Once, a married couple was celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary (their silver wedding anniversary). They had a beautiful celebration with family, friends and co-workers. By the time everyone left, it was already late but they were finally alone and wanted to sit together for a while and talk. They started remembering different events during their marriage.
At some point, the husband said to his wife: “do you remember the first time I went to your house to eat, when you introduced me to your parents?” “Yes, I do,” she said. “Do you remember what you cooked?” “Yes, pasta, your favorite dish,” she said, “and since then I have cooked pasta twice a week for you, although I do not like it.”
“You don’t?” he asked and then continued: “you know what?” “No,” she answered. “Well, I do not really like pasta, I thought you liked it.” “But, that night you said that you love my pasta.” “Yes,” he said, “but I just wanted to appreciate you because you tried your best to cook for me and I did not want to disappoint you by saying I do not like pasta.”
“My goodness!” she said, “so we have been eating pasta since then out of love and selflessness, but neither of us wanted to eat pasta! Thanks for remembering that day! Now we are free of that penance!”
This beautiful love story can help us to understand something that is essential in love and in the Gospel, since the spirit of the Gospel is charity: self-renunciation. In order to practice self-renunciation this story gives us some important advice.
If you ask how, after 25 years of marriage, they didn’t realize that neither of them like pasta, the answer is because neither of them complained to the other one about the pasta. They both ate the pasta in order to make the other one happy, without letting the other one realize that they do not like pasta.
Many times, we renounce ourselves, however we want the other person to realize that we are making a renunciation or sacrifice for him. This story is about a secret between oneself and the love one had for the other, which is essential in love. If we miss this, we will also miss true love.
