowing His Love through them. And yes, I’m here to say, in all honestly, that the profound gift of God’s Love made visible in my life, today, has a few wrinkles, some gray, and a few extra pounds.
Just in case you think I’m offering some kind of romanticized view of the love of God and the love between married couples, let me also say that there is a side of grace that is gritty, tough and sturdy under fire. This is the power of the vow; the grace and mercy that flows from the choice – the consent – of the lovers. When we think we cannot hold on any longer, the power of the vow keeps us true.
Read the rest at the Catholic Channel at Patheos. Feel free to subscribe to my columns here.
Mr & Mrs since October 23, 1982. (This photo is from last summer.)
Christ Pantocrater, Cathedral-Basilica of Cefalù, Sicily. (Courtesy of Xerones on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerones/
464417485/in/photostream/)
The heart of the matter, when it comes to the Year of Faith is not the lines of the Catechism that you memorize, though that’s laudable… or the bible study you will be leading at your parish, though that’s fantastic… or the course your gonna take on Catholicism, though that’s a great commitment… or the service to those in need you might undertake, though that’s really needed.
No, the heart of the Year of Faith, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, is an actual beating heart… it is the heart of Jesus that beats wildly for you and for me.
In my column over at Patheos this week, I share a little bit about how my hubby and me have a big anniversary coming up… one of those that end in “0″ and how that long-lasting love all began with an encounter, an introduction, a meeting that led to a whole lot more. And yet, the heart of the matter of this Year of Faith, as I was saying, is how the really great love of our life ought to be Jesus, above all.
Here’s a sampling…
The relationship is the thing. It’s that way in marriage… and it’s that way for the Year of Faith. Both require only one thing… that I encounter my true love and renew my bond with him, and live a life that reflects the depth of that love.
I first met my husband when I 16. A mutual friend introduced us — during a fire drill, of all things — as we stood outside on the front lawn of our high school waiting for the “all clear” to go back inside. Our friend wanted to introduce us because we were both into playing guitar. Turns out, I had already seen the boy before, and I had at least one class with him… I just had never spoken to him. You could say I had known of him, but I didn’t know him.
[snip]
The true task of the Year of Faith is so simple we might miss it: it is a call to be in a relationship with Jesus… not to just know of him, but to know him. Faith practice is like a marriage that has many good and holy distractions: children, work, worship, and any number of special events in the course of a year. Yet the heart of the thing is the relationship of the lovers at its center. It all begins with an encounter with another person…
We’ve got a really big year coming up in the Church. Let’s fall in love with the Lover of our soul.
Read all of my column here, and feel free to subscribe here. Oh, and you can subscribe to this blog right over there —> in the sidebar, too.
A little boy, at a wedding looks at his mom and says, “Mommy, why does the bride wear white?”
His mom replies, “The bride is in white because she’s happy and this is the happiest day of her life.”
The boys thinks about this, and then says, “Well then why is the groom wearing black…”
(We’re in wedding planning mode around here at the Gohn home…. so this really cracked me up. It’s good to have a sense of humor, I’ve found, as one helps to plan, and pay for, a wedding.)
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