A series of short testimonies for Marriage Week focusing on what gives couples 'Hope in Marriage'.
Short reflections on how we can see great hope in marriage.
What gives me hope in marriage is witnessing the incredible transformations of couples who have faced significant challenges yet managed to rebuild their relationships. As national coordinators for Retrouvaille, we have the privilege of seeing couples move through the natural phases of marriage – Romance, Disillusionment, Misery, and finally, Awakening. It’s deeply rewarding to know that over 75% of the couples who attend our program rediscover hope and renew their commitment to each other and their families. This work reminds us that, even when hope seems lost, love can be rekindled with dedication, patience, and the right support.
A priest friend of mine often describes hope as an acronym: Having Only Positive Expectations. It’s a phrase that resonates deeply, especially when I think about couples preparing for marriage. How could they not be filled with hope? The very act of entering this lifelong covenant demands it. Marriage begins with a bold expectation: that life is better shared, that in sickness or health, richer or poorer, you’re in it together. Surely, that’s more positive than going it alone.
But this isn’t just wishful thinking—it’s God’s design. In Genesis, God declares, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen 2:18). In His wisdom, He gives us the gift of marriage, not only as a source of joy but as a means to persevere through life’s challenges. Marriage offers us the security of a companion on the journey, someone to lean on when hope feels far away.
Yet, marriage is about more than just the couple. It’s also for the good of society. Spouses are called to model hope – not just to one another but to the world. Their love and fidelity reflect the love of God the Father, the self-giving sacrifice of Jesus, and the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. A sacramental marriage doesn’t just look inward; it points upward and outward, becoming a signpost of God’s plan for eternal union with Him.
Marriage, then, isn’t just a personal bond – it’s a living, breathing sign of hope. It’s a partnership that says to the world: love endures, hope is real, and heaven is our home.
Reflecting on the past 40 years of our marriage and our work in both marriage preparation and enrichment over the last decade, we are reminded of the timeless nature of what St Paul wrote in Romans 8:35, 37-39 ‘Nothing therefore can come between us and the love of Christ, even if we are troubled or worried or being persecuted or lack of food or clothes or threatened or even attacked’… so what is it that gives us hope in marriage, despite the turmoil in the world and at times, the challenges we faced? Well, it all comes down to prayer. In our nuptial Mass I prayed that we would adapt to every situation that we found ourselves in, in the future and Pete prayed that our focus would be to help each other get to heaven.
Our time for encounter with Jesus developed through our twenties and thirties. We both believed God loved us and had a plan for our lives. We believed we had purpose to our lives, and we wanted to be actively involved in the choices we faced on our faith journey each and every day. How were we going to get our family to heaven? Well, we learned quickly that family life is frenetic with activity but even when our boys were small our family activity revolved around our church community. We participated in a young families group led by Mgr Jim McGettrick (May he rest in peace and rise in glory). He invited us all to meet together to develop our own faith so that we could lead our family confidently and to support each other in the practical issues that face families every day. From our perspective those young family years gave us golden threads in the tapestry of our life together which had been dulled by illness, bereavement, financial difficulties and work.
We agree that you spell love, TIME! This is so true for every relationship but especially for the married couple who have responsibilities for others in their family, but they need to nourish their relationship, so their love nourishes not only themselves, their children, if blessed with children, but also the people they encounter each day and their faith community. Without prayer and asking for the Holy Spirit to work through us, how can we move beyond our own selfish desires to become the version of ourselves that God created us to be? To ready ourselves to be receptive to see the needs of our spouse, family members and wider community locally, internationally and indeed globally? We need to be intentional disciples as described by Sherry Weddell.
When we meet couples who are preparing for marriage, they fill us with hope in the future with their enthusiasm for life and the temperature in the room where the course is being held actually increases when they write each other a love letter about their future lives together. Try it … no matter how many years you’ve been married!
Now we acknowledge that it’s been a struggle at times and we’re no saints, but the hope invested in us through God’s love propels us forward. Together as a married couple we support each other to help other couples. Why? Because we’ve experienced a huge number of blessings over the years; there have been too many ‘God incidences’ to be called ‘coincidences’ and the ’God of surprises’ keeps on surprising us! Who would have thought that Pete and I would lead and develop the online Sycamore – Growing in Faith Together (GIFT) course? We responded to the question: What is the Church doing for married and engaged couples in terms of their faith development?
All the ‘prayer stitches’ in our life tapestry bind the days, weeks and years together. There were holes that needed a lot of patience, undoing and reworking to make that period of time stronger – more resilient. And yes, a tapestry is always messier on the reverse.
Marriage is a source of stability and happiness, showing us the endless love that God has for all of us.
As we begin Marriage Week, we invite you to pray this novena each day for the vocation of marriage.
