The Philosopher, Taylor Swift, and the Promise...

The podcast host asked the elderly man, as they reflected on life, faith, and marriage, “What advice do you have to someone watching who’s newly married or who is about to be?”

Pausing briefly, the man answered, “Do you think that when you are very old and your wife is very old and ugly and wrinkled, and fat, and not very bright or even nasty, that you will still find her beautiful? If so, marry her.” He continued, “The last view I had of my wife in the nursing home, about an hour after she died, I fell in love with her again. Here is a wasted, emaciated, wrinkled, suffering body." Then he paused again, visibly overcome with emotion, before gathering his thoughts and continuing, "It’s as beautiful as a crucifix, because that body ain’t going to last, but the soul is. So, if you don’t love her soul, but just love her body, then don’t get married.”

The guest was Peter Kreeft, a Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, a prolific author of over 100 books on philosophy, theology, apologetics, and Christian culture, and a husband to his wife Maria Antoinette for 63 years, until her passing late May at the age of 85. Kreeft is 89.

That remarkable and deeply profound answer turned Catholic social media into a frenzy. It repeatedly popped up on my feeds and well, it should have.

It’s the kind of wisdom that you can only grasp through experience, deep reflection, and faith.  It made the host, Matt Fradd, of Pints with Aquinas, tear up. And to be honest, it choked me up as well. Not that it’s saying much!  

I couldn’t help but think about my parents, who themselves have been married 63 years, and my grandparents, who were also celebrated over 60 years before my grandmother’s death several years before my grandfather passed.

It drives home the message that marriage is meant to last forever—at least on this side of the grave. It’s what we sign up for when we promise before God, friends, and family to “love and honor each other in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live.”

Contrast that with the recent marriage of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Everywhere you turned, it was in the media. Now, I really hope they've found everlasting love and that their wedding may serve as a conduit to more young couples wanting to get married. But what I fear is that what was being celebrated was less about "forever" and more about the celebrity union. And if it follows the path of so many celebrity marriages before it, today's celebration could give way to tomorrow's cynicism about marriage itself.

Putting Taylor and Travis aside, my wife and I have been married for over 28 years civilly and 18 years in the Catholic Church. So, we have a long way to go to get to 60, and I’m already fat, wrinkled, and probably not as bright as I once was. I hope my wife can still see the beauty! It’s in there, somewhere!

I always tell my children, “Love is not a feeling. It’s a choice. A choice you make every day.” Feelings come and go, but the promise, that commitment to love, remains forever.

It’s like faith. You want it to grow; you have to work on it. You want your marriage to last; you have to work on it. It’s not always easy. And I don’t think it’s meant to be. It’s about iron sharpening iron as we help each other, and our children get to heaven.

The great GK Chesterton once wrote, “Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.”

In marriage retreats my wife and I have spoken at; we often talk about the challenges we experienced when we got married. We come from different worlds and are both very stubborn, so obviously there were going to be clashes, such as over household chores. She hates doing laundry. I love watching Mets baseball, college football, and anything where I can sit on the couch and drink beer in peace. She hates watching me sit on the couch while she’s doing laundry. So, every time she came into the room, I had to look busy! We fought over family, how to raise our children, and expenses. Heck, we even fought about fighting so much! 

I remember one anniversary, probably our third, where we went to a very romantic, and quite expensive, little restaurant in Miami. It was the kind of place where they didn’t have a menu and sat about seven or eight tables. The waiter would ask if there were any allergies and the chef would cook—seven or eight courses. And the wine glasses? They would never be empty.

My wife and I got into a heated debate about family. It became tense in that small place and while we tried to keep our voices low, I’m a loud talker by nature, not to mention, very animated. I’m sure some of the surrounding tables were listening in to our elaborate discussion. Yet, we were loving our meals. We would stop whenever the waiter came to serve the next course or fill our wine glass, taste the food, say, “This is amazing,” and continue our argument.

Looking back, it was all part of the process. We never gave each other an “opt out clause” and were committed to the vows we took at the altar.

Fulton Sheen once wrote that marriage takes three. It’s not just about the husband and the wife. It’s also about God. And the more we grew in faith, the closer we grew to God, the closer we grew to each other, and the more we knew we had to make it work, first and foremost for the sake of our children, and ultimately for the sake of our eternal souls.

As St. Paul states in the First Letter to the Corinthians, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

We don’t just love the body. We love the soul and, when we love the soul, love never ends. Maybe that’ll be an upcoming Taylor Swift lyric!

That is the love that makes marriage last. The love that only comes in union with God. The love that can make a couple like Peter Kreeft and his wife Maria Antoinette, my parents, and grandparents remain faithfully married for over 60 years. And hopefully the love that my wife and I will share until death does us part…