‘Marriage is the beauty of love brought to full maturity’

By Rocio Granados - La Voz Catolica

Photography: CRISTINA CABRERA JARRO | FC

MIAMI | When they met, “I couldn’t stand him. In fact, I didn’t like him at all,” stated María Cabrera about her husband, Juan.

“She was a customer of the garage where I worked, and I used to leave a loose screw in her car so that she would have to come back,” remembered her husband.

Since he is 10 years older, she told him that he was “a little old” and suggested that he should go out with people his own age. But he insisted. “He would leave me carnations in my car in the morning or little cards with beautiful love messages,” she recalled.

Then, one day, “I said, ‘This is the one.’ Now it’s been 40 years, and here we are,” shared María.

Both were divorced and were able to have their marriages annulled so they could get married in the Church.

These 40 years have gone by “very fast” and it has been “hard work,” said María. “But I don’t really remember any bad times. Life is difficult and marriage is not easy; it’s a balancing act. One day he is in a bad mood, and I may feel like strangling him; another day, I am the one who is in a bad mood, and I am sure that he wants to grab me by the throat. That’s why it’s such a balancing act, and we must learn to always be in the middle to maintain this relationship.”

María also shared some advice. “Anyone who gets married thinking that if it doesn’t work out, they will divorce, they shouldn’t get married, because it won’t solve anything.”

“As the saying goes, ‘It’s for better or for worse, until death do us part,’” she said after the Mass honoring couples celebrating wedding anniversaries in the Catholic Church.

The Mass was presided over by Archbishop Thomas Wenski Feb. 15, 2025 at St. Mary Cathedral in Miami.

The Mass, which was originally planned to honor couples celebrating one, 25, and 50 years of marriage, now also includes couples marking other anniversaries. This year, 135 couples participated, most of whom were celebrating between 50 to 65 years of marriage.

This annual celebration is always held on the weekend closest to Valentine’s Day and also coincides with National Marriage Week, which this year took place Feb. 7-14.

In his homily, Archbishop Wenski noted that statistics show that less than half of American households today are made up of married couples and, for the first time in history, there are more people who are not married. This category includes those who have never been married, those who have not yet been married, and divorcees. “It is a serious problem that affects their children and their grandchildren,” he said.

But “today, we see in these couples the beauty of marriage, the depth and beauty of love brought to full maturity; a mature love that knows true freedom because it is committed, a love tested and purified in the crucible of suffering and sacrifice,” continued the archbishop.

“Marriage is difficult; marriage is hard, but ‘blessed are they,’ because God does not deny them His grace,” added the archbishop, and several couples who shared their stories proved him right.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Gisela and Manuel Alfonso met on Dec. 31, 1975, while waiting for the New Year. After a month, he asked her to be his girlfriend, and after a year, they got married in St. Mary Cathedral, almost 50 years ago.

Manuel fell in love “with Gisela’s eyes.” For her, their marriage was “God’s plan.” And to reach 50 years of marriage, “you need to have a lot of patience, pray a lot, and turn to the Lord,” said Gisela.

When you have a problem, “remember what it was that made you fall in love; go back to the beginning,” Manuel advised.

 

‘GOD GAVE ME EVERYTHING I ASKED FOR’

Carolina and Roberto Ramírez met almost two years ago. At the time, Roberto was attending the St. John Bosco Church in Miami, and a friend from the parish told him that the Virgin Mary would bring him a Nicaraguan girlfriend, just like him. But he asked the Blessed Mother for an “American” girlfriend.

He moved and began attending St. Raymond Church in Miami, where he met Carolina, then a novice with the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary. “She was always so cheerful,” said Roberto, who kept praying to God for an American girlfriend.

At first, Carolina wasn’t open to dating anyone, but she said it was her fellow Sisters of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts who encouraged her to see him as a friend and to date him.

“The Lord opens the way He wants. He was opening my heart,” Carolina said.

After a period of dating, Roberto learned that Carolina was born in this country to Nicaraguan parents and was a novice. “It was like God gave me everything I asked for; it was exactly like that, and everything has been a blessing from Him,” said Roberto.

To ask her to marry him, Roberto prayed to the Lord and said, “If you are alone in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, I will ask her to marry me.”

“We went in that day, and He was alone,” Roberto remembered. “So, I said, ‘This is the day.’” She said yes, and they got married a year ago.

 

‘THE BLACK SAINT IS TO BLAME’

After becoming widowed, Dani Rodríguez and Avelino Pérez met through a Catholic dating website two years ago. Dani was living in her native Peru, and Avelino in Miami.

Their relationship began when Dani saw on Avelino’s profile that he was devoted to St. Martin de Porres, a Peruvian saint to whom she was also devoted. Although Avelino does not remember how this devotion appeared on his profile, he believes it was his mother, also a devotee of the saint, who “whispered it to me from heaven,” he said.

After knowing each other for nine months, they were married a year ago at St. Martin de Porres Church in Homestead. “Of course, because, as he says, ‘the black saint is to blame,’” Dani commented with a smile.

“We are very happy; we have never fought,” she said, adding that they both have previous marriage experience—he was married for 30 years and she for 28— “and this time we are doing better; we are at a different stage in our lives.”

The couples who took part in the celebration received a flower, a certificate, and also had the opportunity to have their photo taken with Archbishop Wenski. This year, the photos and certificates were sent to them by email.