“Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” – Philippians 2:5-8

The words above, found in last Sunday’s readings for Palm Sunday, St Cyril of Alexandria interpreted in a way that has always stuck with me. St Cyril says it was not despite the fact that the Son was God that He emptied Himself but because He was the Son: The outpouring of love from the Son to the Father is such that it is normal for the Son to give Himself totally in this way. God is, by His nature, a perfect relationship in which the persons are completely constituted by their relations.

It was the love of my wife that brought this teaching alive for me. It was the love of my wife that taught me that in giving myself I achieved happiness and if I could give myself totally, as God can because He is, I could gain total happiness. It was the love my wife that demonstrated to me what it is like to see, in human terms, what an outpouring of love and devotion looks like.

My wife is my teacher in the school of charity. I look at her with fascination, how she waits upon me, how she showers me with affection and a never ending kindness. She has abandoned everything for me and in doing so she has given me a living example of what the relations of God are like in their love and how a Christian should love.

God gives us the sacrament of matrimony so that through our love we can understand that He is love and he also uses marriage to explain His relationship to the Church. The letter to the Ephesians says ‘For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour… “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church’ (Ephesians 5:23 & 31-32).

When I see how my wife loves me with her total, innocent and absolute commitment I understand how I am supposed to love God. Her purity of heart, her truthfulness of feeling, the way she treats me is the way I am meant to approach God. Everything she does presents a beautiful lesson to me in Christian living which lets me see what I could be if my heart were open to Jesus in the right way. I am truly blessed to have been loved so much and I am grateful to God that He has given me a wife who can teach me so much about Himself and how He wants me to live as a Christian. 

‘For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called…In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer’ – Isaiah 54: 5 & 8

This weekend the Holy Father, Pope Francis, has repeatedly spoken about the forgiveness of God. God’s mercy is something no Christian can fail to hear about, especially now in Lent as we prepare to remember how Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins. Yet, personally speaking, until I answered my vocation to marry there was something missing in my appreciation of God’s love for humankind.

It was only when I began thinking of how much it would hurt me if my wife betrayed me that I started to see how much God loves us. The Bible often uses the image of husband and wife to explain the relationship between God and humans, but until I got married these passages did not really come alive for me. I love my wife more than I had ever imagined was possible and if she were to betray me I would be broken. It would be the deepest and most devastating blow to the heart that I can imagine. If she was tempted to break our marriage covenant, would I, could I forgive her? God loves humans in a way like I love my wife but to such a surpassing degree that actually it would be better to say God loves and I do not, my ‘love’ being a pale imitation of His. Yet, I, as a member of His bride the Church am constantly violating my covenant vows to God. ‘A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again’ (Proverbs 24:16) every day and I am far from righteous. Shamefully I am sinning almost continually, betraying God as if I had taken no vows to Him at all. If my wife did this to me it would snap my soul in two. How much more must it gnaw at the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is filled with a love indescribably more than mine, to suffer so many betrayals?

Despite the depth of His love for us God is never slow to forgive us when we reject Him. In fact this whole season of Lent is an annual reminder that ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). I don’t know if I could accept a single adultery and yet from me, from everyone, God has accepted more adulteries than the stars of sky or grains of sand on the sea. In fact God continues to accept these adulteries and has even established the sacrament of Confession for us as a means to return to him because of our fickle nature. God loves us so much that He is willing to overlook a legion of sins so long as we are truly willing to turn to embrace Him time and time again. It is inconceivable to me to imagine forgiving my wife not just 7 times but 7 times 70 and yet God offers His bride that forgiveness without hesitation. This just shows how much more God loves us than we are even capable of truly grasping. The Divine Mercy is an illustration of how vast and incomprehensible the gap is between human and Heavenly love.

‘If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee’ (Psalm 130: 3-4) because God loves us so much that ‘if we are faithless, he remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself’ (2 Timothy 2:13). Pope Francis’ words about God’s forgiveness remind us how wonderful God’s love for humanity is. ‘Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church’ (Ephesians 5:25). What a standard to live up to…