The joy of the Gospel is precisely for those who, having found the fullness of life, are free and easy, ready to welcome every novelty and willing to make themselves available to all and sundry. It is God who has placed hunger and thirst for happiness in the heart of each man. There is pleasure and there is joy. Pleasure is tied to the body, while joy is entirely spiritual; it is the happiness of the soul. Pleasure is fleeting, and cannot exist alongside the suffering and trials of life, whereas joy can accompany even the greatest pain.

The road of happiness starts with the single individual and extends to others. True joy, in fact, flourishes in giving, but giving requires forgetting oneself and the death of the self, following the example of Jesus, of Mary and of Saint Joseph.

At the Angel’s Annunciation, Mary accepted God’s call that chose Her, that separated Her from the others, asking Her to relinquish Her human plans. The same occurs in the case of Saint Joseph, who obeys God’s will and design. Both forsake their dreams and accede to embracing the novelty of a story that is greater than they. Open to God’s design, to whom nothing is impossible, they assume an attitude of listening in obedience, starting to live an enchanting conjugality and a mysterious parenthood, even in the midst of the difficulties and hardships of every human family. Tarrying absorbed in contemplation in the Holy House of Loreto there come to mind images of family life, customary, ordinary, in which each family member is attentive to the human and spiritual growth of the other. The normal actions of any family; but what is extraordinary is the way everything is accomplished in the absolute gratuitousness of reciprocal giving and the total surrender to the will of the Father. Jesus, Mary and Joseph give new meaning to obedience, conceived not as a burden to be borne but rather as service to be rendered in love.

Matrimony starts with a call on two levels: the individual call to come out of oneself to realise the ‘we’ of the couple, through the giving of oneself; and the call to the ‘couple’ to realise, through marriage, God’s call. Between the call and the goal there lies the toil of the journey: from ‘I’ to ‘you’ and from ‘we’ to ‘compliance to Christ’. The walk towards the goal takes the shape of a path of saintliness. It is daily life, in fact, that is the site of the call to saintliness. Sainthood is the ‘gift’ and starts with a call; it is a ‘path’, that is a spur to emerge from one’s selfishness, to embrace God’s design of living together with one’s spouse.

Love entails coming out of oneself; it is exuberance. The Holy Ghost, moreover, can be defined as the ‘ecstasy of God’, the ‘standing outside oneself’ by God. And spouses are called to experience God’s love itself, living in full communion with God that is holy: “Just as he who called you is holy, so you too be holy … for it is written: ‘You will be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1,15-16).

John Paul II frequently affirmed that the family is strictly tied to the design of salvation because it is the primary site of the announcement of the Gospel and it is the Gospel itself. In his “Novo Millennio Ineunte” he summons the Church of the new millennium to look to its fundamental vocation that is the universal call to sainthood, as affirmed in the Council, and indicates the family as a privileged way, inasmuch as it is to the family that the mission is entrusted to ‘safeguard, reveal and communicate love’ to keep faith with its commitments: serving life, and participating in the mission of the Church and of society (FC 17). The current crisis in the world community has been interpreted by the Holy Father as the loss of religious meaning, as the eclipse of God that has heavy repercussions on marriage and on the family. Hence his warm invitation to Christian spouses to invoke Mary, Mother of Jesus, as the one who paved the way for the coming of the Saviour into the heart of bewildered mankind that seeks happiness outside God, finding only an empty sham resemblance of truth, “cracked pots that do not hold water”.

Regrettably, today many spouses, who profess themselves Christian, seek happiness in terms of ‘quantity’ pursing increasingly intense pleasures and emotions, forgetting that in God alone one is really happy: “Seek joy in the Lord, he will grant the wishes of your heart” (Psalms 37,4). Mary is the Mother of God and of the Church, of all mankind redeemed by the blood of Her only begotten son Jesus, thus it is to Her that spouses must turn in the difficulties they encounter in their journey as couples. It is to Her, who is also the ‘treasurer of God’, that they should address the ‘nuptial yes’ to fidelity, to everlasting love and to mutual forgiveness, above all when it requires a supplement of faith, of love, of trust and of giving. Mary is always by the side all of Her children, especially where love is lacking or is not operative in all its fullness. She is close to spouses with preventive graces, but She must be invoked and emulated in Her faith and in Her total ready and persevering “Here I am!”.

The French writer Charles Peguy recounts that he spent large part of his life far removed from the faith. He did not manage to say his ‘Our Father’ but spontaneously he could invoke ‘Hail Mary, Hail Mary’. And it was precisely through the potent intercession of the Mother that he rediscovered grace and joy and his faith. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the exemplary icon of fidelity to the divine plan, whence all spouses should award to Her a privileged place in their conjugal relationship, in order that it might be constantly inhabited by Jesus and the Holy Ghost as dispensers of joy. Each person has great need of that joy that gushes forth from living God’s plan every day without withholding anything for oneself and instead giving all, making oneself small and humble to sing the “Magnificat” with Mary. In this song of praise Mary is the voice of all mankind and of all of creation that acknowledges God for what he is. He is the Strong, the Powerful, he is Mercy, Tenderness, Salvation, Love that demolishes man’s inaccessible limits and takes care of his people, not as a servant but as a son created in his own image.