I announce a great joy!

My girlfriend, Christina, and I are now engaged to be married! On Saturday, I took her to a nice dinner on the waterfront in Carlsbad, CA (just south of Oceanside), and afterward, we went for a nice walk along the beach. After a while, we sat down on a bench overlooking the ocean, and I proposed!

We are looking forward to embracing the profound sacrament of matrimony and the ultimate gift of mutual love for God and for each other, which our Catechism describes as that which "becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man." A magnificent vocation! Please pray for us and for our preparation for this sacrament.

We haven't decided upon an actual date for the marriage ceremony, but we are looking toward next summer. I would like to use this blog as a place to reflect upon the sacrament of matrimony and our marriage preparation as we get closer! For those of you who are married, this may probably be nothing new; but then I would appreciate reading your reflections as well!

I want to start by posting the great challenge of St. Paul to husbands from his letter to the Church at Ephesus (Ch. 5:25-32):

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

"For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Marriage is indeed a profound mystery, and what more challenge is there than to love your wife even as Christ loved the Church!