by Tom Callahan
Thomas Merton once gave a talk about living a life without cares. His premise was that, in the monastic life, the monk focuses his time and effort on loving God, and, in turn, God focuses his time and effort on loving the monk. As a result, the monk can enjoy a life without care, because God is taking care of everything for him.
While Merton was speaking in the context of a Trappist monastery, this same premise exists in the matrimonial vocation. We are children of God trying to love him through our commitment to our spouse. God, as our Father, will in turn love us and take care of everything for us. God wants us to delight in him, rely on him, and set the world on fire with his blazing love.
It’s worthwhile to step back and reflect on this wonderful gift. God loves us each individually, he has a specific call for each of us, and this call is more amazing and impactful than anything we could dream for ourselves. To be in relationship with Jesus Christ is to possess happiness.
Any relationship, married or otherwise, depends on good communication. Our relationship with God is no exception to this rule. As a result, prayer is essential. To pray, to love God and communicate with him, is our way of coming to participate in his call. It is our entrance point into the life without cares, and it is the foundational support enabling us to receive God’s help to live out the married vocation. God is our father and we are his children – he wants to hear from us, he wants to talk to us, he wants to be in relationship with us.
Everything we do has a ripple effect out into the world, far beyond what we can see. In this way, the world is depending on us to have a deep prayer life. We live in a world starving for love. It is increasingly marked by loneliness and an insidious despair that masks itself under the guises of freedom, activism, and self-determination. God sees this suffering and, by choosing us for matrimony, has given us a role to help cure the world’s problems. It is thus critical for us to understand that while prayer is about our relationship with God, it also is about other people. The world needs saints. It needs to know that it is possible to live in love, and what better way to do it than by witnessing the example of people who are doing just that. It can be said without exaggeration that a good prayer life is the root contribution to saving the world.
Often, our experience in prayer will be dry. In addition, we have our own brokenness and sinfulness. It can feel like God’s lofty call is not for us, that we are destined to fall short and settle for mediocrity. These negative sentiments are lies, and it is important that we reject them. Remember that God is our loving father. He knows us better than we know ourselves. If we trust him, persevere, and recognize our need for him, he will do everything for us. He will take us into his arms and lift us up into the heights of holiness.
Will we be able to see the fruits of prayer? It is important that we stay humble, and so, to a certain extent, God will blind us to the good fruit. Still, reflecting on our own marriage, we can offer a couple insights. We try to pray together daily, and the effect of this commitment has been a certain “gravitational pull” to the good. At one end, our relationship has become less susceptible to sinful distractions such as gossip, criticism, and general negativity. At the other end, it has been easier to commit to daily tasks such as chores and affirmation. In no way are we saying our relationship has no sin, and we are not saying it is easy to commit to the good – but our prayer lives have enabled God to lift us up regardless of the challenges imposed by life circumstances or our own weakness.
Tom and Theresa Callahan have been married since 2015. They have been mentoring the engaged through EverMore in Love since 2017. Tom works as an actuary and Theresa works as a caretaker. They live in Philadelphia.
