September 9.  When Joyce read in a marriage book that you make many marriages over a lifetime, not with different people but that you become different people over the years, and so marriage has different stages, it really made sense to her. She thought, ”Clive certainly isn’t the same person I married 42 years ago and I’m quite sure I have changed too. Change surely is a normal development on psychological and spiritual levels.” She smiled as she thought, “Imagine how we would have managed if I had stayed that simple naive romantic idiot I was back then. I know what helped us were the graces of the sacrament of Marriage, the ability to heal and to forgive, even unconditionally.” (Check out The Fiddler on the Roof – Tevye asking Golde “Do you love me?” )

”Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Coll 3: 13

Pope Francis:  In speaking of God’s original plan for man and woman Jesus reaffirmed the indissoluble union between them. God’s indulgent love always accompanies our human journey; through grace it heals and transforms hardened hearts, leading them back to the beginning through the way of the cross.   AL62. The third and fourth ages are as manifold and varied as older people themselves, and each of us prepares for old age, and the way we experience it, in the course of our own life. Pontifical Council for the Laity, The Dignity of Older Persons.       

ECO-TIP AND PRAYER:  Connect with a new older person. Discover their needs and offer help.  Pray for the elderly in need. Glory be…..