A Story Of More. Of Marriage. Of Empathy.

Let me tell you the story.

Of a wife who thinks.

And she thinks.

And thinks.

Thinks more.

Thinks more, reads more, about the sacrament of matrimony.

One word comes to her mind.

Empathy.

Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.

And it comes to her.

How hard it must be to live with her, day in, day out. She feels empathy for her spouse ~ he,who, in the words of the encyclical Familiaris Consortio ( Pope John Paul II) relives the very fatherhood of God :

In revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God, a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family: He will perform this task by exercising generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother, by a more solicitous commitment to education, a task he shares with his wife, by work which is never a cause of division in the family but promotes its unity and stability, and by means of the witness he gives of an adult Christian life which effectively introduces the children into the living experience of Christ and the church.

She thinks...Effectively introduces both his children and his wife to the living experience of Christ and the Church. She remembers how he, her spouse, has worked hard, stood by her all these years, drawn her to the Church with his regular attendance at Sunday mass, with his frowns at her wayward tongue, his reminders, his example.

And she thinks again. Reads more. Cringes. With empathy.

I knew, despite the good and joyful nuggets of our daily life, that it was a difficult — harrowing — proposition for him to live with someone who is so voluble and indiscreet and extravagantly enthusiastic, someone who is always saying “yes, yes, yes!” What a burden it must be, I must be,....Finding Forgiveness in a Ziploc

So she thinks Ah, yes. She must be that burden. That overly enthusiastic, overly energetic, overly bubbly, over-the-top, on-the-go, saying yes-to-all-activities burden. And she feels that empathy for, an understanding of, her spouse.

And , then, she thinks ~ what to do with this empathy?

I make a point to remember that the temperament of my husband, the temperament of that patrol boy, is my salvation. It is beyond the call of duty and maybe even love that he makes the effort, time and again, to keep me from running into traffic.
The second friend said, “But in order to maintain that perspective you have to reach within yourself to such a deep place.”
This is true. But like any exercise, any devotion, it’s a practice. And even if it doesn’t become easier, one hopes it becomes habit. More from Finding Forgiveness in a Ziploc

She continues to think. To resolve to make the exercise of empathy a daily habit. Like her devotion to the prayers in her missal. Like her daily workout.

She can put on the cloth, the scarf, of empathy. She can pray the prayer of a wife.

Daily.