Your Marriage Magnifies a Magnificent Message

Roxane Salonen shares how joining Teams of Our Lady with her husband has inspired a belief in the power of Christ-centered marriages to change the world.

My husband, Troy, and I shouldn’t still be married. Our personalities often clash, we didn’t grow up witnessing healthy marriages, and we entered into this covenant broken, and remain so.  

But somewhere along the way, a miracle occurred. Despite moments in which the thread of our marriage seemed too thin and frayed to not break, God’s grace swooped in, creating new layers of protection that held us together.  

Now on the other side of some of the most challenging aspects of marital cohesion (namely, raising our five children), we find beautiful things unfolding; things not meant to be kept secret.  

Enter Teams of Our Lady 

This year, we dipped our toes into something I’d been hearing about for a while. Teams of Our Lady began in France in the early 1950s by founder Father Henri Caffarel. Though that name is likely unknown to you as it was to us, we are now feeling indebted to this holy and prophetic priest with a heart for widows and married couples. 

On our road to discernment of getting involved, the big guns of spiritual warfare began laying traps upon our path, leading us to say “No.” But through what seemed an unlikely reconsideration, we changed our answer to a “Yes” just before the gate closed, and we are deeply grateful.  

Since September, we’ve gathered monthly with five other Catholic couples and a priest for a meal, prayer, and to hold each other accountable in our vocations of marriage. It’s been a vitally important experience in so many ways. 

We need to journey with other couples striving toward Christ in this time. We simply cannot do it alone. Teams of Our Lady is among the resources I believe Christ Himself inspired to keep us steady and prepare us for the fraught times ahead. The wisdom and tireless efforts of Father Caffarel, whose thoughts we’ve been studying together over the past months, have been a beautiful guiding light. 

Advice from Father Caffarel 

As noted in our group booklet, “Father Caffarel, Prophet of Marriage (Extracts from his writings),” while commenting on the sexual revolution just starting to unfold then, he noted the evil arising that was “permeating people’s thinking and way of life.”  

“Far from being liberated, our western society is enslaved and undermined by this evil,” he said, adding, “It will not be long before co-habiting men and women outnumber married couples, divorces outnumber marriages, abortions outnumber births. And when the rafters are eaten away by termites…” 

He created Teams of Our Lady, he said, “to bring together couples who dare live out without compromise the Christian ideal of love, sexuality and marriage,” believing that through it, “a great purifying wind” would begin “blowing on the People of God,” and that men and women, “at least the most lucid among them,” would come to understand that “only Christ can heal the great human realities, especially marriage, and through it, save our civilization threatened with shipwreck,” adding starkly: “But time is short.” 

Father Caffarel understood the forceful capacity of the winds threatening the family, and how married couples would need strength to stand against them. I’d add that right now, the bar is quite low. We do not need to become international speakers or to have perfected ourselves and our families. No, we need only be striving, with God and others, through grace, to live out our vocation daily, leaning on the Lord of Life for strength, and others in friendship. It’s really that simple — and that difficult. 

We’ve Got This! 

Whether you’re blessed to be connected to such a group to help keep your marriage bound and bonded, I urge you to pray about what God is calling you to in your marriage in this time. And if you believe your marriage to be unworthy of such an endeavor, I beg you: denounce that lie. God’s got this, and so do you.  

Teams of Our Lady has reminded me of the importance of protecting this most sacred union, not just for us and our families but for the world’s salvation. I’ve come to believe that the simple act of holding fast to our marriages in today’s world, no matter how imperfectly, is a profound act of hope, and a magnificent sign to the world.  

Teams of Our Lady is among the strongholds God has inspired to provide a safety net for us as we face the gale-force winds. I encourage you to pray about becoming part of such a group with your spouse, making a bold and important step to secure your post and protect your sacred circle. 

You and I, and our spouses, were made for such a time as this! (cf. Esther 4:14) 

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Copyright 2025 Roxane Salonen
Images: Canva