Conceived Without Sin (27 page)

Joe took another deep breath. "Father Rocky said to me: 'The Catholic Church teaches that the first goal of marriage is the begetting and raising of children. Take responsibility for your family.' Then he added, 'And begetting is a matter of an evening, but the raising is a matter
of a lifetime.'

"What do you mean by that? I asked him. He told me that he believed every man has the heart of a Saint Joseph inside him–and when he sincerely approaches his relationship with his wife in terms of his responsibility to her as the mother of his children, he can and will master himself for the sake of his whole family.

"You lose your temper because you don't have control of yourself.
At those times your ego and your flesh takes over and you become more concerned about winning an argument with your wife than discovering what you both need for your children.

"When was the last time you asked her what was really bothering her? Go home and find out what's really going on in her heart, and then listen to her when she tells you what it is, trust your fatherly instincts, then act
on it. I believe in your fatherhood. You can do this, Joe.

"If you're a real man, you will do just that when you get home on Sunday night. And you'll find that most of your problems will begin to heal in a matter of months.

"But she'll wrap me around her little finger–that's what you want to tell me, isn't it? Father went on. And I bet you have a million reasons and objections to what she needs,
he told me.

"But I'm telling you, Joe Kemp, what really matters is that God put his trust in you to lead your family. I'm not asking you to obey your wife; I'm just asking you to orient your needs to hers.

"The father has got to be the first to lay down his life. That's what marriage is, Joe, laying down your life. It is a total gift. You can't offer that gift if you don't rule yourself. You probably
bite your tongue at work five times a week, yet you probably haven't bitten your tongue at home five times in the past month.

"I swear that the most invisible word in the world for husbands is
meekness.
Do you know what that word means, Joe? Do you know that Saint Joseph was meek and that's what made him a saint? Did you know that it takes strength to be meek? You have a good heart, Joe. You can
be like Joseph.

"Father was very encouraging, almost gentle. He truly believed that I had a good heart, and that I would take responsibility for Mary and our children.

"He helped save my family.

"He kept going. Father told me to do whatever it was that Mary needed, and that I would be surprised how she would be willing to serve her family in return. He told me to treat her like she was Grace Kelly
herself, to imagine what I would be willing to do if Grace Kelly showed up in my house and had my wedding ring around her finger.

"Would I let myself get into an argument with Grace Kelly? Would I anticipate her needs? What would my tone of voice be like? Would I make our home a place of order, prayer, and peace so she could do a good job with the kids? Would I help Grace Kelly be a good mom?

"He was a clever priest. I don't know how he knew Grace Kelly was my favorite movie star. Maybe he just guessed. I don't know.

"But I wasn't treating Mary like Grace Kelly. In fact, even though I claimed to love her, I was treating Mary worse than I would treat my mother, my dad, my kids, my subcontractors, or even my dog. He challenged me to be kind to her.

"Ironic, isn't it?

"The only person
who can 'reorient' your family toward holiness is you, Joe. That's what Father Rocky said. When he put it that way, it was like a lightbulb went on in my head. Instead of me wanting Mary to change, or Mary to do this, or Mary to do that, it was up to me to change, to get true control over myself. He appealed to my love for my family.

"I think most guys could understand that. We've got to stop
looking at our wives as an opponent we have to best in some verbal game. The way we win contests in the male world is the way we play sports or succeed in business: we go for the throat, we try to destroy the other guy. That doesn't work with women. You can win an argument with your wife, sure, but you might have to cut her up to do it. It might make us feel good to win in the short run, but it makes
her feel lousy. That's not much of an aphrodisiac, by the way.

"Father turned the tables. He told me that the real opponent I had to beat was myself. That if I wanted to really look at myself as a virtuous man, and a worthy father, I would have to win the contest in here first–" Joe pointed to his chest. "–in my heart, in my will. When I asked him how, he told me to do what Jesus did. Three things.
He told me to pray, to fast, and to give alms. I started doing all three more.

"The devil is so clever. He gets men to think they're men by having them dominate their wives. God helps men to be men by challenging them to master themselves. Nobody can make me do anything but me. Period. I believe that now. The Catholic teaching on virtue and the grace that comes from prayer and fasting gives me
the wherewithal to master myself. In the end, we don't even own our own bodies. The only thing we own is our will.

"I'm going on and on again, but I guess I made my point."

There was a long, heavy silence in the room. Mary leaned over and kissed her husband.

Mark had a question. "So what happened when you got home from the retreat?"

"It was like he changed completely," Mary said.

"I don't think
I changed," Joe said, but not in an unfriendly way. "I think I just started trying to be a good husband and good father
in another direction.
I never stopped trying to be a good husband, not through all our difficulties. It felt like I was simply switching tactics. It was like solving an engineering problem at work. I began 'practicing' self-control by fasting every week and praying in silence
after Mass, most times for fifteen or twenty minutes. With all my heart, I asked Saint Joseph to help me be like him.

"I went home determined to treat Mary like she was Grace Kelly. When I asked her what she needed from me, she seemed very skeptical. I'll never forget what she first asked me to do for her." He turned to her.

"I asked him to sit on the couch with me," Mary explained, smiling, a
loving look in her eyes as she gazed upon her husband's face. "I told him that I missed him, that I missed the Joe who dated me and fell in love with me, and that I missed how we used to sit on the couch before we got married in my folks' basement and just hang out."

Her face was like a newlywed bride's.

"When she asked me that, everything fell into place," Joe picked up from Mary seamlessly.
"I thought, first, that if Grace Kelly asked me to sit on the couch with her, I would do it without hesitating. Then I thought, Gee, that doesn't sound so difficult.

"So we sat on the couch after we got the kids down that night. It was pretty late, close to midnight. We talked small talk, we talked about our marriage. I wish I could say that all the talk went well, but it didn't. Not at first.
We fell into old patterns of complaining. But I was looking out for those patterns. It was like a game. I gave myself a point for every time I held my tongue. I kept saying to myself, Mary can't make me lose my temper. It's my responsibility to lead this discussion in a peaceful way.

"If I said a sharp word, I asked her to forgive me, just like I would ask Grace Kelly."

"I could tell he was trying
something new," Mary added. "He was giving me hope. I was still skeptical. But how could I not forgive him when he apologized in such a nice way? I didn't know at the time about the whole Grace Kelly thing, but I was seeing some of the old Joe, the Joe I fell in love with before we got married, coming out. His nobility was back. He was like a king. I was starting to feel like a queen.

"The old
wounds began to heal.

"It's funny, but I used to be miffed a bit about Grace Kelly. If I had known that he was making believe I was a beautiful actress, I would have been deeply offended. I'm not a beautiful actress, I'm me. I want Joe to love me. Even now, when he calls it a tactic, it sounds strange, wrong. And maybe it illustrates a mysterious reality: men and women don't see the world in the
same way."

Joe looked down at his hands.

"Look, I knew Mary is not Grace Kelly," he said a touch defensively. "And I guess Father knew that too. I don't think about Grace Kelly anymore. I was determined, willing to start with a very practical piece of advice from a priest I trusted.

"Every time I lost my composure that night, I was
aware
of it. That was the big difference. It had nothing to do
with Grace Kelly. And it wasn't so hard. It wasn't as hard as going to work each day. Especially with Mary cooperating. I could see that holding my tongue and avoiding the old arguments was healing her heart. She's a good girl."

"Before I knew it, we were holding hands. It seemed like we hadn't done that in ages," Mary took over. "I starting telling him all my complaints, expecting him to go into
his usual rationalizations. Instead, when he replied by saying things like, 'It must be hard living with a guy who is so chronically late that you can't plan a simple meal,' or, 'Honey, I can imagine how you might feel that way about it, even if I don't agree completely with the way you're saying it'–well, it was like talking with a whole new Joe. Or the old Joe from before we got married.
Better
than the old Joe." Mary finished, still smiling.

"And I found a sense of, well, power," her husband continued. "By controlling myself, and not trying to control Mary, suddenly I was in the driver's seat. The goal was no longer to get her to do something by convincing her how wrong she was or how right I was. The object was to get myself to do something for her sake and the sake of our children.

"It sounds weird, but when a father submits his will to whatever he believes is best for his family, in short, by taking responsibility, he's at peace, inside. At least that's how I felt. It's a paradox. Mary noticed my peace, my confidience. A good and loving woman like Mary will usually just need you to sit on the couch with her, to spend more time with the kids, to give up a few meaningless hobbies
for the sake of the family. A wife is a helpmate, you know."

Mary smiled broadly when he said this. Joe chuckled.

"And so we had a great time that night," she continued. "By three in the morning, we were hanging all over each other like teenagers. He leaned over and offered a kiss…"

"And nine months later, Ginny showed up," Joe finished, smiling.

"We don't know that for sure!" Mary teased.

"Hey,
who's telling this story, anyway?" Joe asked.

"We both are," Mary replied seriously.

"I guess you're right, Mary."

"So what happened next?" Bill White asked, genuinely curious, amazed by their story. He hadn't known that their marriage had ever been in such serious trouble.

"It took a few months to really get the schedule shifted around to accommodate, shall we say, the couch," Joe explained.
"But we managed. We shoot for three to five days a week on the couch, starting at nine or nine-thirty. Sometimes we have a glass of wine. Light a candle. The kids know to stay in their rooms.

"There is absolutely no agenda, except that this is time we spend together. Sometimes we pray. Sometimes we talk about the kids. Sometimes about the company. Sometimes about Mary. A lot of times about Mary.
I make sure I let things flow. Sometimes we just look into each other's eyes.

"After all these years, it's not that big a challenge keeping my temper anymore. Less television. Just me and Mary. It's our time to fall in love with each other. We did it before we got married, didn't we? Anybody who can fall in love with their spouse once, can do it again, I suspect. Heck, I know it. I fall in love
with Mary every other week now."

"That's so sweet, darling," Mary said.

"It's true," Joe replied. "You don't have to spend time on the couch, of course. I'm sure other couples could do Couch Time in bed at night, or by taking a daily walk. That's kind of tough in Cleveland, with the cold winters. Sometimes we go out to the deck in the summers."

"We both feel it when we go more than a few days
without it," Mary added. "Couch Time is alot like taking each other's emotional temperatures."

"I find that I've had to cut superfluous things out of my life to make the time," Joe added. "I quit my bowling league because it starts too late at night. I also spend less time being a workaholic, which I never enjoyed all that much anyway. The company is doing fine; God seems to have blessed my decision.
We're still driving older cars. It's a sacrifice we don't mind making."

"And it's got to be better for the kids to have their parents in love again," Bill added.

"I'm reoriented toward every person in this house now," Joe said enthusiastically. "The attention I lavish on Mary is a good fatherly habit that spills over to me putting my fingers right into the pie of each child's daily life."

Mark
had remained so silent for the last ten minutes that Joe, Mary, and Bill almost forgot that he was there.

"The kids pick up on it. For better or worse, I think they are more apt to treat each other the way Mary and I treat each other."

"Hmmn," Bill said, rubbing his chin. "Mark?"

"Yes, I'm listening to every word. Don't mind me, just keep talking," Mark said quickly.

"There's not much more to
say," Joe observed. "The more I gain control over my will, the more I'm able do what's best for everyone, the more Mary is able to do the same. We strive
together,
not
against
each other.

"I'm grateful to this day that Father Rocky didn't berate me. He believed in what he called my 'fatherly heart.' He challenged me to take responsibility in a Christlike way. It was like he tapped into, through
his priesthood, the depths of the love and generosity that God the Father has for His children, and that he knew that every father is capable of that kind of generosity. It was always in me, I guess is what I'm saying. We can all be a Saint Joseph.