Jan. 2020, Week 2: Person & Relationships

by Soren and Ever Johnson

We hope you enjoyed 2020’s inaugural letter last week, and are already in a goal-setting mindset about how to make your home a little taste of heaven this year! Throughout 2020, our goal will be to share fresh and inspiring insights to help you approach your home and family with renewed vision.

As we make our way through this promising year, each week of the month, we’ll explore one of the five levels of building a Trinity House. In the first week, we’ll explore an aspect of Level 1: Faith Life. In the second week, we’ll move on to Level 2: Person & Relationships, and then to Household Economy and Family Culture. When we have a fifth week in the month, we’ll explore Level 5 of a Trinity House: Hospitality & Service.

Last week, we looked at The Christ Child at the Center of Our Home and Family and how to build a strong faith life around simply enjoying the presence of God with us. This week, we turn to Level 2: Person and Relationships. This is the level on which you tend to your marriage and other familial relationships, and to developing each unique family member’s gifts, identity and life mission.
 
As you may remember if you attended our Heaven in Your Home Workshop, each level includes one “cornerstone activity” which, in our experience, is pivotal for flourishing on that particular level. For Level 2, the cornerstone activity is date night. Date Night?! Yes, much like contemplating the God who lives among us, it’s important for beloved spouses to contemplate each other!

Remember how the Sabbath rest helps us hold on to the meaning of life throughout the week? Date Night is similar for your marriage. Having fun together week by week, and yes, contemplating each other!, helps us remember how beautiful that vision is when we’re in the middle of the not-so-great moments throughout the week.

We know from long experience just how easily this important part of marriage health gets pushed aside by the tyranny of the urgent. When this happens over and over again, we are robbed of the time we need to come to know each other more deeply so that we can help each other develop our unique gifts and life mission, and hold the thread on the meaning of our marriage and life together throughout the week.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl writes, “I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for the brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved…I was able to understand the meaning of the words, ‘The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.'” Husbands, have you contemplated your beloved long enough to glimpse the beauty of her God-given identity and her spiritual gifts? Wives, do you know your husband’s temperament or personality type?

Why not prioritize date night once a week and dive in a bit more? It may not be an evening out, but a scaled-down date night. Even a simple, romantic dinner at home after the kids have gone down is a huge step beyond no date night. Next to keeping the Sabbath (our suggested cornerstone activity for Level 1), date night may be the single most important activity to ensuring intimacy, growth, and flourishing in your marriage, and by extension, for your entire family. 

It’s a truism, but we’ll say it anyway: leaders set the tone. As husband and wife, you are your family’s leaders; if you’re not deepening your relationship and helping each other to grow into your God-given identities, how can you expect to be prepared to help your children in the most important ways? Your child’s identity is based in being made in the image of a God who is interpersonal communion. A child normally receives the ability – or inability – to live in healthy interdependence through inhabiting and observing their most important life relationships, starting with your marriage.

So while the 2020 calendar is still fresh, take a close look at the role of contemplation in your home life. Begin on Level One with prayer and keeping the Sabbath, then deepen the role of contemplation in your Trinity House through date nights with your spouse. 

Heaven In Your Home Toolkit  

In his column in the current issue of the Arlington Catholic Herald, Soren reflects on the call to follow Jesus and leave everything behind.

Not convinced? Check out these 5 benefits of date nights, based on a National Marriage Project study.  

Here are 10 budget-friendly date night ideas, brought to you by Catholic Mom.

In this important podcast episode on date nights, Mike and Alicia Hernon of the Messy Family Project share the following: “Dedicated time alone without the children is an essential part of any healthy marriage. The foundation of your family is your marriage and we should never, ever take for granted that we are doing fine.”  

Don’t Miss…

Heaven In Your Home Workshop Just 2 Weeks Away: Are you ready to lead your family to a new level of faith and confidence? Sign up for one of our upcoming workshops, including on January 28th at Our Lady of Hope in Potomac Falls, VA, and a newly-added workshop on February 22nd at Precious Blood in Culpeper, VA.   

What Others Are Saying

“I find the 5 levels of Heaven in Your Home incredibly helpful. To see it laid out in practical terms is crucial. I’m putting it on our fridge. You should do this for marriage prep!” Workshop Participant

Please Join Us In Prayer  

We invite you to keep the following needs in prayer and thanksgiving: 

• For the Trinity House Cafe staff and volunteers, as several baristas return to college and we seek to fill several positions. 
• For all married couples, that they begin 2020 with a strong commitment to regularly spending time alone in order to deepen their understanding of each other and strengthen their marriage.