This week, like the second week of each month, I want to share some wisdom about marriage.  Don’t worry, you won’t be hearing “wisdom” from my own measly 4.5 years of marriage.  This wisdom comes from the teachings of the Church, founded almost 2,000 years ago by Jesus Christ and given the authority to teach in His Name.  A slightly more trustworthy source, I’d say.

Marriage is a natural institution

Let’s start at the beginning.  What is marriage?  According to the Magisterium (that’s the teaching arm of the Church, writing here in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or CCC), marriage is the “indissoluble” (unbreakable) “union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning (CCC, 1614).”

In the very first chapter of the Bible, God creates Adam and his wife, Eve (Gen. 1:26-27).  Eve is Adam’s “helpmate,” a word that, far from implying inferiority, is most often used in the Bible to describe God in His role as Israel’s helper.  Marriage is established right here in the first chapter of the Bible as a natural institution, filling the intrinsic desire of the human heart to love and be loved freely and fully.

Sadly, in disobeying God when they ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree, Adam and Eve damaged the covenant of family life God had perfectly designed for them (Gen. 3).  But, as always, God had a plan…

Marriage is a Sacrament

In the fullness of time, God sent his only Son to be born into and raised in a human family with married parents.  Jesus even performed his very first miracle at a wedding feast, turning water into wine (John 2: 3-11).  And when Jesus died and rose again, He created a New Covenant between God and His people, bringing us into His family (more on this later).  Jesus Himself healed the brokenness of the marital covenant.

Not only that, but Jesus did something amazing- He elevated marriage to a Sacrament (see CCC 1613).  Like all Sacraments, the Sacrament of Matrimony both “signifies and communicates grace (CCC 1616).”  Grace is God’s own power and help.  The graces specifically communicated in the Sacrament of Marriage give us the strength to successfully uphold our covenant to our spouse when things get tough. 

Grace can strengthen you to stick beside your spouse through seemingly impossible trials like addiction or miscarriage.  More often, you may just have to avail yourself of marital grace to hold your tongue when there are dirty socks on the ground (again?!).  As married couples, we seal our family bond with the Holy Spirit, who becomes “the ever-available source of [our] love and the strength to renew [our] fidelity (CCC 1623).”  God is all-powerful, and the grace He has to give us is inexhaustible.  Ask for it!  Make use of it!

To sum it all up…

So, marriage is both a natural and a Sacramental bond between a man and a woman.  It was authored and instituted by God Himself, and, in fact, marriage reflects the very nature of God. In the papal exhortation Amoris laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), Pope Francis explains that “the family is the image of God, who is a communion of persons (AL, 59)”- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three in one. 

To put it more simply, God Himself is a family.  Further, “the Sacrament of Marriage flows from the incarnation…whereby God showed the fullness of his love for humanity by becoming one with us (AL, 74).”  At our weddings, we also became “one flesh” with our spouse, giving the full gift of ourselves as Christ gave Himself up fully for the love of humanity.

The very last book of the Bible, Revelation, frequently refers to the Kingdom of Heaven as the “wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9).”  At this “wedding feast,” Christ (the Lamb of God) is unified with His bride, the Church.  From Adam and Eve in Genesis, to Christ and His Church in Revelation, marital imagery truly bookends salvation history. In the meantime, “the ability of human couples to beget life is the path along which the history of salvation progresses (AL, p. 15, 11).”  So, yeah… Marriage is kind of a big deal.

I think that’s enough for this first post on Church teaching.  Next month… What is our mission as married couples, and why are holy marriages integral to the Church and to the world?

References:

Francis, Pope. Amoris Laetitia. Erlanger, KY: The Dynamic Catholic Institute, 2015.

Roman Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church. 3rd ed. New York: Image, 1995.

The Holy Bible, RSV- Catholic Edition. Charlotte, NC: St. Benedict Press, 2009.