Sometimes a few simple words catch us off guard. That happened to us recently when we read about Bishop Nicholas Hudson’s homily at the annual Mass for Marriage at Plymouth Cathedral in the United Kingdom.

Speaking to couples celebrating their wedding anniversaries, the bishop shared memories of his parents, married for 52 years. His mother would often remind him — usually just after a minor tiff with his father — that marriage isn’t easy.

One time, leading up to Easter, she admitted she had already broken her personal commitments to God. Twice. Her sin? Nagging her husband!

Still, the bishop insisted, they had a great marriage. On their golden anniversary, with his mother in hospital, his father stayed by her bedside all day. All they had wanted, she later told her son, was to be together.

The Sacred Heart Reveals the Meaning of Mercy

Reflecting on what his parents taught him, Bishop Hudson offered a line we haven’t stopped thinking about: “Marriage is a vocation to forgive.”

To forgive, he explained, means putting up with each other’s frailties. Not a vocation to romance, or compatibility, or even happiness. A vocation to forgive.

That phrase stayed with us as we recently celebrated the Feast of St Margaret Mary Alacoque on 16 October. Over several years, this French Visitation nun received a series of visions in which Jesus revealed His Sacred Heart burning with love, encircled by thorns, and wounded by our indifference.

Those visions in 1673-5 became the foundation of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. And what do we find there? Mercy — a love that keeps reaching out to us even after we have wounded it.

Jesus Christ doesn’t keep a ledger of our offences. He simply gives us His mercy — freely, completely, every time.

Bringing Christ’s Mercy into Family Life

Here’s what resonates with us: what happens in the ‘big’ Church is meant to be mirrored in the ‘little’ one. The Church calls the family a domestic church — a microcosm of the whole. Mercy begins at home.

As husband and wife, we are a living sign of the nuptial love between Jesus and his bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:25-32). So, if Christ’s heart is a heart of mercy, then as husband and wife, we are called to make that same mercy present around the kitchen table.

How?

• By accepting a sincere apology without making the other grovel.

• By choosing not to drag last year’s mistake into this week’s argument.

• By bearing with the habits that grate on us — the forgetfulness, the wet towels on the floor, the nagging.

And it’s apologising readily, even when we’re only partly to blame.

Truthfully, this is a high bar and can feel impossibly demanding — after all, none of us is the Sacred Heart.

Some hurts take a long time to heal, and genuine forgiveness never means pretending harm didn’t happen or tolerating abuse.

Choosing Forgiveness Over Pride

Most days, though, what stands in the way of mercy isn’t a ‘great betrayal’. It’s our pride — we want to be right more than we want to be reconciled.

That’s exactly why we can’t do it alone. The mercy we offer each other is first received — in prayer. The more we allow Jesus to forgive us, the more his heart becomes ours.

Bishop Hudson’s parents weren’t perfect. They squabbled; they nagged. But fifty-two years of small acts of forgiveness added up to a wonderful marriage – and a son who now preaches about it.

Maybe that’s the point. We will never get it right every time. But every “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you” are steps in the right direction. Rather than focusing on wanting to be right, perhaps focusing on being first to forgive is a better strategy for both of us.