Is love fading from your marriage? Ask Mary for help, this bishop advises

Cordoba, Spain, Jan 20, 2016 / 06:02 am

The love in a marriage is like "the wine at the wedding feast of Cana," a Spanish bishop said in a recent pastoral letter, in which he encouraged spouses to turn to the Virgin Mary for help when their relationship is troubled.

Bishop Demetrio Fernández Gonzalez of Cordoba encouraged the faithful to pray to the Virgin so that love is never lacking in their union in a Jan. 14 letter: "May the good wine of a renewed love never be lacking in each and every one of your homes."

"And when love is gone? It seems that everything is over and the only solution is to go your separate ways. But no. Have recourse to Mary, who said to Jesus: 'They have no wine'. If Jesus is present, he can make wine in any circumstances … as he did at the wedding of Cana."

"If that first love has grown cold, it can be rekindled with a humble request to Jesus, who came to fill the human heart in every way, including the marital dimension," Bishop Fernández said.

Taking up the Gospel of the wedding at Cana where Christ worked his first miracle, the bishop recalled the importance of marriage as "the foundation of the family according to God's plan," a union between one man and one woman "united in the love blessed by God, generously open to life, until death do they part."

"Jesus instituted the sacrament of marriage through which the spouses are consecrated by the Holy Spirit to give themselves completely throughout their lives to one another, in a self-giving of love," the Bishop of Cordoba explained, and pointed out that on that journey "every day, true love has to be shown anew."

Bishop Fernández therefore highlighted the importance of the humble petition of the spouses so that "there is no lack of the wine of joy in the home, the wine of love that Jesus Christ gave to each of the spouses on their wedding day."

"Lifelong fidelity is possible, a love that never ends is possible, happiness is possible in  marriage,  which God himself created and Christ has sanctified," the bishop said.

He added, however, that "you've got to humbly ask for it with faith every day."

'This is the miracle that Jesus is ready to multiply in our times, so that there is no lack of the good wine renewed in each and every home."