Love in the things that don’t matter

To have a deeply passionate and holy marriage, you must love the other and sacrifice yourself even in the things that “don’t matter.”  Hang up your coat like she asked.  Don’t buy pink towels.  Don’t play rock music in the car if he likes classical.  These are the little pricks of life, the splinters that get under the skin.  Your job as lover and beloved is to remove as many of these splinters as possible from the other’s life.  If it “doesn’t matter” then what’s your excuse for not doing it?

His place of rest

Woman: your husband is your fortress and your shelter.  He provides for you, guards you and loves you.  But you are his place of rest.  You must fulfill this role, or his walls will crumble.

Freedom and self-surrender

"Freedom and self-surrender are not contradictory.  They sustain one another.  Freedom can only be given up for love; I cannot conceive of any other reason for surrendering it… When people give themselves freely, at every moment of their self-surrender, freedom renews their love; to be renewed that way is to be always young, generous, capable of high ideals and great sacrifices.” –St. Josemaria Escriva Friends of God 45

Pure love is always given freely, without compulsion.  This freedom keeps a fresh air in the relationship, invigorating it with generosity, ideals, and the strength and desire to sacrifice for the other.  With this, a marriage will never become stale.

Love is not content with duty

"Love is not content with a routine fulfillment of duty.  Love is incompatible with boredom or apathy.  To love means to renew our dedication every day, with loving deeds of service.” –St. Josemaria Escriva Friends of God 44

True love demands commitment to ignite into passion.  It a choice for a lifetime, but also a choice every day and every moment. Fulfilling a duty is a choice to do that which is obliged; loving is a choice to do and give all.  This can never be boring, and cannot exist without intensity!

Sense of Humor

There is one weapon of incredible strength that you must use against lust: humor.  This is not a humor that trivializes it, but rather that laughs at the devil’s attempts to tempt you.  It can make light of the incredibly deep pull to the flesh (our instinctual draw to sexuality is second only to self-preservation!) and keep it in perspective, allowing you and your beloved to remain in love and pure.

Invest your virginity

Remember the parable of the talents: invest your virginity in purity, and it will return ten fold.  Then God will give so much more to you in marriage! Do not, out of fear, bury it through repression! For then you will not be trustworthy in the great responsibility of marriage.

Like a buried treasure

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.” Matthew 13:44-46

Such is  your vocation.  When you find it, you will give up everything in order to gain it.