Marriage is not a lifelong attraction of two individuals to each other, but a call for two people to witness together to God’s love. . . . [The] intimacy of marriage itself is an intimacy that is based on the common participation in a love greater than the love two people can offer each other. The real mystery of marriage is not that [two people] love each other so much that they can find God in each other’s lives, but that God loves them so much that they can discover each other more and more as living reminders of God’s divine presence. They are brought together, indeed, as two prayerful hands extended toward God and forming in this way a home for God in this world.
The same is true for friendship. Deep and mature friendship does not mean that we keep looking each other in the eyes and are constantly impressed or enraptured by each other’s beauty, talents, and gifts, but it means that together we look at God, who calls us to God’s service.
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