Holy Matrimony: Embracing the Sacred

A Catholic marriage. (Cathopic/Amor Santo)

Many thoughts come to mind when one thinks of marriage. Regardless of one’s marital state or outlook on marriage, everyone has an image of what marriage is or should be. When you think of marriage, however, do you ever think of it communicating grace?

As Catholics, we know Holy Matrimony to be one of the seven sacraments “instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1131). In other words, we know, by divine and Catholic faith, that a valid marriage between two baptized persons communicates sanctifying grace.

Grace, the supernatural help given by God which gives us the power to respond to His call and participate in His divine life, is infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to habituate us with a permanent disposition for the fulfillment of His call (CCC 1996-2000).

Without this supernatural aid, we would be inept to live the supernatural life to which God calls us.

Is it any wonder then, that God instituted a sacrament specifically designed to imbue His divine life into those living out the covenant of conjugal and domestic life?

When a sacramental marriage is established, there arises a bond between the spouses “which by its very nature is perpetual and exclusive” wherein they are strengthened and “consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state” (CCC 1638).

This is called “the marriage bond,” a sacred seal set upon the couple by God himself (CCC 1639). This seal establishes the permanent effects of the sacrament (operative throughout this life): the continual graces proper to the sacrament and the matrimonial properties of unity and indissolubility.

The grace proper to the sacrament “is intended to perfect the couple’s love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity” by which they “help one another attain holiness in their married life and in welcoming and educating their children” (CCC 1641).

Christ, the source of this grace, encounters couples through the sacrament, dwelling with them, giving them the strength to take up their crosses, forgive one another, bear one another’s burdens, and love one another with a supernatural love (CCC 1642).

This issue of Christ making the couple recipients and bestowers of the supernatural is no mere pious and theoretical notion, for it is eminently practical, affecting everything the married couple will encounter, such as how to disagree, the sins of your spouse, in-laws, money, children, discipline, and growing old together, just to name a few.

On the latter issue, sage wisdom is given by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in his work Three to Get Married. In the chapter named “The Dark Night of the Body,” he reminds us of the abnegation of the ego which must take place in marriage for our love to be purified. This purification of love constitutes a transfiguration wherein one comes to recognize and practice a love which is based on self-mastery and acts of love based in the will, not the emotions.

This is important, for our society is experiencing an awful phenomenon, the rise in so-called “gray divorce.” This takes place, in large part, due to the inevitable loss of excitement as the thrills of our youth lose their luster. When this occurs, the temptation to seek satisfaction elsewhere arises. As Archbishop Sheen reminds us, too often, it is only after exhausting the substitutes, and finding them unworthy, that souls are led to seek reality, finding God after traversing a valley of disgusts.

While God’s mercy is infinite, when we choose to wreak havoc in the temporal order, there are often consequences which cannot be mended. To quote Archbishop Sheen: “Divorce is the sacrament of adultery.”

Let us all remember, therefore, that there can be no true love without self-sacrifice and, moreover, the total and complete offering of ourselves is impossible without grace. Seek and embrace His grace, therefore, to his eternal glory and your eternal happiness.