Couples Speak

Oh, how great were the expectations I had for the year 2021!  2020 had been difficult for many of us. With the approach of the new year, I began to see that the devastating death toll from the Corona virus seemed to be waning worldwide, and there seemed to be reason for hope that soon there would be a vaccine that would end the dangers of becoming seriously ill or dying from the virus.

Bad News in Plenty

The racial rioting in our country that had been part of the daily news coverage and the resulting tendency to fashion every element of our history as racist seemed to be winding down in intensity. The Presidential election had finally come to pass, and we all anticipated that it would bring an end to the political rancor that was dividing Americans.

Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

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CRYSTAL

When I hear the words “spiritual accompaniment,’ my first thought is to look back to the experiences of the apostle Paul. He was not born an apostle of Christ; indeed, he was a zealous persecutor of Christians. However, through a series of events, both miraculous and mundane, he was introduced to a man named Barnabas, who guided him through the stages of being a new believer to becoming one of the greatest saints of all time.  Although Paul is the one who receives the most recognition and praise, it would be fair to say that Barnabas played a crucial role in Christian history.

Who are these men and women who are the teachers and guides of Christians, saints and sinners alike?  I am sure that most all of us have had some form of spiritual accompaniment, whether we would think of it in those terms or not. This certainly includes our parents, our teachers, and anyone in our past who helped form our understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ.  Those that stand out as exceptional are, like Barnabas, actively and intentionally guiding us with the recognition of our personal circumstances and personality traits.

Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

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CRYSTAL

If you want to make a successful Hollywood movie, you can be sure there is a winning formula in the following script: Man meets woman, they quickly fall in love, they move in together, they have a tragic misunderstanding which almost breaks off their relationship, the climatic moment of reconciliation arrives just in the nick of time, they embrace and declare their love for each other, then kiss for the final scene with a’ happy ever after’ feel as the camera pans out to a sunset.

This might be a little oversimplified, but this clearly is the view that many young women might have of the romantic possibilities of meeting Mr. Right and falling in love. In this worldview, if you meet the right person, you will be happy in a relationship with him or her for a lifetime.

After almost thirty years of meeting with engaged couples and married couples, Kevin and I can assure you that this expectation is far from the truth and in fact can lead the couple to unhappy relationships. Indeed, in today’s current environment in the United States, there is such a large number of couples who live together for years before their marriage that the romance of the early years is quite often gone by the time they get to the altar. Indeed, cohabitation can actually lead to a statistically higher chance of either breaking up before marriage, or divorcing within the next ten years.

Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

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CRYSTAL

In 1991, Kevin and I attended a Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend that changed our lives.  Though we had attended the required Marriage Preparation program in the Archdiocese of Chicago before our wedding, it wasn’t until we attended the married couple retreat weekend five years into our marriage (and when we were already struggling) that we heard for the first time that God had a plan for our marriage that was very different from the world’s plan.

We learned communication techniques that helped rebuild our trust in each other. We learned that love is a decision, not a feeling. We heard that God’s desire is for us to be passionately in love with each other, and that He is right there with us with the graces to make it happen.   As a result, we felt a calling to share this good news with other couples. We realized that the opportunity to live in love throughout the many seasons of marriage was being ignored, for the most part, by the Church at large.  Shortly thereafter, we began facilitating weekend retreats for other married couples, becoming actively involved in promoting the sanctity and health of married relationships.

Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

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KEVIN

When Crystal and I wrote the article last month on motherhood, I recall admitting that I had never really appreciated the great gift of my own mother and the impact that she had on my life. Providentially, it was only a mater of a few days before I was given the opportunity to reflect further on that as we prepared for her funeral Mass. She passed at the age of eighty-nine after several years of declining physical and mental health. It was a powerful and beautiful time made ever more precious by hearing so many friends and family members sharing tributes of her grace and beauty in their lives. Each remembrance evoked my own memories of the times when I witnessed her loving dedication and faithfulness that she so generously shared with family, friends and her faith community. I couldn’t help but see that much of what is good in me now is a result of the unwavering model of my mother’s love that she so graciously shared with me and my eight brothers and sisters. Because of her loving and faith-filled example, I have become better able to step into my own spiritual life and better reflect on and appreciate the joy and peace that God has in mind for all of us.

Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

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CRYSTAL

Past readers of this column may already know how much I enjoy reading the lives of the saints, following their trials and sufferings, their joys and accomplishments as they bring the Good News to the world. Because each one’s life experience is so unique, and the challenges they faced so diverse, I find myself entering into their stories with interest. I wonder how I might have fared had I been faced with the same challenges, as well as learning how I might, in some way, emulate their virtues.  Usually, I come up feeling quite challenged in both categories.

Moved to Tears

Perhaps it was for this reason that I was completely taken by surprise on my powerful reaction to a short essay by Anthony Esolen on the life of Saint John Bosco.  As lovely as it was, my reaction was not inspired by the beautiful story of how he founded the Salesians to minister to thousands of boys in his lifetime. It was the portion of the story that relates to his mother’s contribution. Esolen writes,

Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

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KEVIN

Greetings beloved Magnet family, or perhaps more appropriately, “Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor 1:3)  As I write to you this month, I am filled with a great appreciation for who we are as children of God, members of the same family, the Body of Christ.

Memories at Mother’s Funeral

We are just back from my beloved mother’s funeral.  My mom, Marie Louise, was a wonderful, faith-filled mother of nine children. While partings are always somewhat sorrowful, I find myself full of joy and hope. Marie was 89 years old and suffering with dementia over the last six years. She remained a faithful woman who regularly shared with the Lord her readiness to be called home. God blessed her with a peaceful death and I am sure a rousing welcome into eternal life.

While the sadness comes naturally as a result of the death of a loved one, joy returns quickly when I reflect on what is lost.  As the song writer Joni Mitchell once sang, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” The days leading up to the funeral Mass were filled with family members sharing vivid memories of a woman of great faith and service. We all remembered our mother gathering her rambunctious brood around the radio to pray the family rosary on a Saturday night or standing over a hot stove preparing another freshly cooked meal for that same crowd every night of the week. In retrospect, it appeared as a gift of true grace, Christ Himself loving and serving our family.  I felt so blessed by God to have only positive memories, especially since I know that isn’t always the case for others.  Nine Kids and seventy years of loving and giving… wow!

Dad: Not Perfect, but a Blessing

It was so easy to be flooded with grateful memories of my mother, but one of the surprise blessings of the past week was the call of the Holy Spirit to reflect on the blessing that my father Thomas was in my life and the life of the family.  …….

Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

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Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! 2020 has gone on its way!!!

I have to say I am a little amused by all of those who spent the last month of the year looking forward to year’s end as if somehow on January 1st everything would magically return to normal. It might have been refreshing if the longing was grounded in a newfound hope and faith in the Lord. However, almost universally it seemed to come from a sense of fatigue with the disruption and inconvenience to their daily lives. Most had not lost any family members or jobs or become ill themselves.  They were just becoming tired of no longer having control over their daily activities and those of their children.  They just had the universal belief that 2021 was going to be, somehow, magically, much better.  Needless to say it didn’t take long for that illusion to disappear in the United States.  Within the first week of the year, the frustrations and divisions that became the hallmarks of 2020 for so much of our country boiled over into a sad and demoralizing display of civil unrest. Instead of rising up and getting to work on a new and .better day, the nation has quickly sunk deeper into the divisive and political bickering that was always brewing under the guise of differing approaches to responding to the COVID-19 crisis. With the ‘gloves off’ we have quickly recognized that we have challenges well beyond this pandemic.

A Chance to Re-focus

The ever-growing crisis of division was as much a hallmark of 2020 as was COVID-19. To think that a change in the calendar would make a difference is foolish. As we look forward to the coming year, we do so with open eyes and with a recognition that the challenges to Gospel living remain significant. We do ourselves and others a disservice if we don’t take advantage of the lessons that 2020 presented us.  I like to think of 2020 as nearly year-long retreat experience.  On retreat we get a chance to refocus. We remove ourselves from our daily routines and are given the opportunity to examine how we are living our lives and to explore how we might better discover pathways to joy and peace.  Even for those not directly infected with the virus, COVID-19 definitely disrupted daily living. With so many of our daily activities eliminated or severely restricted, we found ourselves staying much closer to home. And much like on retreat, we had plenty of time alone to pray and ponder our life’s journey. As I intimated last month, there are good things we can take away from our 2020 experiences.  As we head into the real world of 2021, perhaps we can do so strengthened by things we have experienced and learned over the past year.

KEVIN

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This year, perhaps more than ever, most of us are happy to put the past year behind us.  The coronavirus has been an obvious dark cloud that has hung over the whole world for most of the year. Marked by loss of fundamental freedoms, increasing divisiveness and widespread economic hardship, 2020 could easily be viewed as a disaster.  The tremendous increases in addictions, abuse and suicide provide stark testimony to the hardships faced by so many in dealing with the changes wrought by the coronavirus and our society’s efforts to control the spread of the illness.  As people of faith, we would be remiss in not taking at least one last long look back at 2020 to see how the Holy Spirit may have used this time of struggle to remind us of some very important and beautiful truths.

Limitations and Benefits

One of the first impressions I recall from the early days of the pandemic was that we would be moving into a period of profound change that might endure for a long time.  As government officials quickly imposed controls, we came to realize that we had two choices: we could resist those changes or we could acquiesce and seek to find joy in other ways.  As we faced lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, Crystal and I soon found ourselves enjoying the simplicity of daily life. Freed from the distractions of our self-imposed busyness, we had a chance to enjoy more time to ourselves, rekindling an intimacy that comes from spending more time with each other.  It was wonderful to sense a renewed awareness of the needs of the other and a fuller acceptance of each other’s, dare I say, idiosyncrasies.

…….

Kevin Sullivan

The insights of this professional layman, who resigned early from his legal firm to do ministry full time together with his wife, may help us to understand the dignity and holiness of EVERY vocation. In India, don’t we use the word “vocation” to refer only or mostly to priesthood and religious life, and “vocation promotion” as the attempt to get more candidates to our religious order or diocese?—Editor

Each time I sit down to write this column, I am aware of the honour and privilege I am being given to share a little of my life with a group of people whom I admire and respect so deeply. You all have chosen to give your lives in service to the Lord and His people and for that I feel a strong sense of gratitude. The deeper I have gone in my faith journey, the more I have come to appreciate those who have shaped me and made it possible for me to find my own way back to the Catholic faith.  I have come to realize that there is little chance that I would be a practicing Catholic today if it wasn’t for the powerful example of the great priests and religious sisters whose lives of dedicated service made an everlasting impression on me. Likewise, impressions of faithfulness provided by my own parents were strong enough to help me to find my way back to faith after years of being seduced by the secular world

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