St Joseph shows engaged couples what real love looks like

Dec 03, 2021

By Courtney Mares
Pope Francis shared advice for engaged and married couples based on the example provided by the Holy Family during his Wednesday audience.

The Pope highlighted how St Joseph witnessed to what real, “mature love” looks like, particularly when life throws a couple unexpected challenges.

He asked the crowd gathered in Vatican City’s Paul VI Hall on December 1 to imagine that, when Mary and Joseph were engaged to one another, “they had probably cultivated dreams and expectations regarding their life and their future,” when, “out of the blue, God seemed to have inserted himself into their lives.”

Pope Francis underlined that “love is not the pretension that the other person, or life, should correspond to our imagination.”

“Rather, it means to choose in full freedom, to take responsibility for one’s life as it comes,” he said. “This is why Joseph gives us an important lesson. He chooses Mary with ‘his eyes open.’ We can say ‘with all the risks.’”

“And Joseph’s risk gives us this lesson: to take life as it comes,” the Pope said, at the live-streamed audience.

In his address, Pope Francis urged Christian couples to remember that they are “called to witness to a love like this - that has the courage to move from the logic of falling in love to that of mature love.”

He said that this requires making “a demanding choice” that “can fortify love so that it endures when faced with the trials of time.”

“Dear brothers and sisters, our lives are very often not what we imagine them to be. Especially in loving and affectionate relationships, it is difficult to move from the logic of falling in love to the logic of a mature love,” he said.

“We need to move from infatuation to mature love — you newlyweds, think about this. The first phase is always marked by a certain enchantment that makes us live immersed in the imaginary that is often not based on reality and facts, the ‘falling in love’ phase.”

“But precisely when falling in love, with its expectations, seems to come to an end, that is where true love begins or true love enters in there.”

Pope Francis said that it is normal for married couples to quarrel sometimes, but advised couples to “make peace before going to bed.”

“That spouses fight is our daily bread, eh … ‘And there are even times plates fly.’ It happens. But what can be done so that this does not damage the life of the marriage? Listen to me well: never finish the day without making peace,” he said.

“Remember always: never finish the day without making peace. This will help you in your married life,” he added. -- CNA