Doesn’t anyone in marriage know how to quarrel and make up any more, asks yet another desperate father of a separated daughter.

One expects marriage to be fraught with problems. It never was a picnic. What is our society coming to, the father adds.

Like balsam comes the story of a couple, Henry and Ineż Casolani, now servants of God, whose exemplary married life drew admiration from all who knew them. And, yet, it all seems so within our reach if only we had eyes to see.

Their way of life does not present anything out of the ordinary. The originality of their virtue lies in the manner in which they harmoniously fused faith and daily events, as one witness notes.

The Casolanis lived for each other in union with God from the moment they pronounced their matrimonial vows in 1944.

Says Dominican Bishop George Frendo: “They were always happy, a happiness that was a witness of the presence of God in their midst united in prayer as they were.” Both Henry and Ineż surrendered themselves to long and painful illnesses with Christian fortitude. Ineż wrote about a new illness: “I thank God for this new bouquet. These are the marvels of life. I am in His hands and I accept all He sends me joyfully.”

When Ineż passed away in 1992, Henry, although evidently devastated, accepted his beloved wife’s loss with an exemplary spirit of faith and with the firm conviction that his ‘saintly wife’ was in heaven.

Pope Francis highlights that “With trust in God’s faithfulness, everything can be faced responsibly and without fear. Christian spouses are not naïve; they know life’s problems and temptation but they are not afraid to be responsible before God and before society.

“They do not run away, they do not hide, they do not shirk the mission of forming a family and bringing children into the world”.