Love Your Spouse

On October 5th, I will marry my second spouse. My lesser spouse. The one who will at times love me insufficiently. I don’t say that to announce that I am a polygamist or to tell you of my fears about my upcoming marriage. I speak plainly, with confidence that my fiancé feels the same way, in saying that he will never be able to love me perfectly. Certainly we will have a great marriage, for we have dedicated our relationship to Jesus Christ time and time again and will continue to do so. But it will never be perfect love. It will never be the fullness of what our hearts were made to receive.

The other day I heard a homily in which the priest was speaking about Mary, the Mother of God, as the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the title that she received with her yes to the overshadowing of the Spirit in Luke 1. At the end of the homily, though, he paused and then said these words, “We are not supposed to imitate Mary. We are supposed to BE Mary. We ARE the spouses of the Holy Spirit.”

This isn’t a new concept. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus Christ calls himself the bridegroom and describes the Church as his bride. But before that, we hear in the book of the prophet Isaiah “He who has become your husband is your Maker” (Isaiah 54) and “as a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you” (Isaiah 62). In the book of the prophet Hosea, the Lord likens his relationship to the people of Israel as that of a husband and his unfaithful wife. In the second chapter, he speaks of how he will keep her from her rebellious and adulterous ways. And to this, she declares “I will go back to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.” With this declaration, the Lord speaks so gently to his spouse, “I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.”

So the idea of us as a spouse is not new, but when I actually prayed with this concept, it changed everything. I think about Paul, my fiancé, all day long. I think about how I can love him better and be more virtuous of a woman for him. I wonder what he’s doing or how is prayer life is. I miss him when he’s not around me. And I think about that glorious reality that when we are married, he will be the first person I see when I wake up. He will be the one I share my life with. He will know more about me than any other person on the planet.

I’m called to have that kind of relationship with the Holy Spirit? Lord, what does that even mean? What does that even look like? My friend, Amber, gave a talk one time on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and she told a story about one of her friends who would wake up every morning and the first thing she would say was “Come, Holy Spirit.” To be his spouse means we think about him first. We roll over in bed and see him; feel him; welcome him into our lives and our hearts that day. Being his spouse means that throughout the day, our thoughts must travel to him. How can I love my Spouse better? How can I be more virtuous for him? It means thinking about the things that our Spouse loves—holiness, truth, goodness—and pursuing those things. It means loving our Spouse and sharing our hearts, our thoughts, our plans, our wishes, our struggles and joys with this one who loves us infinitely.

Why does this matter at all? I recently read an article from Relevant Magazine entitled "3 Things I Wish I Knew Before We Got Married". The last of the three things listed was that marriage can change the world. The article cites that a Christian biologist, John Medina, after years of research was asked this question "What’s the most important thing I can do as a father”? And his answer was “Go home and love your wife.” Tyler Ward, the author of this article, goes on to say "The point is that marriage has a higher goal than to make two people happy or even whole. Yes, the investment we make into our marriage pays dividends for us. But, concluded by Medina and his colleagues, the same investment also has significant implications for our family, our community and eventually our culture."

Many of us look at the culture and see all the failings, all the ways that our society leads people away from goodness and truth. And as we see brokenness in our families, marriages, friendships, and communities, we feel within us the desire to heal and restore. We want people to know the love of God. We want people to be shaped by his grace and formed by Truth. We want people to experience peace and joy instead of the rampant anxiety and hopelessness. So what do we do? We love our Spouse.

If we adapt Ward's quotation, we see that the point of this love between our Spouse and us is a higher goal than just giving us happiness and love. Yes, the investment in loving the Spirit as our Spouse pays dividends for us. But, the same investment also has significant implications for our family, our community, and eventually our culture. How can you love your husband or wife better? LOVE YOUR SPOUSE. How can you love your family, your friends, your neighbors, your enemies better? LOVE YOUR SPOUSE. How can we all re-shape the culture for Jesus and lead to conversion of souls? WE CAN LOVE OUR SPOUSE.

"I will espouse you to me forever; I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity" (Hosea 2:21-22).