At that time: Jesus went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named Apostles, so that they might be with him, and he might send them out to preach, and have authority to cast out demons. He appointed the Twelve: Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter; James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder; Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

We can imagine how the Lord went on calling people one by one to follow Him, and they said “yes” and went with Him. What a beautiful thing!
And that same beautiful story is being repeated today, here and now, with us. He chooses us to live a wonderful plan, a great and beautiful vocation in which to follow Him: the vocation of marriage. And on our wedding day, as spouses, we say “yes” to following Him.
What do we say yes to?
In prosperity and in adversity, in sickness and in health, every day of our lives. How beautiful! “Congratulations!” everyone says—friends, family, acquaintances…
But those same people do not say the same thing when the setting changes.
Then daily life arrives. I grow tired and reproach my spouse for working so much and not helping me enough—and I say “no” to the Lord. My pride appears and I get angry because my spouse does not listen to me—and again I say “no” to the Lord. And where on the wedding day there were congratulations, now the advice is: “Separate.” Why? Has only the situation changed? Are love and commitment circumstantial and fleeting?
No. As Saint Paul says: “Love never ends.”
Now is the time to love more. Precisely where the Lord asks for our “yes”, that is where He calls you and me—here and now. Can you hear Him? If so, it is Him calling out to us as spouses:
Come and follow Me—in your spouse.

Applied to Married Life

Claire: Darling, I’m going to make dinner.
Charles (thinking): Here she goes again, saying it out loud so I’ll help… I’m sure of it. Well, I’m staying right here on the internet.
Claire: Would you like an omelette, or do you prefer scrambled eggs?
Charles (thinking): She’s definitely asking so I’ll get up and help. I’m not moving—I deserve a rest… Eggs, Claire!
Claire: Love, I’m coming over to enjoy whatever you’re doing—I’ve already finished dinner.
Charles: Oh, I was just looking for a watch, nothing else.
Claire: Well, show me—I’ll help you choose one.
Charles (thinking): She makes dinner and still cares about what I’m doing… it’s incredible. And here I was thinking badly of her. Honestly, since we’ve been going to the Marital Love Project group, her heart has changed so much—and yet I still look at her with such a critical eye.
Claire: Come on, show me the models—there must be a nice one.
Charles: Love, forgive me for judging you. I thought you were calling me just to pull me away from the internet… and instead you made dinner and cared about the watch I want. I’ll set the table right now.
Claire: Well, by God’s grace I realise you’re tired after work, so I made dinner and that’s fine. Now let’s just enjoy this together.
Charles: Not a chance—it’ll go cold after all the effort you put into it. I’ll set the table with the children and we’ll eat right away. I know you like your food hot.
Claire: Alright, love—let’s do it together.
Charles: I’d really like to go deeper and welcome what we’re learning in the Marital Love Project catechesis the way you do. You truly are a different wife—and a different mother.
Claire: Then let’s ask the Lord for it tonight in our couple prayer, and He will do it.
Charles: Yes! I can’t wait to start.

Mother,

may we say yes at every moment, just as you did. Praise be to the Lord!

At that time: Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God.’ And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

Applied to Married Life

Luke: Yesterday at the office I spoke with Philip because he’s been anxious, worried, and overwhelmed. He told me that someone had recommended some Eastern relaxation techniques that promise great peace and all sorts of things.
Mary: And what did you say to him? He does sound rather lost. That doesn’t seem very Christian, does it?
Luke: No, of course not. I told him that true peace is found only in God. That Jesus Himself said He gives us His peace, and that those who are weary and burdened should come to Him, because He will give them rest.
Mary: How sad that so often we look for peace in the wrong place. And what did Philip say?
Luke: He thanked me and asked for help to return to God. He’s drifted away and stopped going to the sacraments—confession and the Eucharist.
Mary: Oh, what joy! Thanks be to God for making you an instrument for Philip. Glory be to God!
Luke: Glory be to Him for ever!

Mother,

thank you for giving us Jesus. Help us to receive Him in the Eucharist with the purity, humility, and devotion with which you received Him. Blessed and praised be the Lord for ever. Amen.

At that time: Again Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Come here.’ And he said to them, ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. And he looked round at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

My good Jesus, You love me infinitely. You have shown me this a thousand times, above all by giving Your life for me in a terrible Passion…
What causes You suffering? In this Gospel You tell us: “grieved by the hardness of their hearts.” My hardness of heart grieves You. And I do not want You to suffer in the slightest—I want You to delight in me. Yet I know I have a hardened heart, because so often I do not look at my spouse with Your eyes: I speak harshly, accuse, judge, fail to excuse…
Sometimes I do not even notice this hardness of heart, and that is worse still—because it is there, it hurts You, and if I do not see it, I cannot fight against it.
Please help me to recognise the hardness of my heart, to be truly attentive and to discover it in my daily life. If I think I hardly have any, then I have a great deal—because it lies behind every sin.
Heal me, Lord, with the medicine of the heart: Your Word.
“Listen: you shall love the Lord your God above all things, and your neighbour as yourself.”
“Deny yourself, take up your cross each day.”
“Pray, pray.”
A path of prayer and sacraments, of humility and purification of heart. To seek only Your Will, to flee from my own—because my will must never be the measure.
Thank You, Lord. With You, I will succeed.

Applied to Married Life

Martha: Andrew, please forgive me for the way I’ve been this week. I’ve just come from confession and spent a long time with the Lord, and I can see clearly again. Forgive me. I’ve been overwhelmed with work and barely prayed at all—and now I see the harm I’ve caused you. Without prayer, I cannot listen to the Lord. I end up listening only to myself, judging you, seeing everything from my side alone, speaking badly to you… and then justifying myself, thinking I’m right after all I do. Evil blinds me. It strikes me how, as soon as I drift even a little from the Lord, everything starts to fall apart.
Andrew: I love you very much. Hearing this fills me with joy. These days I’ve tried to help you more, to encourage you not to neglect prayer, to avoid reacting badly… and it felt as though nothing worked, as though nothing helped. Forgive me too, because I didn’t always put myself fully in your place. It’s so clear: when we neglect daily prayer, the Lord cannot guide us because we are no longer listening—and then we know very well who does guide us. And without our couple prayer, it becomes harder to see each other’s hearts, to share our intimacy… and we know who takes advantage of that.
Martha: Yes. Please, let’s help each other to be truly disciplined about this. Not a single day without prayer—so that we may learn to live with Jesus and in Jesus. He loves us so much!

Mother,

please help us to persevere in prayer. We want to live in you and, through you, in your Son.
Blessed and praised be the Lord! Glory to God!

How many rules imposed by society do we follow? Whom do we really want to please—God or people?
If we stop to think about it, the world constantly tells us what we should do, what we should think, how we should behave, how we should dress… and very often we go along with it simply to fit in, so as not to look “odd” or out of place.
We need to put our priorities in order: to know who our Lord truly is and to follow Him, shaping our lives according to His will. The same is true in marriage. We should not feel embarrassed about going to Mass, praying together, holding hands, showing affection, or even renouncing certain plans because they do not seem right. We are called to show the grace of being children of God and the beauty of the sacrament of marriage and family life.

Applied to Married Life

Mary: Darling, Lucy has invited me to spend four days at her beach house over Holy Week, with all the girls.
John Paul: What a great plan! Which days would it be? I could organise myself to work from home and look after the children. That way you could rest a bit and switch off.
Mary: I’m not sure this is what I should do. I’m going to Mass and I’ll place it in prayer—then I’ll be able to see things more clearly.
(After returning from Mass)
John Paul: Mary, I don’t know what the Lord said to you, but I’ve prayed about it too, and I think it would be better if you didn’t go. Holy Week is always a time we live as a family, in prayer, preparing ourselves for the Lord’s Passion. And also, as an example for the children, I don’t think it would be the best thing… don’t you agree?
Mary: Oh, John Paul, how I love you! The Lord showed me exactly the same thing. I love my friends very much, but these days are meant to be lived as a family, in prayer, uniting ourselves to His Passion. It’s also good for the children to see that following the Lord sometimes means saying no to certain plans. I’m not saying the plan is bad, or that anything wrong would happen—but right now, it’s simply not what I should do.

Mother,

help us to discern what the Lord wants for our lives, for our marriage, and for our family—and give us the strength to do it. Blessed be the Lord!

At that time: John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to Jesus, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins — and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.’

In today’s Gospel, Jesus presents Himself as the Bridegroom. This image is not merely symbolic: it reveals the way God relates to us and, very concretely, it sheds light on our conjugal vocation. Where the Bridegroom is present, there is joy, communion, and shared life.
When Jesus is asked why His disciples do not fast, He replies from the logic of love: when spouses are together, love is not lived through absence or deprivation, but through presence and celebration. Fasting makes sense when there is distance; love flourishes when there is encounter. In married life, this reminds us that the relationship cannot be sustained solely by sacrifice or rules, but by a change of perspective—learning to look at one another as God looks at us, and to rediscover the beauty of our marriage.
Jesus also warns that the days will come when the Bridegroom is taken away. This speaks of moments of crisis, silence, wounds, or routine that may appear in marriage. In those times, love is purified and expressed as fidelity, waiting, and self-gift, rather than immediate emotion. Fasting then becomes learning to love even when the closeness of the other is not “felt”.
This Gospel invites spouses to ask themselves: Do we celebrate one another’s presence as a gift? Do we know how to pass through times of absence without ceasing to love? Are we willing to renew ourselves so that love may remain new wine?
Christ, the faithful Bridegroom, walks with married couples so that their love does not wear out, but is transformed each day into a deeper and more fruitful covenant.

Applied to Married Life

Mother,