Don't let a day go by without praying a little!  Prayer is a duty, but it is also a joy because it is a dialogue with God through Jesus Christ.  --Pope John Paul II

 

Manifesting God's Covenant of Love
The Sacrament of Marriage

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is my joy to invite you to meditate with me upon "the intimate partnership of life and love" (Gaudium et spes, 48) that is Christian Marriage. Particularly in our own day and in our present cultural circumstances, we need to be reminded of the prominent place that marriage and family have in God's loving plan of salvation. Salvation History itself begins with the creation of man and woman, God bringing them together to form the first marriage and begin the one human family of which we are all a part. Salvation History will have its final climax in the "wedding feast of the Lamb" which the Book of Revelation foresees (Rev 19:7). During the gradual unfolding of Salvation History, God has formed and repeatedly renewed a covenant of love with the human family, promising:

I will espouse you to me forever; I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy, I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord" (Hosea 2:21-22).

And so, the reality of marriage can be truly found only in God's loving plan of creation and redemption. Because Marriage, and in a very particular way Christian marriage, is the image that God Himself chose to manifest His enduring love for us.

Reality
Contrary to the idea that marriage is a purely human institution, marriage "is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator" (CCC, 1603). From the very beginning of creation itself, marriage was part of the Divine plan and was a vocation to which men and women are called by God. Indeed, God made Adam and Eve for each other and brought them together at the center of His creation

to form the first marriage,
to raise up the first family, and
to manifest the first covenant of love that God made with humanity.

On account of this first marriage, Sacred Scripture gives praise to God:

Blessed are you, O God of our fathers; praised be your name forever and ever. Let the heavens and all your creation praise you forever. You made Adam and You gave him his wife Eve to be his help and support; and from these two the human race descended. You said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make him a partner like himself" (Tb 8: 5-6).

Having brought this couple together, to be a help to one another, God made of these two "one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate" (Mt 19:6). Thus, from the very beginning, marriage is a divine reality whose purpose is the unity of husband and wife for their mutual good; from the very beginning, marriage is intended to be permanent, not temporary.

Throughout Salvation History, God repeatedly returned to His Chosen people, bringing together men and women in marriage in order to strengthen His covenant of love with humanity and bring about the fulfillment of His promise to send a Savior:

God brought together Abram, a model of trust in the Lord, and Sara and gave them Isaac despite their old age as proof of His fidelity to His Promise;

God brought together Ruth, a stranger and a profound model of fidelity, and Boaz, whose grandson was King David; and,

in the fullness of time, God brought together the Virgin Mary, model of humility, and Joseph, a model of chastity, to whom He would entrust His Only Begotten Son.

During this great sweep of history, God was also gradually teaching the human family that love was the best way to understand His relationship with the chosen people, that love was the essence of His covenant, and that divine love, of which human love is a reflection, must be faithful above all other things. Through His prophets, especially the prophet Hosea, God revealed that His relationship with Israel was best understood as a covenant of marriage between God and the People. Though the people were often fickle and unfaithful, God was always faithful, always true, and always forgiving:

"If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself" (2Tim 2:13).

The Song of Songs sings beautifully of the covenantal love that God has for His People Israel:

"Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away" (Songs 8: 6-7).

In Christ, God set His seal permanently upon humanity. Through the Incarnation, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, God revealed the depths of divine love for His people. And in the flesh of Christ, God made a permanent, irrevocable marriage between God and man:

by Christ's flesh, we are saved from sin,
by Christ's flesh, we are given everlasting life,
by Christ's flesh, we are filled with divine love, and
by Christ's flesh, we are made one with God.

It is no accident that Christ's first miracle was worked at the Wedding Feast of Cana, changing water into wine and richly blessing the marriage of His friends. And it is for good reason that Christ chose a wedding banquet as His primary image for the Kingdom of God, returning to that image over and over again in the parables. Christ used marriage and the wedding banquet in His parables to explain God's great joy in the irrevocable covenant of love He has made with humanity in the flesh of His Son, Christ the Bridegroom. The wedding parables celebrate the fulfillment of the covenant and manifest the true meaning of Christian Marriage. Through God's gradual revelation of the nature of His Kingdom as a marriage between Himself and man, the marriage of human beings became more than a merely human act of desire, more than the finding of a helpmate, and more than a means by which children are brought into the world. Marriage, "raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament" (canon 1055 §§1), became a means of teaching us about the true nature of divine love in which we are all called to share: a love which sacrifices of self for the good of the other.

Thus, God took the reality of marriage, which He created, and made it a witness and a testimony of His love for the world. For this reason, Paul tells us that we can look to the love of a husband for his wife and see in it Christ's life for the Church:

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So (also) husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man shall leave (his) father and (his) mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church" (Eph 5:25-32)

Rite
Because marriage is so powerful and effective as a sign of God's abiding love in Christ for the Church, it is altogether proper that the sacrament of Marriage take place in the presence of the assembled community. Just as the love of God has been revealed "in the sight of all the nations" (Lk 2:31), so the committed love of husband and wife is manifested in the public celebration of their marriage.

At the heart of The Rite of Marriage is the exchange of consent between the couple. The exchange of consent in marriage takes the form of vows made by each partner:

"I take you ... in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life."

In marriage, the couple are joined together "in mutual and lasting fidelity," for the rest of their lives, and accepting "children lovingly from God." These three goods of marriage-fidelity, perpetuity, and children-each reveal the nature of God's love for His Church:

As husband and wife promise to be true to one another "in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health," forsaking all others, so too God is ever faithful to us. Sacred Scripture celebrates the fidelity of God in the Psalms, in the Prophets, and throughout the New Testament, teaching us that "God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son" (1Cor 1:9).

As husband and wife promise to "have and hold" each other "until death do [they] part," so too God's love for His people is permanent: "The LORD will not cast off his people, nor abandon his inheritance" (Ps 94:14). The permanence of God's love for His Church can be heard in the words of Christ: "And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Mt 28:20).

As husband and wife promise to welcome children as a gift from God, fulfilling the original commandment to "be fertile and multiply; fill the earth," so too God's love for His people is procreative: God breathed life into all creation (Gen 2:7); God "gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16); and in the sacrament of Baptism, God continues to give new birth to believers, a birth into everlasting life, "born of water and Spirit"(Jn 3:5).

Before the Christian community, the bride and groom vow that their love will be a sign and sacrament of God's love for us. In turn, the community prays with them and for them that we may receive this sign and that through our support and care we will help this man and this woman grow into their vowed life together.

The bride and groom pronounce the vows and give themselves, unconditionally and exclusively, to the other. Their irrevocable pledge makes marriage; their baptism makes that same marriage a sacrament in Christ. Thus, the couple themselves are the ministers of the sacrament; their mutual exchange of consent confers the sacrament, which brings them the grace to fulfill what they have promised. The community gathered around them-the priest or deacon, the members of the wedding party, the families and the parish-are gathered as witnesses to celebrate with the bride and groom and to see in them God's love for us all made manifest.

Reflection
Because of the importance of the vocation of Christian Marriage as a sacramental witness to love of God in Christ Jesus for the Church, the whole Christian community has a great responsibility to the sacrament. As such, pastors and parishes are obliged to ensure that their community provides for Christ's faithful the assistance by which the Christian witness of marriage state is preserved and perfected. This assistance is given in many ways (c.f., canon 1063):

First, by preaching, and by catechesis adapted to children, young people and adults, so that the Christian faithful are instructed in the meaning of Christian Marriage and in the role of Christian spouses and parents. This kind of instruction, what Pope John Paul II called "remote preparation for Marriage" (Familiaris consortio, 66) whose object is "formation that will show that marriage is a true vocation and mission, without excluding the possibility of the total gift of self to God in the vocation to the priestly or religious life." Christian marriage, in all its splendor and glory as created by God and sanctified by Christ, needs to be taught clearly to our children and young people. This is the only effective antidote to the false and selfish notions of marriage proposed by modern society.

Second, by personal preparation for entering marriage, so that the spouses are disposed to the holiness and the obligations of their new state. This proximate and immediate preparation for marriage is not merely the work of the engaged couple with the priest, it is the concern of the whole parish. The parish is challenged to see the period of engagement as "similar to the catechumenate" (FC, 66) and to become involved in the preparation and formation of the couple preparing for marriage as they do the catechumens preparing for baptism. For this reason, married couples should be involved in marriage preparation and programs such as Couple to Couple and Engaged Encounter should be encouraged in parishes and Vicariates.

Third, by the fruitful celebration of the marriage liturgy, so that it clearly emerges that the spouses manifest the mystery of the unity and fruitful love between Christ and the Church. For this reason, the celebration should clearly focus on the couple's free and loving exchange of consent. Secular elements, ostentatious displays, superstitions, or purely private devotions should be carefully excluded from the Liturgy. At the same time, the sacrament of Marriage should always be celebrated in the parish church, where the whole Christian community is able to gather and celebrate with the couple, witnessing the great love of God made manifest in their exchange of consent.

Finally, by the help given to those who have entered marriage, that they may day by day achieve a holier and a fuller family life and become a more effective witness to the love of God. Parish communities should find ways to recognize and celebrate wedding anniversaries, particularly the first anniversary and jubilee years, couples' pregnancies and the birth of children, the arrival of new families in the Parish, and other significant moments in the lives of couples and families. At the same time, Parish communities must reach out especially to those couples who find themselves in difficult pastoral circumstances. Therefore, we pray each day for couples preparing for marriage, for married couples, and for families:

Father, all powerful and ever living God, You created man in love to share Your divine life. We see his high destiny in the love of husband and wife, which bears the imprint of Your own divine love.

Love is man's origin, Love is his constant calling, Love is his fulfillment in heaven.

The love of man and woman is made holy in the sacrament of marriage and becomes the mirror of Your everlasting love and an image of the covenant between You and Your people.

Father, stretch out Your hand, bless all Christian marriages with the gift of Your love and support all Christian families with the knowledge of Your grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

(adapted from The Rite of Marriage)

Most Reverend Bernard W. Schmitt

Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston

 

 

It gives more praise to God and more delight if we pray steadfast in love, trusing his goodness, clinging to him by grace, than if we ask for everything our thoughts can name. . . .The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God.  --Julian of Norwich

 

St. Joseph Catholic Church
1304 Sixth Avenue
Huntington, West Virginia  25701
304-525-5202
Rev. Msgr. Lawrence Luciana, Pastor
Rev. Fr. Julian Marneni, Associate Pastor