While we are blessed to witness so many couples in our parish who have been married for so many years (40, 50, 60, or even more), the reality is that the success rate of marriage in the United States is still only about 50%, (including 41% of first-time marriages). This is tragic and obviously affects many more people than the couple themselves starting with their children. As many of you have concerns about your children and grandchildren when it comes to the civil dissolution of so many marriages, I want to share with you what Matthew Kelly shares in one of the chapters of his book, "33 Days to Eucharistic Glory", a book that I hope to have in everyone's hands by Christmas this year. On Day 17, he makes a claim about married couples in a city in Bosnia-Herzegovina that is hard to believe. There are approximately 30,000 inhabitants in the city of Siroki-Brrijeg and there has not been a single recorded case of divorce there in recent memory! This is a country in which Catholics have experienced much suffering due to religious persecution. Through this they have learned and are passing on an EPIC lesson, sacrifice and salvation are inseparably connected. In part, this has played itself out through the development of a unique wedding ritual (which I was introduced to and used at the wedding of one of my nephew's (Zach) to his now wife (Alyssa). On the day of their wedding, the couple brings a crucifix to church where it is blessed by the priest during the wedding ritual and these words are said to the couple: "You have found your cross. And it is a cross to be loved, to be carried, a cross not to be thrown away. During the exchange of vows, the bride places her right hand on the crucifix and the groom places his hand over hers. The priest places his stole around their hands, and therefore around the cross too. After exchanging their vows, the first kiss is not between them, but rather both kiss Jesus on the cross, and only afterward kiss each other. After the ceremony is over the newly married couple takes the crucifix to their home and display it prominently somewhere in their home and daily (and consciously) bring their hopes, dreams, struggles, worries, gratitude and sorrows and lay them at the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ! They kiss the cross every night before they go to bed, and when they have children and the children are old enough, they too kiss the cross each night after their parents do. Kelly says in this booklet, "Love and sacrifice are inseparable. Suffering and salvation are inseparable! In a fallen world, broken by selfishness, and bent out of shape by pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, sloth and gluttony, love requires sacrifice." (pg. 83) Jesus's life was a life of love and sacrifice which culminat-ed in his death on the cross and brought redemption and salvation to the human race! Whether it be married life, single life, or religious life, Jesus and his example are there for us to reflect on and imitate daily and all of us can and should literally or figuratively kiss the cross every day and experience the many blessings that come to married couples and individ-uals whose love is given first to Christ and then to others in Christ-like ways!