Card. Nichols (Westminster), “Using the right language to invite young people to take up the challenge of marriage”

“In marriage preparation, we try to balance the call to love one another with the innate call to welcome the gift of children. Planning a family together is a great privilege.” Card. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, said this at the Dublin World Meeting of Families, in his keynote lecture on “Support and Preparation for Marriage in the Light of Amoris Laetitia.” He indicated that “love which includes sacrifice, forgiving, and healing.” The cardinal is aware that “all enter marriage with wounds, big and small, from the past: disappointment, pain, a sense of failure, or loss of self-esteem.” “These and many other pains,” he said, “can be appeased and transformed by this new and lasting relationship, sustained by our love and prayer.” When speaking to young people, in his opinion, “it’s necessary to use the right language” in order to “appeal to their capacity for generosity, inviting them to take up the challenge of their vocation with enthusiasm, courage. and heroism.” Regarding marriage preparation, Card. Nichols emphasized the need to “direct the gift of sexuality, the gift of the body, as a vital part of the fruitfulness of marriage.” “In marriage, one lives love very deeply not only with one’s hands but even more powerfully through the bodies.” Finally, the cardinal, quoting Amoris Laetitia, invited the participants to remember that “marriage preparation is a ‘journey.’” “Marriage preparation is not something done once and for all. It continues throughout life in the project building the future together, accepting one another as incomplete beings, in need of growth.”