Marriage in today's society has been trivialized. No more emphasis on the covenantal bond that will be established. No more giving of oneself completely to each other. No more respect for what marriage truly is. Marriage is just not about the day that it happens. It's more than the dress. It's more than the family members, it's more than the honeymoon. Marriage is "the matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by it's nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament." (CCC 1601). Let me delve deeper into this.
A covenant is a kinship bond between two parties, with conditions or obligations, established by an oath or it's equivalent. This is the master theme of the Bible. It is God's way of drawing humanity into a familial relationship with him through divine oaths. Basically, it's God's love affair with the human race. God wants us to draw ever nearer to him and he has established these covenants in order for us to become his sons and daughters. We are to pattern our marriages after the covenants that God has established. In the New Testament, these covenants are wonderfully preserved and ratified through the 7 sacraments. A man and a woman don't just promise to love each other for the rest of their lives, they are entering into a covenant of kinship and creating their own family with God at it's center. This partnership is to be patterned after Christ's love for his Bride, the Church which is the marriage covenant par excellence.
Marriage by it's nature (the essential character of a person or thing) is ordered towards an ultimate good and end which is Heaven and eternity with God. We are to prepare ourselves and our spouses for eternity with God. The graces that come with marriage because of it's sacramental nature can orient husband, wife, and their children to the greatest of all good. Naturally, man and woman come together not only for pleasure but for the creation and propagation of offspring. This is a natural order and a natural outpouring of the love between a man and a woman. It is a participation in the Holy Trinity that is God. Because God is 3 in 1 we too are supposed to be witnesses to the nature of God. It's how we are created. "The two shall become one flesh." We enter into the most sacred of all spaces when we go to the marriage bed. (This has been lost in today's culture and society. People tend to forget God and focus only on their own pleasures. This is one way the Devil has subverted humanity towards its own demise and destruction. Thank God for the Church.)
Why are children seen as a hindrance? Why are children murdered in the womb? How have we come to this? People don't trust God anymore and it is disheartening. We have to change the culture from death to life. We have to be God's hands on earth. We have to have the courage to stand for what is right. Children are a blessing and until we remember that, we must work to change attitudes and misconceptions. Are you ready to do that? A culture and people who kill their most innocent is a sad culture indeed. Only when marriage is truly seen for what it is can this attitude shift. Paterning it after Christ's is the way.
The covenant is at it's best when the spouses are both baptized. Why do they have to be baptized? Because "through baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission." (CCC 1213-74). We have graces available even more when both parties are baptized. Unequal yoke is cautioned against in the Scriptures. However, if one person is not baptized, the grace of the sacrament of marriage is still there and in God's time and grace the spouse not baptized could come to the waters of regeneration.
Marriage is a sacrament simply because Christ ratified and made new the creation of God. Christ's life and death and Resurrection were all for the Church, his spotless Bride. Christ's bride must be spotless. God will not unite himself to something that is not. That is what marriage is about: Christ's love for his Church. Husbands are to "love your wives as Christ loves the Church...this is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church" (Eph 5:25,32) says St. Paul. You must be willing to give your everything for your spouse, including your life if need be.
In connecting this post with the main theme of this blog, since we are to pattern our marriage after that of Christ to his Church, there can be only one church; a visible church, one where you can actually see the bond of covenant between God and his people. Christ does not have many churches as his one bride but one Church, one people, one covenant. Christ is not a polygamist. It is logical to conclude and right that this one church, this one bride is nothing other than the church Christ established himself, the one, holy, apostolic, Catholic Church.
