Marriage as a Sacrament

Patience, trust

A married couple came to my house years ago wanting to know if I would facilitate a marriage counseling session for them. The man asked for counseling after his wife had found a love letter in his coat pocket addressed to another woman. The man’s wife wanted to leave him, and he thought he could talk his way out of it if she agreed to go for counseling. The man’s wife was not sure she wanted counseling. She didn’t know how that would change anything.

The Word Excluded

I told the couple I would listen to them. When we settled in the living room, the husband spoke first, telling me that he wanted marriage counseling, but he didn’t want me to do any “Bible stuff.” He didn’t want to hear from the Word of God.

I was polite. I joked a bit, then explained what Jesus said in Matthew 19, verse 6, about marriage. The Lord said that when they marry, “…they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” It was God who joined the two of them together, and no other person had the right to change what God had done. I certainly didn’t have the authority to undo what He did.

Needless to say, my mind was running a hundred miles an hour. I thought, why didn’t he mail the letter? Then I thought, why would she acquiesce to his insistence on going to counseling? They needed help, but it was not help that I felt I could give. Or perhaps it was help they didn’t really want.

A New Being

The Sacrament of Marriage is wholly between one man and one woman. When they place rings on each other’s fingers, they become the ministers of the sacrament itself before God. The attending priest or deacon is the witness to what the two ministers of grace sacramentally perform as they become “one flesh.”

Marriage is a powerful sacrament. I believe that what the Scriptures say about it is real, as real as the bread and wine becoming the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. When Mr. and Mrs. Married couple complete their most solemn declaration and consummation, they become one.

This means that when a person declares her or his desire to die to self and no longer be the person he or she was, they are both facing a tremendous paradigm shift. They no longer are who they once were. They are different beings. The sacrament makes them so.

A New Name

I never thought it was fair that a woman should change her last name when she marries while the man keeps his (although that’s not necessarily the case these days). It would be very interesting if both individuals change their names to a name they never had before. If Violet Jones marries William Smith, their names might become Rose and Robert Johnson. Or they could both make a hyphenated last name, Smith-Jones. And still change their first names. It’s just a thought.

Sacred Scripture is full of people changing their name when they are touched in a miraculous way by God. As Catholics, we take a Christian name at Confirmation, hopefully the name of a saint. Although this name does not appear in any legal documentation (that I am aware of), it should.

In the Gospel of John, when Jesus first met the men who would become His disciples, we learn that Andrew “first found his own brother Simon” and brought him to the Lord.  Standing before Christ, the Scripture says that, “Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter)” (John 1:42).

One Plus One Equals One

What could be more important, more worthy of altering one’s life than going into the Marriage Sacrament as an individual and becoming so intertwined with another that you and the other become one flesh? The person you were no longer exists. A new person leaves the altar, no matter what name is used.

A quick Google search points out that the rate of marriage in the United States has hit a record low and may continue to drop further in 2021. More searches will also reveal a major decline in Catholic infant Baptisms and an overall decline in Catholic Church membership. Marriage, in one sense, is another sacrament that has fallen away by those who have not been catechized.

 The Blessing of Children

I believe that the Sacrament of Marriage is the most important of the seven sacraments. From this sacrament and because of it, men and women are open to and willing to bear and raise children. The Bishops confirm this in their document on marriage from the USCCB:

Marriage is an original gift from God to humanity. Although sin entered the world damaging the marital relationship, this gift was not lost but redeemed by Christ and raised to a sacrament (see Eph. 5:28-32; see also Matt. 19:4-6). Sacred Scripture proclaims that God created humanity in “His image” as “male and female” (see Gen. 1:27). So unique is this relationship that the marital union makes of the husband and wife “one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Procreation, Scripture teaches, is a gift from God (Gen. 1:28). When spouses conceive new life, they participate in the Lord God’s creative power. This is an awesome privilege and sacred responsibility!

Quoting from the Vatican Document “The Church in the Modern World,” the Catechism states, “By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory,” (CCC 1652).

It also states that, “Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves” (CCC 1652).

The Church declares that the family, beginning with wife and husband, is the “domestic church.” It becomes a place of nurture and care, growth and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church.

The Essence of It All

If you are married, do not look at your marriage as anything but the love of the Creator flowing through the two who have become one. Put away selfish things and cling to each other now, while there is time.

Let children live, let them have life. Give each child a chance to grow and love and to know the power of Christ in their life. Let God show you how much He loves you by giving you children. Do not fear the promises of God. Have faith.

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