“De manera que ya no son dos, sino uno solo” (Mateo 19:6)

En la historia de la humanidad se han escrito un sinnúmero de poemas, canciones y libros sobre el amor. Hoy en día, vivimos en un mundo donde el amor conyugal se ha convertido en un simple sentimiento, pasión, atracción o romance. Sin embargo el amor entre un hombre y una mujer, el amor de una pareja, es mucho más que un sentimiento pasajero.

‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? - Matthew 19:5

This may seem strange, but it is a very vivid memory for me before marriage and during engagement. When we embraced, I wanted to be physically part of my fiancé. I wanted to “melt” into him. I even told him I wanted us to “melt” together. I know that sounds like romantic gush, but it was my experience.

Discipleship is at the heart of the Gospel. As catechists, we seek not only to form others in the foundations of the faith, but also to model for them what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in today’s world. In the gospel reading for the Feast of the Holy Trinity, Jesus instructs

Me duele mucho ver que nuestros hijos están bombardeados por los medios de comunicación, que presentan una idea equivocada de la sexualidad reducida solo al plano biológico e instintivo. Se les presenta como una búsqueda de placer desconectada de un compromiso personal y afectivo. En cambio, la sexualidad vivida en el matrimonio cristiano es preciosa y buena porque es reflejo de un amor inmenso y total entre los esposos, como el amor de Cristo por su Iglesia. La sexualidad es el mejor modo de comunicarnos como esposos, la forma más perfecta de decirnos: te amo. “La sexualidad es fuente de alegría y agrado” (Gaudim et Spes 49). Para conseguirlo, hay que saber integrar en la sexualidad, todos los aspectos del amor matrimonial, lo sobrenatural, instintivo, biológico, afectivo, y lo espiritual.

God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image… God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. - Catechism of the Catholic Church #2331

Is marriage in need of salvation? In the past, divorce rates were often used as a benchmark on the state of marriage. Today there is a growing trend for young people simply not to marry. And this same age group, Millennials are the largest generational group of “nones” or independently religious. In recent Wednesday Audiences, Pope Francis expressed great concern over the state of marriage and the family (cf. April 29, 2015). And Pope John Paul II warned us, “As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live,” (John Paul II, Homily, 30 November 1986).