Feb. 2020, Week Two: Person & Relationship

by Soren and Ever Johnson

Last month as we looked at Level 2: Person & Relationship, we focused on spending time just coming to know our spouses more deeply. Mutual understanding enables spouses to help each other grow more fully into God-given identities. And date night is the cornerstone activity for deepening that relationship. 
 
This month, let’s look at where date night leads! When a married couple comes to more deeply understand each other’s experiences, perspectives, gifts, dreams, and the unique future God has planned for them, this interplay — between where we’ve been, where we are now, and where God is calling us — has many dimensions. All of them require open, honest communication and trust to provide the best chance of realizing the fullness of God’s plan for the future.

When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden with perfect openness and trust between them, their life purpose was clear: to enjoy creation, each other, and union with God and others in a perfect world. The new life that would come from their openness and trust was what they most deeply desired – a future of sharing the gift that God had given them with others. 

What did the serpent suggest to them that changed all that, sowing confusion and discord? He suggested that God wasn’t open with them, that God was holding back on them, that he wasn’t trustworthy, that he was in it for himself. This suggestion that life could be about serving self instead of others struck at the core of the happiness of paradise. And Adam and Eve decided they must take control for themselves instead of trusting God’s design. 

We know the story of what eating the forbidden fruit did to Adam and Eve’s relationship with God, but do we know what that idea — that someone who claims to love you might be in it for themselves — did to their relationship? It made them look at each other with doubt and mistrust. It laid the grounds for mutual suspicion. They felt they didn’t only need to put their own interests before God, but before each other as well. A selfish way of life became entrenched.

As mentioned, there are so many aspects to how honest communication and trust between spouses impacts their understanding of where they’ve been, where they are now, and what God’s plan for their future might be. So, the state of entrenched self-centeredness, of original sin, toward God and others threatens so many aspects of our lives, most fundamentally for spouses in how we relate to each other in our bodies. The body is so central to our life in Christ that Pope St. John Paul II developed an entire “theology of the body.”

According to Saint John Paul II, in marital relations, the spouses image the interpersonal communion of God with their bodies. In God’s interpersonal communion, the radical openness, trust, and receptivity of the persons leads to total bonding and explosive creativity. And marital relations are meant to image this total self-giving that results in the creation of new life.

This deeply significant way of imaging God’s life within the created world is protected by the Church’s teaching against artificial contraception. When a married couple has serious reasons why they can’t image God by being open to life, they should not make the appearance of imaging him while denying the possibility of the third person coming to be. They should instead show their mutual affection in other ways, thus protecting the integrity of God’s image in creation.

Notice that the Church’s teaching doesn’t take away the married couple’s free agency in planning their family, but only warns against the danger to their relationship and society of harboring a false image of God at the heart of marriage. Not being open in marital relations lays the groundwork for holding back in the relationship — and life in general. It sows the seeds of doubt about whether love is even real. It even causes people to doubt the existence of a God who is radically open to new life. And if this God isn’t real, there can be no heaven in our homes.

To summarize, in our Heaven in Your Home e-letters, we are setting about the monumental task of building a Trinity House, a home in which the Lord in his fullness — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — dwells. If we are serious about this, then we need to confront the lie that the serpent told in Genesis, the lie that God is self-centered, and by extension, that our spouse and others cannot be trusted, and that the core of life is self-assertion.

Instead of giving in to fear and mistrust, we know that God is inviting us to a new way of life. As we build our Trinity House with love, radical openness to life, and deepening mutual trust and self-gift, we renounce the serpent’s lie and create a space for heaven in our marriages–and our homes.

Heaven In Your Home Toolkit  

Pope St. John Paul II’s “theology of the body” is a vast topic. Here is a brief outline overview, courtesy of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  

Bishop Barron’s video “On Sex, Love and God” provides a good overview on sexuality within the context of married love. Fr. Mike Schmitz also has a helpful video on this topic: “Why God Gave us Bodies.”

“Embodiment” in our age is in sharp tension with virtual reality. Read Soren’s Arlington Catholic Herald column on “digital minimalism” to find some practical ways to (re)ground yourself in your day-to-day physical surroundings.   

Don’t Miss… 

Heaven In Your Home Workshops: Our next workshop is less than two weeks away, on Feb. 22nd at Precious Blood in Culpeper, Va.  Can’t make it to Culpeper? Join us on our livestream of that day’s workshop by registering here! If you could benefit from complimentary tickets, just e-mail info@trinityhousecommunity.org.

Upcoming diocesan events and opportunities to go deeper in faith, including the annual diocesan Men’s Conference and annual diocesan Women’s Conference.
 
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 all married couples, they they would grow in mutual understanding, love, and self-gift.  
• For all the participants of recent and upcoming Heaven in Your Home Workshops, that they would be strengthened in their vocations.
• For all parents, as they look at ways to strengthen and encourage their family’s faith life.