Knowing Jesus is the best gift that any person can receive, that we've encountered him as the best thing that's happened in our lives, and making him known by our word and deeds is our greatest joy.

Ave Maria Radio presents Christ is the answer with Father John Ricardo.

He's a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit and is currently the executive director of a non-profit organization called Acts 29,

which exists to work with pastors on their teams to transform their parish culture and reclaim the church's missionary identity.

He was ordained in 1996.

While studying for his licention in sacred theology, Father Ricardo

concentrated on marriage and family life.

He wrote his dissertation on Ephesians

Chapter 5. That's the chapter on marriage where husbands are commanded

to love their wives as Christ loves his church.

Father Ricardo's talk on this edition is titled simply Ephesians 5.

As we begin tonight, let's once again ask our Lord to be with us, to bless us with His Holy Spirit and with

illumination and with grace. So we pray in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful, and of the Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful, once again, for the tremendous gift of life.

We thank you for your love for us, which is most visibly manifest in your son who has become flesh,

who in the incarnation has made a marriage of God and humanity, forever uniting to the divine nature, our nature.

Father, we thank you for your faithfulness, for your mercy, for your goodness, and your power.

Lord, we pray tonight in a special way that you would continue to deepen our understanding of the great sacrament that is marriage.

Lord, help us to learn more how we are supposed to live this sacrament, how we can find fulfillment, how we can find happiness, how we can allow your grace to more genuinely and authentically penetrate us

so that we can make of our lives a sincere gift to our spouse.

Father, I pray in a special way that your Holy Spirit would descend upon all the couples

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