By Lorraine & Leon Bent
The love- life of a couple flowers best when the partners are on a faith-journey, where God does things to them, in them, and through them! Love is the deepest of all human mysteries. As Thomas Merton opines, “The heart is capable of knowing only God.” Mystery is not a problem we must set out to solve. It is, rather, an invitation to look for deeper insights and truths into the Unfathomable Mystery – the Beloved One, one’s beloved and oneself.
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The First Truth is that True Love is not so much Communication as Communion.
It is silence: beyond words, beyond speech, and beyond concept. It is not that we discover a new unity. However, we find an age-old bond. We are already ‘one’. But we imagine that we are not and need to recover the oneness of our first parents: live the “original blessing” of Paradise! This is the primal experience of bliss, timelessness, perennial fruitfulness, contemplative union, the shekinah (cf.Ex.26:1; Mt.28:20; Jn.1: 14), when Adam was delighted to see Eve (Gen.2:23), and when our first parents walked with God in the cool of the afternoon breeze (Gen. 3:8).
Lovers live out the “original blessing’” when there is indwelling with the Beloved, with the marital other, and at-oneness with all creation! Thomas Merton referred to this sublime experience as “purity of vision, perpetual newness and incredible mystery!” The unity of God’s plan shines forth in and through the intense inner drama of pristine purity, God-in-his-own-simplicity, sacred love, spousal holiness!
The Second Truth of True Love is Dialogue – (Part I)
It comprises a completely non-judgmental, caring and sharing of truth. It is not only a spontaneous exchange of my truth with my spouse, but also a spontaneous sharing in the truth of my nuptial partner that has still to be revealed to me. The etymological derivation of ‘dialogue’ is the Greek verb legein, which means “to speak,” and the preposition dia, which means “across.” So, dialogue literally means “to speak across,” the “space” or the “differences” that divide or separate one from the matrimonial other, by pouring out one’s feelings to the other in openness and honesty, unreservedly disclosing the ‘living core’ of who one is, and inexorably seeking to know who the vowed other is. This reaching out bridges the gap, yields space and opens up what seemed closed frontiers.
But, we would like to go beyond the Dialogue of the ‘Ordinary’ Marriage Encounter Weekend, and farther afield of the Deeper Dialogue of the ‘Deeper Weekend’ to a faith-filled, Spirit-inspired Dialogue which emerges from Gospel spirituality! Intense, sacred interface between ‘vowed’ lovers helps bring about a common vision in Christ!
Real love longs for common recognition of the truth, without aiming at victory in the encounter, and without blotting out differences. In simple terms it means accepting the other as different, and leaving the loved one free without trying to change her or him.
Dialogue helps spouses reach a consensus through fusion of horizons, inter-communication, inter-relationship and inter-dependence. Genuine dialogue is a mellifluous dance, in perfect oneness and beyond all dualities and multiplicities. The dancers forget themselves in harmonious movement. They are emptied of separateness.
However, a great marriage cannot be built by human hands. Dialogue in faith and in the power of the Spirit teaches nuptial partners a new way of responding, “with gentleness, respect and a clear conscience” (1Pet. 3:16), “with a meek and quiet spirit which carries a great price in the eyes of God” (1 Pet. 3:4); “be of one mind” and “refrain your tongue from evil and speak no guile”; “sanctify the Lord in your hearts”; “for it is better, if the will of God be so, that you suffer for well-doing rather than for evil” (1 Pet. 3:8-17). If our love is to bear much fruit, the fruit that lasts (cf.Jn.10:10; 15:16), we must abide in Jesus (Jn. 15:5). To enrich a couple’s world by a radical newness, a marital twosome must freely submit to the Holy Spirit…their thoughts, affections, mentality and conduct, which gradually gets purified and transformed.
Through dialogue, the Spirit of the Father and the Son guides us “into all truth” (Jn 16:3) of our wedded life. Dialogue in the Spirit allows us to share in the life of the Godhead, a Trinity of love, which brings couples much joy (cf. 1 Jn. 1:4).
Like the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), the Gospel partners are given, through Dialogue, “a heart which sees”. The heart sees where love is needed and acts accordingly. Christian charity in marriage is a simple response to immediate needs and specific situations: insecurity of a partner; a feeling of betrayal or hopelessness; a sense of jubilation and rejoicing – a whole spectrum of emotions. One is able to reach out to the other in loving personal concern, with spontaneity and solidarity.
Dialogue opens the door to Jesus’ pruning; the option to change to build intimacy, that is offered as a gift between conjugal lovers…”each branch that bears no fruit he takes away” (Jn. 15:2). He issues this warning “without me you can do nothing” (cf. Jn. 16:13).
The Spirit is that interior power which harmonizes the hearts of a ‘Couple-in-Dialogue’, and moves a twosome to love as Christ loves them, when he washed the feet of the disciples (cf. Jn. 13:1-13), and when he gave up his life for them (cf. Jn.13:1; 15:13). We must, therefore, always work toward acquiring “the fullness of the Spirit and of wisdom” (cf. Acts 6:1-6).
Daily Dialogue
The essential charism of the Marriage Encounter Movement is Daily Dialogue/Deeper Dialogue: Frequent, free-flowing self-disclosure (feelings of fear, anger, pain and joy), mutual listening with the heart (active, attentive listening, assimilates the truth of the other and makes it one’s own; instills hope), genuine acceptance, deep appreciation, exuberance and gratitude, followed by gentle, tender and sensitive feedback (everlasting hesed), concluding with discerning one’s choice on changing one’s behavior (redemptive love) for the good of the marriage.
True dialogue is an enriching, and rewarding experience. This intimate exchange’s prized breakthroughs and illuminating offerings are: charity, listening together, unity in truth and faith, unquenchable light, the sensuous spontaneity of dancing, and the inexhaustible freshness and surprises of one another! The process is so fruitful that, one becomes a world unto the other, and one has a world in the other! One begins to see reality in sync with the other! Dialogue gives partners clarity of vision, a new horizon and a definitive direction!
Marital Mysticism: Fidelity in Little Things
And, finally, this caveat! In human and marital love, it is of utmost importance to note that, mastery destroys any possibility of love. The mystery of deep, sustained matrimonial unity must not be violated under any circumstance. The reward is mysticism: fidelity to a hundred little things in everyday life, knowing this alone leads to the kind of love Jesus has designed for the Sacrament of Matrimony: True Love that leads to Saintliness!
Good or extraordinary, intimacy-inducing communication between nuptial partners leads them down, down, down to the “still centre” where the absolute ‘silence’ of Trinitarian oneness reside. One is never able to taste this dream here on earth, but at least one can inch in the direction of the ideal, set before us by the Godhead! This, then, is the heavenly glory, and the inexhaustible fountain of ‘Living Water’, offered to all who choose the vocation of Married Love!
Conclusion
Now, this gold nugget! When the virgin Israel grew tall and beautiful, Yahweh entered into a covenant with her, taking her as His bride (cfr.Ezek.16:8-9). Ah! YHWH! Take us, Lorraine and me, in unison, as your ravishing bride too, despite our ‘charming imperfections and colorful eccentricities’ that, our relationship may bask in your reflected glory! A marital couple becomes God by participation! Wow!
And, this final flourish! When sacramental love is filled with and enriched by juicy, soul-stirring, ancient myths, stories, remembrances, ‘memorials’, as shared above, it becomes archetypal and liminal, and is exalted no end! It is fired up by ageless wisdom!
The punch line! This is the vibrantly alive and pregnant, yet, ordinary everyday kind of mystical, contemplative and prophetic witness, luminous matrimonial lovers inadvertently display and exert in the market-place! This piping-hot conjugal connection cannot just remain hidden within cold, rugged, isolated monastic walls and in books, in unvisited libraries and dusty, cobwebby attics!
In this faith, a covenanted couple can fly!
Lorraine and Leon Bent have been an integral part of Marriage Encounter, India, for the past 36 years. They have been “Team Couple,” Unit-Coordinators for Mumbai and “Editor Couple” for ME’s Newsletter (India) for 10 years.