![Non-Negotiable Issues for the Catholic Voter]()
by Catherine | Sep 9, 2012 | Faith
A Moral Obligation
In just a few months, we have the opportunity and the moral obligation to elect new leaders in this country.
Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to pay taxes, to exercise the right to vote, and to defend one’s country. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2240.
As Catholic voters, we do not necessarily fulfill this moral obligation by filling out a ballot and getting an “I VOTED TODAY” sticker. We are morally obliged to be well-informed voters with well-formed consciences who vote accordingly.
What does that mean?
Well, in some elections, voters are deciding on issues that have several morally good solutions, and their job is to select the best strategy. In other elections, voters encounter “non-negotiables,” the issues on which the Catholic voter must never compromise or make exceptions. The candidate or issue endorsing the side out of favor with Church Teaching on “non-negotiable” issues must not receive a Catholic’s support. As far as possible, the Catholic voter is morally obliged to cast a vote for the issue or candidate in line with Church Teaching–whether in a national, state, or local election.
No election is “too small” to apply these moral principles. Each and every election matters, especially when we consider how our nation’s top-ranking political leaders got their starts on city councils, school boards, etc. Evaluate each candidate, taking into account which non-negotiable issues he or she will likely encounter in office. As the Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics says, “One should seek to elect to lower offices candidates who support Christian morality so that they will have a greater ability to be elected to higher offices where their moral stances may come directly into play.”
Unfortunately, in some elections, none of the available candidates have a clean record or platform on the non-negotiable issues. In those instances, the voter (who is well-informed with a well-formed conscience) votes for the candidate who will likely do the least harm among all available candidates, and consider their views on other, lesser issues.
In some elections, a voter can morally decline voting if all available candidates endorse one or more of the non-negotiable issues. However, the voter must remember that voting for one of these candidates is not necessarily a positive endorsement; it may be tolerating a lesser evil to avoid a greater evil.
5 Non-Negotiables
While there are many more than 5 non-negotiable issues for Catholics, there are 5 issues most in play in United States politics today. Those “top 5” non-negotiable issues that must never be promoted by law are:
- Abortion
- Euthanasia
- Embryonic Stem Cell Research
- Human Cloning
- Same-Sex “Marriage”
1. Abortion
The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is “never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it” (EV 73). Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.
The unborn child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child’s, who should not suffer death for others’ sins.
2. Euthanasia
Often disguised by the name “mercy killing,” euthanasia is also a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.
In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another person (cf. EV 73).
3. Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Human embryos are human beings. “Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo” (CRF 4b).
Recent scientific advances show that often medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.
4. Human Cloning
“Attempts . . . for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through ‘twin fission,’ cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union” (RHL I:6).
Human cloning also involves abortion because the “rejected” or “unsuccessful” embryonic clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.
5. Homosexual “Marriage”
True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other union as “marriage” undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement.
“When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral” (UHP 10).
ABBREVIATIONS
CCC Catechism of the Catholic Church
CPL Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Notes on Some Questions regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life
CRF Pontifical Council for the Family, Charter of the Rights of the Family
EV John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life)
RHL Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation
UHP Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons
So, how does a Catholic voter become well-informed?
Consult the candidates’ voting records, read the news, and consider the bias of all of your sources. Contact the candidates or the candidates’ offices directly if you are unclear on their stances on a particular issue, especially if the candidates are in a local election.
Well-Informed and Well-Formed
Once a Catholic voter is well-informed on the candidates, he or she must make sure that their conscience is also well-formed. A well-formed conscience will never contradict Church Teaching. To find out what the Catholic Church teaches, start by consulting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
A candidate does not merit a Catholic’s vote merely because of his or her political party, charisma, or self-proclaimed Catholicism. The candidate worthy of a Catholic voter’s endorsement is the one who is (most) in line with Church Teaching, and, therefore, will do the least harm and promote the most good.
The Problem
Most think that the so-called “Catholic Vote” is a myth in today’s elections.
My Prayer
I pray that that myth gets turned on its head come November.
May all of our nation’s priests be emboldened to share the Truth of Church Teaching from the pulpit, especially on these non-negotiable issues. The sheep are hungry for Truth!
May our courageous priests receive tremendous graces for shepherding their flocks and feel the support of their bride, the Church.
May all of the Church faithful humbly submit themselves to Church authority, praying for our priests, and voting with well-formed consciences.
May we never take for granted our religious liberty or our “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Happiness, accurately understood, is living out our Christian “vocation to beatitude.” “The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1718). In other words, as St. Augustine said, our hearts will be restless until they rest in God.
How much more will our country be restless if its leadership remains godless? So long as we build a kingdom on earth that is not godly, believing that our individual “pursuit of happiness” is a license for moral relativism or free-for-all hedonism, we will toil in vain like those in Psalm 127.
“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build. Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch. It is vain for you to rise early and put off your rest at night, To eat bread earned by hard toil–all this God gives to his beloved in sleep” (Psalm 127:1-2).
Now, and always, may Catholic citizens vote with well-formed consciences to serve the Eternal Kingdom rather than this mere earthly one.
Let us not forget we have but one Master.
“No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6: 24).
![On the 15th Anniversary of Blessed Mother Teresa's Death]()
by Catherine | Sep 5, 2012 | Faith
Today is the 15th anniversary of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s death on September 5th, 1997. Today is a chance to reflect on her life’s work, the many blessings she brought to the people she served, and the blessings she continues to bring to those who never met, but are forever changed by her witness of Love.
 |
| Mother Teresa, holding an armless orphan at one of her order’s orphanages. |
I was in junior high when Mother Teresa went on to her eternal reward, and I was too young or immature to understand the magnitude of this blessed woman’s life. Of her many famous quotes, my favorites come from her February 3, 1994 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
As a woman who worked intimately with the poorest of the poor and the most unloved people on the planet, she witnessed the darkest consequences of human sin. So, when this woman, who saw the consequences of sin unabashedly zeroed in on abortion as “the greatest destroyer of peace today,” if we are wise, we will listen. Below is my favorite excerpt from her National Prayer Breakfast speech. If you cannot read her beautiful speech in its entirety, please, at the very least, read the excerpt below. (Priests for Life have the full text as well as the audio available in MP3 format here.)
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.
Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today – abortion which brings people to such blindness.
And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere – “Let us bring the child back.” The child is God’s gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things – to love and to be loved. In this year of the family we must bring the child back to the center of our care and concern. This is the only way that our world can survive because our children are the only hope for the future. As older people are called to God, only their children can take their places.
But what does God say to us? He says: “Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand.” We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us.
I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption – by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police stations: “Please don’t destroy the child; we will take the child.” So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: “Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child.” And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child – but I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said. “Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.
Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.
From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy.
I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning.
The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception.
In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.
I also know that there are great problems in the world – that many spouses do not love each other enough to practice natural family planning. We cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us never bring in the worst problem of all, and that is to destroy love. And this is what happens when we tell people to practice contraception and abortion.
The poor are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. Once one of them came to thank us for teaching her natural family planning and said: “You people who have practiced chastity, you are the best people to teach us natural family planning because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other.” And what this poor person said is very true. These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich.
Blessed Mother Teresa, pray for us. May the consciences of the voters in the United States be formed to realize that abortion remains “the greatest destroyer of peace today,” as you said it was in 1994. Thank you for showing us how to love until it hurts and to start within our own families.
“There is so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice, are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put
into what we do.”
![On the 15th Anniversary of Blessed Mother Teresa’s Death]()
by Catherine | Sep 5, 2012 | Faith
Today is the 15th anniversary of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s death on September 5th, 1997. Today is a chance to reflect on her life’s work, the many blessings she brought to the people she served, and the blessings she continues to bring to those who never met, but are forever changed by her witness of Love.
|
| Mother Teresa, holding an armless orphan at one of her order’s orphanages. |
I was in junior high when Mother Teresa went on to her eternal reward, and I was too young or immature to understand the magnitude of this blessed woman’s life. Of her many famous quotes, my favorites come from her February 3, 1994 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
As a woman who worked intimately with the poorest of the poor and the most unloved people on the planet, she witnessed the darkest consequences of human sin. So, when this woman, who saw the consequences of sin unabashedly zeroed in on abortion as “the greatest destroyer of peace today,” if we are wise, we will listen. Below is my favorite excerpt from her National Prayer Breakfast speech. If you cannot read her beautiful speech in its entirety, please, at the very least, read the excerpt below. (Priests for Life have the full text as well as the audio available in MP3 format here.)
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.
Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today – abortion which brings people to such blindness.
And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere – “Let us bring the child back.” The child is God’s gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things – to love and to be loved. In this year of the family we must bring the child back to the center of our care and concern. This is the only way that our world can survive because our children are the only hope for the future. As older people are called to God, only their children can take their places.
But what does God say to us? He says: “Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand.” We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us.
I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption – by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police stations: “Please don’t destroy the child; we will take the child.” So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: “Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child.” And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child – but I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said. “Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.
Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.
From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy.
I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning.
The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception.
In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.
I also know that there are great problems in the world – that many spouses do not love each other enough to practice natural family planning. We cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us never bring in the worst problem of all, and that is to destroy love. And this is what happens when we tell people to practice contraception and abortion.
The poor are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. Once one of them came to thank us for teaching her natural family planning and said: “You people who have practiced chastity, you are the best people to teach us natural family planning because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other.” And what this poor person said is very true. These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich.
Blessed Mother Teresa, pray for us. May the consciences of the voters in the United States be formed to realize that abortion remains “the greatest destroyer of peace today,” as you said it was in 1994. Thank you for showing us how to love until it hurts and to start within our own families.
“There is so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice, are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we do.”
!["Rejoice in the Wife of Your Youth"]()
by Catherine | Aug 17, 2012 | Marriage
 |
| “Foreshadowing.” Walking downtown on our wedding day as an older couple approaches. |
My little trip down memory lane to our first date made me think of the thrill of our new relationship and the butterflies from our first kiss. Seven years later, we are no doubt more in love with each other than ever. The depth of our love for one another and the intimacy that we feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually far surpasses the love we felt the day we professed our wedding vows.
However, both Philip and I will readily admit that the passion that came so easily in the beginning of our romance needs more coaxing (and even plotting!) these days. Philip has a hectic schedule as a pediatric resident. His hectic schedule translates into long hours on my end as a stay-at-home mom. Our limited time together coupled with the physical and emotional demands of raising young children, our limited finances, and our culture’s demand that our children be our top priority could be a recipe for disaster.
I’d be lying if I said that residency has been a breeze and that I love every moment of it. However, this testing time has been the source of many blessings in our marriage. I wrote in a previous post that our limited time together actually taught us to move through problems faster, get to “I’m sorry,” and spend more time together.
In learning how to be more effective communicators, we are also learning more about each other’s love languages (how each of us wants to receive love). Not surprisingly, most people show love toward others the way they want to receive love. Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages, has a website dedicated to teaching about the Love Languages. The 5 Love Language are:
- Words of affirmation
- Quality time
- Receiving gifts
- Acts of service
- Physical touch
Philip and I took the online assessment to find out what our love languages are. Here are our results:
 |
| Philip is on the left, I am on the right |
According to the 5 Love Languages site, most people usually fall in love with people who have completely different love languages. Not so with me and Philip! Despite independently taking the assessment, we scored almost identically. After discussing our results, it was obvious that we value words of affirmation most, then quality time, and physical touch third. Acts of service scored fairly high for me, a little lower for Philip, and receiving gifts was the lowest score for both of us. Basically, it looks like we prefer to be loved in all of the ways except for receiving gifts!
We talked about how each of us shows and receives these different love languages. We are both happy with how one another is using words of affirmation and quality time to express love. Together, we decided that we both need to do a better job of using the love language of physical touch. The 5 Love Languages site sums up Physical Touch like this:
This language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.
To sum up our discussion on physical touch, I asked Philip to use physical touch more often, especially in non-romantic ways. Philip asked me to use physical touch more often, especially in romantic ways.
I am reading Kimberly Hahn’s Chosen and Cherished: Biblical Wisdom for Your Marriage. She has tremendous insight into building intimacy and trust between the spouses. A few of the chapters in her book are giving me insight into why Philip and I are feeling so differently about physical touch. She has this to say about the challenges for young families:
One of the difficulties moms with small children face is that, by the end of the day, they have been touched and touched. A woman may feel that she really does not want any more physical affection that day. Yet her spouse has not been touched all day. She needs to be responsive to him, especially if touch is his primary love language.
YES! Although we both value physical touch, by day’s end, Philip and I need very different things physically. He comes home, anxious for a big kiss and conversation. He hasn’t had a hug or a kiss since he left that morning. I, on the other hand, have been touched all day. Feeding, changing, and loving little ones is a very physical job. By day’s end, I am thrilled to see Philip, but a big make-out session is usually the last thing on my mind. I wish I could say that my first impulse is to land a big wet one on him when he walks in the door. Unfortunately, I got into the habit of brushing off his affection and asking him to help corral the kids while I get dinner on the table. If I’ve spent the last thirty minutes prepping dinner with one toddler at my feet and another asking a question every ten seconds, it’s not enticing to have a touchy husband lingering while I’m stirring something on the stove. All I want physically is a peck on the cheek and to hear the words, “C’mon, kids. Let’s get out of Mom’s way and play in the family room.”
Philip, sweet husband that he is, usually conceded to this being his homecoming and made the most of it. After our conversation about love languages, I realized that I’m not doing a good enough job of i
nitiating romantic physical touch, especially for his homecoming each day. Kimberly Hahn beautifully calls us to imitate Christ serving His bride, the Church, by serving our husbands.
This is the call to follow Christ to serve rather than to be served. It means affirming your spouse, even when you feel unappreciated. It means asking him what you can do for him, expressing the love languages of gift giving or acts of service, even though you are tired from serving your children all day.
After talking with some other mothers with young children, I learned I am not the only one who struggles to make my husband’s daily homecoming a beautiful experience. One of my friends said that her grandmother gave her some advice that has stuck with her. She said to give your husband a 90-second kiss everyday when he comes home. This sounds simple enough, but, really, when was the last time you greeted your husband with a 90-second kiss? Go ahead. Set a timer. Even if you don’t feel “into it” when you start the kiss, surely by the 10 or 15 second mark you’ll remember that you two “still have it.” Philip tells me to keep taking that friend’s advice!
Kimberly Hahn’s mother went to a lot of effort to make her husband’s daily homecoming special.
My mom prepared for my dad to come home from work. About fifteen minutes before he arrived, she put on fresh makeup and perfume, changed her outfit if it was dirty, and brushed her teeth. She was ready to greet him.
I know that this is tough when you are making dinner and caring for little ones. However, welcoming your husband home sets the tone for dinner and the evening.
Little by little, I am trying to adopt this practice. When Philip calls from the hospital to say that he’s on his way home, I announce to the kids, “Daddy’s coming home! Let’s get ready!” I brush my teeth, freshen up my makeup, and change my clothes if they’re dirty from the day. We tidy up the family room if it needs it. If I have the time and remember, I light a candle or pour each of us a glass of wine.
To ensure I have this time to get ready before Philip gets home, I’m doing a few things:
- Give the kids only 1 small snack a day after their afternoon nap around 4:00 p.m.
- With 1 small snack at 4:00 p.m., my kids are still hungry for dinner, but they’re not soooooo starving that they’re cranky for dinner and can’t wait for Philip to get home
- Save the kids’ tv time for dinner making time
- This way, they’ll want to watch their show at this time and won’t be tempted to wander into the kitchen or need me
- Work smart, not hard. Don’t make this already stressful time more stressful by making dinner preparation take longer!
- Do the meal prep work the night before or during naptime
- Crockpot recipes make dinnertime nearly stress-free
- Oven recipes are great because you can wash dishes as dinner bakes
- Freezer friendly meals are your friend! Double your recipes so that you can freeze the extra one and any leftovers.
Philip didn’t know I was doing all of these behind the scenes things, but he loves his new homecomings. They’re not always a Norman Rockwell picture, but I am happy to say that the extra effort is helping to set the tone for our evenings. When I have the house, the kids, myself, and dinner taken care of enough to give Philip a warm welcome home, it makes for a much happier evening. The 90-second kiss doesn’t hurt, either!
The kids love it, too. 2-year-old Janie absolutely adores “getting ready” for Daddy to walk in the door. She watches me reapply my makeup and always has to get her own fresh chapstick. 15-month-old Walt follows us from room to room and shrieks when Monty barks to tell us that Philip’s car is pulling in. When we hear the garage door open, the kids run to the gate at the top of the stairs to greet Philip. After Philip and the kids have their moment, Philip and I can have our big welcome home hug and kiss.
It sounds so simple, and it is, but dropping everything to prepare for this moment and give Philip a real welcome home kiss shows him that I still value physical touch and that he is my vocation. The kids relish witnessing the love between us, too. As we’re smooching, Janie always says, “Awwwwww, Mommy and Daddy love each other!” She usually ends up between us, squeezing me and Philip together to get in on the love fest.
Not surprisingly, Philip loves the change. He’d much rather have a wife excited to greet him than the old me who would brush off his attempts at affection at the stove and point him toward the kids. When I try to serve Philip’s real need for physical touch when he walks in the door, he in turn is more willing to serve my genuine need for space and a little silence as I finish making the meal. Kimberly Hahn wrote about a mother’s need for silence at the end of the day:
Even though many women tend to talk more than men, if your children have talked to you from morning till night, you may crave some silence.
My children were great conversationalists from early on, saying wonderful and cute things. By day’s end I had listened a lot. Scott (her husband) would ask, “Do you want to listen to a tape? Or do you want me to put on some music? Do you want to talk?”
My response was, “No, I just want to sit on the sofa for about fifteen minutes and be quiet, with no one touching me and no one talking to me.” After I drank in the silence, I would find Scott in his study and enjoy our conversation. If the need for listening was urgent, however, I relinquished my “right” to do things the way I wanted and instead focused on serving my beloved.
After Philip changes, he takes the kids with him downstairs or they play in the family room so that I can have a little breathing room. I crave silence by day’s end, and Philip knows this. Giving me a little space to cook and work in silence while he plays with the kids helps me to recharge and to be a better conversationalist over dinner.
We think everyone else wants to be loved exactly how we do. Learning that Philip and I don’t have the same needs at the end of the day and finding out how we can best love each other is changing the tone of our evenings together. Little by little, these small changes are helping to bring back the spark that came so easily in the beginning of our romance. Philip and I are still twenty-somethings, but these little things are helping me to be the wife of Philip’s youth from Proverbs 5.
“Let your fountain be blessed, / and rejoice in the wife
of your youth, / a lovely deer, a graceful doe. / Let her affection fill you at all times with delight, / be infatuated always with her love” (Proverbs 5: 18-19).
 |
| Philip, seeing me for the first time on our wedding day as I walked down the aisle |
![“Rejoice in the Wife of Your Youth”]()
by Catherine | Aug 17, 2012 | Marriage
|
| “Foreshadowing.” Walking downtown on our wedding day as an older couple approaches. |
My little trip down memory lane to our first date made me think of the thrill of our new relationship and the butterflies from our first kiss. Seven years later, we are no doubt more in love with each other than ever. The depth of our love for one another and the intimacy that we feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually far surpasses the love we felt the day we professed our wedding vows.
However, both Philip and I will readily admit that the passion that came so easily in the beginning of our romance needs more coaxing (and even plotting!) these days. Philip has a hectic schedule as a pediatric resident. His hectic schedule translates into long hours on my end as a stay-at-home mom. Our limited time together coupled with the physical and emotional demands of raising young children, our limited finances, and our culture’s demand that our children be our top priority could be a recipe for disaster.
I’d be lying if I said that residency has been a breeze and that I love every moment of it. However, this testing time has been the source of many blessings in our marriage. I wrote in a previous post that our limited time together actually taught us to move through problems faster, get to “I’m sorry,” and spend more time together.
In learning how to be more effective communicators, we are also learning more about each other’s love languages (how each of us wants to receive love). Not surprisingly, most people show love toward others the way they want to receive love. Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages, has a website dedicated to teaching about the Love Languages. The 5 Love Language are:
- Words of affirmation
- Quality time
- Receiving gifts
- Acts of service
- Physical touch
Philip and I took the online assessment to find out what our love languages are. Here are our results:
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| Philip is on the left, I am on the right |
According to the 5 Love Languages site, most people usually fall in love with people who have completely different love languages. Not so with me and Philip! Despite independently taking the assessment, we scored almost identically. After discussing our results, it was obvious that we value words of affirmation most, then quality time, and physical touch third. Acts of service scored fairly high for me, a little lower for Philip, and receiving gifts was the lowest score for both of us. Basically, it looks like we prefer to be loved in all of the ways except for receiving gifts!
We talked about how each of us shows and receives these different love languages. We are both happy with how one another is using words of affirmation and quality time to express love. Together, we decided that we both need to do a better job of using the love language of physical touch. The 5 Love Languages site sums up Physical Touch like this:
This language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.
To sum up our discussion on physical touch, I asked Philip to use physical touch more often, especially in non-romantic ways. Philip asked me to use physical touch more often, especially in romantic ways.
I am reading Kimberly Hahn’s Chosen and Cherished: Biblical Wisdom for Your Marriage. She has tremendous insight into building intimacy and trust between the spouses. A few of the chapters in her book are giving me insight into why Philip and I are feeling so differently about physical touch. She has this to say about the challenges for young families:
One of the difficulties moms with small children face is that, by the end of the day, they have been touched and touched. A woman may feel that she really does not want any more physical affection that day. Yet her spouse has not been touched all day. She needs to be responsive to him, especially if touch is his primary love language.
YES! Although we both value physical touch, by day’s end, Philip and I need very different things physically. He comes home, anxious for a big kiss and conversation. He hasn’t had a hug or a kiss since he left that morning. I, on the other hand, have been touched all day. Feeding, changing, and loving little ones is a very physical job. By day’s end, I am thrilled to see Philip, but a big make-out session is usually the last thing on my mind. I wish I could say that my first impulse is to land a big wet one on him when he walks in the door. Unfortunately, I got into the habit of brushing off his affection and asking him to help corral the kids while I get dinner on the table. If I’ve spent the last thirty minutes prepping dinner with one toddler at my feet and another asking a question every ten seconds, it’s not enticing to have a touchy husband lingering while I’m stirring something on the stove. All I want physically is a peck on the cheek and to hear the words, “C’mon, kids. Let’s get out of Mom’s way and play in the family room.”
Philip, sweet husband that he is, usually conceded to this being his homecoming and made the most of it. After our conversation about love languages, I realized that I’m not doing a good enough job of initiating romantic physical touch, especially for his homecoming each day. Kimberly Hahn beautifully calls us to imitate Christ serving His bride, the Church, by serving our husbands.
This is the call to follow Christ to serve rather than to be served. It means affirming your spouse, even when you feel unappreciated. It means asking him what you can do for him, expressing the love languages of gift giving or acts of service, even though you are tired from serving your children all day.
After talking with some other mothers with young children, I learned I am not the only one who struggles to make my husband’s daily homecoming a beautiful experience. One of my friends said that her grandmother gave her some advice that has stuck with her. She said to give your husband a 90-second kiss everyday when he comes home. This sounds simple enough, but, really, when was the last time you greeted your husband with a 90-second kiss? Go ahead. Set a timer. Even if you don’t feel “into it” when you start the kiss, surely by the 10 or 15 second mark you’ll remember that you two “still have it.” Philip tells me to keep taking that friend’s advice!
Kimberly Hahn’s mother went to a lot of effort to make her husband’s daily homecoming special.
My mom prepared for my dad to come home from work. About fifteen minutes before he arrived, she put on fresh makeup and perfume, changed her outfit if it was dirty, and brushed her teeth. She was ready to greet him.
I know that this is tough when you are making dinner and caring for little ones. However, welcoming your husband home sets the tone for dinner and the evening.
Little by little, I am trying to adopt this practice. When Philip calls from the hospital to say that he’s on his way home, I announce to the kids, “Daddy’s coming home! Let’s get ready!” I brush my teeth, freshen up my makeup, and change my clothes if they’re dirty from the day. We tidy up the family room if it needs it. If I have the time and remember, I light a candle or pour each of us a glass of wine.
To ensure I have this time to get ready before Philip gets home, I’m doing a few things:
- Give the kids only 1 small snack a day after their afternoon nap around 4:00 p.m.
- With 1 small snack at 4:00 p.m., my kids are still hungry for dinner, but they’re not soooooo starving that they’re cranky for dinner and can’t wait for Philip to get home
- Save the kids’ tv time for dinner making time
- This way, they’ll want to watch their show at this time and won’t be tempted to wander into the kitchen or need me
- Work smart, not hard. Don’t make this already stressful time more stressful by making dinner preparation take longer!
- Do the meal prep work the night before or during naptime
- Crockpot recipes make dinnertime nearly stress-free
- Oven recipes are great because you can wash dishes as dinner bakes
- Freezer friendly meals are your friend! Double your recipes so that you can freeze the extra one and any leftovers.
Philip didn’t know I was doing all of these behind the scenes things, but he loves his new homecomings. They’re not always a Norman Rockwell picture, but I am happy to say that the extra effort is helping to set the tone for our evenings. When I have the house, the kids, myself, and dinner taken care of enough to give Philip a warm welcome home, it makes for a much happier evening. The 90-second kiss doesn’t hurt, either!
The kids love it, too. 2-year-old Janie absolutely adores “getting ready” for Daddy to walk in the door. She watches me reapply my makeup and always has to get her own fresh chapstick. 15-month-old Walt follows us from room to room and shrieks when Monty barks to tell us that Philip’s car is pulling in. When we hear the garage door open, the kids run to the gate at the top of the stairs to greet Philip. After Philip and the kids have their moment, Philip and I can have our big welcome home hug and kiss.
It sounds so simple, and it is, but dropping everything to prepare for this moment and give Philip a real welcome home kiss shows him that I still value physical touch and that he is my vocation. The kids relish witnessing the love between us, too. As we’re smooching, Janie always says, “Awwwwww, Mommy and Daddy love each other!” She usually ends up between us, squeezing me and Philip together to get in on the love fest.
Not surprisingly, Philip loves the change. He’d much rather have a wife excited to greet him than the old me who would brush off his attempts at affection at the stove and point him toward the kids. When I try to serve Philip’s real need for physical touch when he walks in the door, he in turn is more willing to serve my genuine need for space and a little silence as I finish making the meal. Kimberly Hahn wrote about a mother’s need for silence at the end of the day:
Even though many women tend to talk more than men, if your children have talked to you from morning till night, you may crave some silence.
My children were great conversationalists from early on, saying wonderful and cute things. By day’s end I had listened a lot. Scott (her husband) would ask, “Do you want to listen to a tape? Or do you want me to put on some music? Do you want to talk?”
My response was, “No, I just want to sit on the sofa for about fifteen minutes and be quiet, with no one touching me and no one talking to me.” After I drank in the silence, I would find Scott in his study and enjoy our conversation. If the need for listening was urgent, however, I relinquished my “right” to do things the way I wanted and instead focused on serving my beloved.
After Philip changes, he takes the kids with him downstairs or they play in the family room so that I can have a little breathing room. I crave silence by day’s end, and Philip knows this. Giving me a little space to cook and work in silence while he plays with the kids helps me to recharge and to be a better conversationalist over dinner.
We think everyone else wants to be loved exactly how we do. Learning that Philip and I don’t have the same needs at the end of the day and finding out how we can best love each other is changing the tone of our evenings together. Little by little, these small changes are helping to bring back the spark that came so easily in the beginning of our romance. Philip and I are still twenty-somethings, but these little things are helping me to be the wife of Philip’s youth from Proverbs 5.
“Let your fountain be blessed, / and rejoice in the wife of your youth, / a lovely deer, a graceful doe. / Let her affection fill you at all times with delight, / be infatuated always with her love” (Proverbs 5: 18-19).
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| Philip, seeing me for the first time on our wedding day as I walked down the aisle |
