On the evening of Valentine’s Day, Tim Roder had a question for the more than 100 married couples enjoying a candlelight dinner on a “date night” sponsored by the Diocese of Peoria: “What have you done for your marriage today?”

There was one catch. Roder told the couples they couldn’t say the best thing many had done for their marriage that Saturday, namely attending a Marriage Mass just hours earlier at which — led by Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC — they renewed their wedding vows.

Saying “it’s the little things that matter,” Roder urged the couples to ask themselves the “What have I done for my marriage today?” question every day.

“Make sure you do something, even if it’s insignificant,” he said.

At the Marriage Mass, Bishop Jenky called married couples “truly heroes of our diocese,” adding “when we look at you we see what love is all about.”

Before asking the couples to turn to one another and renew their marriage vows, Bishop Jenky said that committed married couples are “living sacraments of God’s love.” Recalling the Gospel story of how Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana, the bishop said God — through the sacrament of marriage — transforms “ordinary human beings with strengths and weaknesses” into reflections of the love of Jesus for the church.

On Valentine’s Day and every day, said Bishop Jenky, that is something to celebrate.

“We celebrate something much more beautiful than the things in culture that remind us of love and romance,” he told the couples, thanking them for “doing so much to build up the body of Christ” in our diocese.

Married couples also benefit society, said Roder in a brief presentation after the date night dinner, which was preceded by wine tasting and ended with a dessert of heart-shaped brownies.

Research has shown that married people live longer , enjoy better physical and emotional health, more wealth, and make productive, committed employees. Children raised in homes of committed married couples “do better in every category,” said Roder.