My dearest newly engaged,
Congratulations on this wonderful moment in your lives! I am so happy that you have found the truth, beauty, and goodness of a forever love. Doesn’t this love feel amazing? Doesn’t it just feel like your world is somehow the way it was meant to be? Doesn’t your love feel as if you have finally found your way home, to that amazing place of wholeness and belonging?
Love is indeed a beautiful experience. And there is a very good reason for that, a reason that is woven into your very DNA, imbedded in your very being at a cellular level. The reason that love speaks so powerfully to your heart is that you were made by Love Himself. Through the creative power of my Father’s love, you were designed for a life of love. Love is your life’s purpose.
My Father literally loved you into life. Someone just like you once put this truth down in these poetic words, “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works. My very self you know” (Psalm 139: 13-14). How amazing is that? You were formed by the same love that created the universe.
And it is that same Eternal Love that burns in your heart right now. When you feel that deep love for your spouse-to-be, that love which feels as big as the universe, you are actually feeling the love of my Father. Because my Father is Love, and when you feel and live in that love, you are actually living in my Father Himself. Love unites my Father, you, and your betrothed as one.
Isn’t that amazing and beautiful? But there is even better news for you and your spouse to be. My Father created you in love and lives within you in love, but He wanted to give you even more of Himself. Why would He do that? Because He loves you even more than you love yourself, and even more than you love your spouse-to-be. He is a crazy overflowing lover.
You see, my Father knew that even the strongest of human loves can sometimes struggle, falter, and break apart. He knew that selfishness and sin could sneak into your heart, causing you to turn away from the love for which you were created. He saw marriages fail and it broke His heart. He wanted to give some God-sized help for your loving. And that’s where I come in. My Father loves you so much that He sent me, your friend Jesus, to offer my very life for you and your marriage. I came to die for you, your betrothed, and everyone on earth. Why did I do that? The answer is simple – I love you! I know that loving like God is a tall order and that sometimes you will fail and fall. So I have a promise and a power to help you along the way.
My promise to you is that nothing, from the least to the greatest sin, can keep you from my Father’s love. I made sure of that when I took all your sins upon me and died for them on the cross. You can’t save yourself from those times when you fail to love, so I did that for you. I gave my life for you to mend in mercy all separations among you, God and your betrothed.
My promise to you is sustaining forgiveness in your marriage if you but come to me seeking it with a repentant heart. Along with this promise, I also have a power to give you that will strengthen your forever love in marriage. I died for your sins in sacrificial love, but I also rose from the dead to overcome all sin and even death itself. I am the power of God over everything.
In love, I offer you the gift of my Divine Power. It is the power of love, joy, freedom, and peace. I freely give it to you to infuse your marriage with my Father’s God-sized love. And all you have to do to access this power is connect yourself and your spouse-to-be with me in ongoing friendship. I am The Way to the promise of forgiveness and the power of Divine Love.
I hope you can feel and know my unfailing love for you. I give myself totally to you because I am crazy about you—I am literally dying to love you. I offer myself to you and invite you into deep friendship with me. My Father sent me to give you everything you need for your life and marriage and more. I want to help your married love thrive. But I have even more for you.
To know that my love for you is real and never ending, and so that you can feel my presence in your daily life right now, I created the Catholic Church. Before I ascended into heaven, I showered my disciples with my Holy Spirit and sent them into the world to be my loving presence for all time. I created the Church to love you as I love you.
I am waiting to know and love you at your local parish. That’s where I will die for you and feed you with the power of new life at the Mass. That’s where you will find my promise of forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. That’s where you can come to know me and my great love for you. I want to meet you there. That’s where I will enter your marriage.
The parish is so important because it is there, through the Sacrament of Matrimony, where all the promises of love that I have been speaking to you about can reach you and find their fulfillment. In the parish, through my presence in the priest or deacon, you will be joined with your beloved, with the Trinity, and with all of the faithful, both living and in heaven.
My Father created you in love, I died and rose for you in love, and the Holy Spirit is loving you through my Body of the Church. Our hearts long to know you and love you more and more every day. You and your spouse-to-be are so very precious to us. We want to give you the love that you are made for – a love with us and in us that lasts forever. All you need to do is ask.