How to have a long marriage

By -


 
Remember my butter fiasco while I was attempting to make banana bread with my new-to-me mixer? (See "What a Morning!")

Well, I got brave and decided to make some homemade bread, using the recipe that came with the mixer. Making bread and not having to knead it was the one thing I was really anticipating.

I excitedly got all of my ingredients together and put on the dough hooks. As I pushed the buttons and turned up the speed, there was an awful screeeeccchhh that I could barely tolerate.

After fussing with it a bit, I resorted to hand kneading, as my husband recognized he had a job to do. The bread turned out very good, but my husband spent a few hours in the garage taking the whole mixer apart.

Since the mixer is quite old, he figured it probably needed some oil. When he got it all oiled and put back together, he brought it in the house and the offensive screech was gone! He said something still isn't quite right, but it certainly runs fine now.

I can hardly wait to try it again, but since that recipe resulted in two loaves of bread, it may be awhile.

One of the things I really appreciate about my husband is his "can-do" spirit. We are of the generation that at least tries to fix things before discarding them. While we have some room for improvement, we are always preaching against wastefulness.

Which brings me to my point. As we celebrate 42 years of marriage tomorrow, I was thinking about all of the marriages that don't survive (for various reasons). It's always a sad thing when the realization comes, too late, that you have chosen a poor life partner, you have been duped, or life's circumstances have sent spouses in different directions.

We need to be very careful today that when a marriage seems broken, that we do all we can to dismantle it, try to see what is broken, reassemble it, and do whatever can be done to get it working again.

At our parish this past weekend, they honored married couples, asking the usual advice question about how the couples have lasted so long. They had the usual funny answers (we weren't part of the "survey.")

Later, though, I asked my husband how he would answer that question. He gave me the best answer I have ever heard. He said there is no room for selfishness or ego in a marriage.

He is so right. Guess I'll keep him another 42 years!

Janet Cassidy

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SAINT ELIZABETH, MOTHER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST- Feast: November 5

By -
Image
Elizabeth appears in the Gospel of Luke, where she is described as “righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly,”.  I imagine that she was warm, loving and obviously a safe harbour for young Mary, who was not married when she conceived.  When Mary came to visit her, Elizabeth was pregnant with St. John the Baptist and in her sixth month: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And how have I deserved that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, the moment that the sound of thy greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who has believed, because the things promised her by the Lord shall be accomplished.” 
Read more

The Memorare

By Helen Gonsalves -
Image
This popular prayer, a favorite of many Catholics, dates back to the 15th century and takes its name from the first Latin word of the prayer, "memorare," which means "remember." The Memorare is of unknown authorship, although it has been attributed to St. Augustine (354-430), St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) and, with more reason, to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153). St. Bernard's sermons on Mary were famous, and it was his Cistercian monks in the monastery of Citeaux in the 12th century who popularized the name "Our Lady" for Mary. The Memorare has also been attributed to the French cleric Claude Bernard (1588-1641), known as the "poor priest" of Paris, whose homilies contain passages that echo its words. No matter who wrote this prayer, it was Father Bernard who did much to popularize it, teaching it in hospitals and prisons, where Mary's intercession was effective in working miracles of grace. The first manuscript of the Mem...
Read more

'Greater Love: Richie Fernando SJ', a joy-filled Filipino missionary

By -
Image
 I haven't been able to post for more than a week as I was giving an eight-day directed retreat to eight sisters of the Missionaries of Charity near Manila. While I had some access to the internet it was rather slow. I had intended to make a post here on the murder of Fr Fausto Tentorio PIME , a 59-year-old Italian priest, in the Diocese of Kidapawan, Mindanao, on Monday 17 October. I will save that post for a later date. As I was looking for a video about Father Fausto I came across one about Brother Richard Michael 'Richie' Fernando SJ, a Filipino Jesuit scholastic who died while trying to prevent a troubled and disabled young man in Cambodia from throwing a grenade. That was in 1996 - on 17 October. Father Fausto gave his life exactly 15 years later. I remember the mixture of sorrow and pride I felt when I read of the death of Brother Richie, pride as a missionary in the Philippines that a young Filipino seminarian had given his life so spontaneously in order to sav...
Read more