Shortly after we were married, Mike and I invited some old friends to visit. One of them, a former choir mate of Mike’s named Bill, took me aside.
““Tell me,” he said, “how did you get Mike to be so…Catholic?”
“I didn’t,” I answered. “Mike was the one who brought me back to the Faith.”
Bill looked perplexed. “That’s funny,” he said. “Mike just told me that it was the other way around.”
What a hoot. There was just no way that I, with all my imperfections and iniquities, could have drawn Mike closer to the Faith. And I could prove it by pointing to two plain facts.
One was that I’d grown up in an Italian family. There were only five of us, but what we lacked in number, we made up for in volume. Conversations were loud and chaotic, and the uninterrupted sentence was rare indeed. That environment, coupled with my ADD, put me in the habit of expressing incomplete ideas in half-formed sentences. It was a habit that stayed with me for years, and one with which I was still struggling at the time of my conversation with Bill. The notion that I had evangelized my husband with my vague ideas and inadequate words was, frankly, absurd.
The second fact was that I’d been poorly catechized. I attended Catholic school right through 12th grade, but my actual instruction in the Faith ended when I was in 6th grade, and my Baltimore Catechism was replaced by a feel-good religion book with minimal text and many images of butterflies and dewdrops.
By the time I was a high school junior, my classmates and I were “doing liturgy” by sitting around a table with Fr. Ed, who would consecrate a loaf of French bread for us to break apart and consume. Although I had begun to rediscover authentic Catholicism at the time of my marriage some eight years later, it would be a long time before I was in a position to evangelize anything or anyone.
At least, that’s what I thought. But, in fact, the young wife turned out to be an awesome evangelizer. And so did her husband.
When one of us was hurtful and the other forgiving…
When one of us was silent instead of determined to have the last word in a quarrel…
When one of us comforted the other in his sorrow…
When one of us invited the other to go to confession with him…
When one of us acted silly just to make the other smile…
When one of us did the early morning drive so that the other could sleep late…
When one of us rejoiced in the other’s small success…
When one of us prayed in secret and the other saw…
…he or she was unwittingly drawing the other nearer to Christ.
St. Francis advised his brothers to “Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.” For all of our faults, and despite our cluelessness, Mike and I were witnessing to each other through our small acts of love. After all, when a husband and wife love unconditionally, they are modeling God’s love. No wonder that the Holy Father has said, “Matrimony is a gospel in itself, a Good News for the world of today.”
Wives, evangelize your husbands! Husbands, evangelize your wives!
Copyright © 2013, Celeste Behe
Celeste Behe
Celeste Behe is a storyteller and sometime humorist who, according to one book author, "writes like Garrison Keillor would, if he were Catholic and had nine kids." She is also a contributor to Faith & Family magazine, the National Catholic Register, and the Integrated Catholic Life, and she blogs at A Perpetual Jubilee. As a designated Toastmaster, Celeste entertains audiences with both nostalgic tales of her childhood in the Bronx, and modern-day tales of adventure that could only be told by the mother of nine. Celeste's memoir--cum-cookbook, Nine Kids, No Dishwasher: A Celebration of Life, Love, and Table, is a work in progress.
3 responses to “Evangelizing Your Spouse”
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Did you make the bread yourself, that was always the coolest part of it for me:) Thank God we stepped back form that ledge.
Your point, though is well taken and we should remember it not only in our interactions with our spouse, but everyone. Peace.
*from, not form. I can’t type
Great witness of God’s grace in the Sacrament of Matrimony. We can always call on our dear Lord to send his Holy Spirit to give us wisdom for our spouse.