Happy together, holy together. Mary and Joseph, holy spouses

Today the Church celebrates the Wedding of Mary and Joseph: it is beautiful to celebrate Mary and Joseph as spouses; it is beautiful to rediscover them as a married couple and, with them, to rediscover the strength and beauty of the sacrament of Matrimony!
Mary and Joseph, holy spouses, show us today the way to become holy together precisely in marriage and through it: let us discover this path to happiness!

Marriage: leaving one's homeland for the land promised by God

The wedding of Mary and Joseph reminds us that Matrimony is fully lived and understood in the dimension of self-giving to the other. Let us then hear the words of Pope Francis: «Like Abraham, each spouse leaves their own homeland from the moment when, hearing the call to conjugal love, they decide to give themselves to the other without reserve. Thus, even an engagement entails leaving one's homeland, since it requires walking together along the path that leads to marriage. The various situations of life - the passing of days, the arrival of children, work, illnesses - are circumstances in which the commitment undertaken by both presupposes that each person abandons their own inertia, certainties and spaces of tranquility and sets out toward the land that God promises: being two in Christ, two in one. One life, a we in communion of love with Jesus, alive and present in every moment of your existence. God accompanies you and loves you unconditionally. You are not alone!».

Jesus in the spouses' boat

For Christians, being married is therefore first and foremost a vocation that takes concrete form in a sacrament: Matrimony. And it is like «a call to steer an unstable boat - but one made secure by the reality of the sacrament - on a sea that is sometimes rough, but let us not forget that, through the Sacrament of Matrimony, Jesus is present in this boat» (Pope Francis).
And so, exactly like Mary and Joseph, united in caring for Jesus, spouses must never forget that Jesus is present in their Matrimony.

The certainty that Jesus is with the spouses, in their boat, makes every difficulty lighter. It is well known that marriage is experiencing a profound crisis today and facing many difficulties, which Pope Francis himself addresses in Amoris Laetitia, also making the Church's maternal closeness felt by couples in crisis or living through separation and divorce.

Holy, and therefore happy

We are all called to be holy and, if we live Matrimony, we are called to be holy in Matrimony and in the family. The couples of holy spouses, such as the blessed spouses Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, whom the Church offers us as companions on our journey, show us that holiness consists in recognizing God's signs in everyday life, living human love with our eyes turned toward heaven and knowing that it is a love blessed by heaven.

Mary and Joseph as spouses portrayed by Father Tonino Bello

We think it is fitting to conclude this article by returning to the love of Mary and Joseph, portrayed in its tenderness as well as in its more concrete and human aspects by Father Tonino Bello in his Letter to Saint Joseph: «My dear Saint Joseph, I have come here above all to get to know you better as Mary's husband, as Jesus' father, and as the head of a family to which you devoted your entire life.
Tell me, Joseph, when did you meet Mary? Perhaps one spring morning, as she was returning from the village fountain with the jar on her head and one hand on her hip, slender as the stem of a cornflower? Or perhaps one Saturday, while she was speaking apart with the girls of Nazareth beneath the arch of the synagogue? Or perhaps one summer afternoon, in a field of wheat, as, lowering her beautiful eyes so as not to reveal the modesty of poverty, she resigned herself to the humiliating work of gleaning?
When did she return your smile and brush your head with her first caress, which perhaps was her first blessing, and you did not know it? And at night you soaked your pillow with tears of happiness.
Did she write you love letters? Perhaps so!
Only you, the dreamer, could understand her. She told you about Yahweh. About an angel of the Lord. About a mystery hidden for centuries and now hidden in her womb. About a plan greater than the universe and higher than the firmament above you.
Then she asked you to leave her life, to say goodbye to her and forget her forever.
It was then that you held her to your heart for the first time and said to her trembling: For me, I willingly give up my plans. I want to share yours, Mary, as long as you let me stay with you. She answered yes, and you brushed her womb with a caress».