The Sanctity of Marriage

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This essay is an excerpt from a letter to a young friend of mine, a lapsed Catholic, who was seriously considering divorcing her husband. She was frustrated because her husband was not as enthusiastic about her new religion as she was, and she felt that this justified a divorce. I have a special concern for lapsed Catholics, and am passionate about the sanctity of marriage. This poor soul was, therefore, a poster child for my ministrations. Dr. Scott Hahn's series on Marriage Covenant were a great help in writing this essay.

 

"The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved His Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life. (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1799)" CCC 1661

 

You once told me something to the effect that the husband is supposed to be a spiritual leader. I sensed your disappointment that your husband was not fulfilling this role. But if you think that you are justified in leaving him for this reason, you are wrong -- and if someone has told you this, they have lied to you. Let me tell you what Jesus and His Disciples taught about marriage and divorce.

Really, everything you need to know is in I Cor. 7:10-16: "To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband) - and that the husband should not divorce his wife." There are many example from Jesus' own mouth of the inviolability of marriage, the most succinct being Mark 10:9, 11-12: "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Whosoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Of course, I would not have you preserve your marriage only out of fear or obedience, but because of the very reason for which you married in the first place. If you say, "I love my husband, but...", those exceptions are irrelevant. What is more important than love? What aggravation, great or small, could be worth throwing away such a great gift from God? Indeed, our love for one another is God Himself working in us because He is the Author and source of all love.

Marriage is a lot of work; anything that is worth having requires effort. I don't believe that any marriage ever reaches a point where it is no longer necessary to work through some difficulty. Remember that God's timetable is not our own. He is infinite, and to Him a thousand years are as but one day. You may become frustrated because your lives are not going as you think they should, but your lives are one now, and you have to give yourselves time to grow together. How long, you ask? One year? Two, three, five, ten? "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." (I Cor. 13:4-8) I promise you that in five years from now you will look back and see this as but a bump in the road, and you will be thankful that you saw it through.

Let me illustrate to you why I feel so strongly about the sanctity of the marriage bond. Let us begin with what marriage is. Marriage is a covenant, not merely a contract. When two people enter into a contract, it is an exchange of goods, be they services, materials, or money. When two people enter into a covenant, it is an exchange of self. When God proposed to Moses His covenant with Israel, He said "... I will take you for my people, and I will be your God." (Ex. 6:7) It is even more clear in Ex. 19:5 when He says, "Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples.

With the New Covenant, Jesus gave us Himself in a much more tangible way. Not only did He sacrifice His body and blood in order to give us His Sonship, but he allowed us to share in His flesh and blood when He instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Now, by renewing the New Covenant in the Eucharist, we become not only brothers and sisters of Christ in the Spirit, but in the flesh as well. Let me say that again: by participating in the Eucharist, we all share the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, just as we do with our earthly siblings.

Now, consider the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. One God in three distinct Persons. God the Father is the Creator, maker of all that is seen and unseen. God the Son is His only begotten Son, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father. He is the Eternal Word spoken from the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. He is the personal infinite expression of the mutual outpouring of love of the Father and Son. They are Three, and yet they are One.

When God created man in Genesis 1:26, we read, "Let us [the Holy Trinity] make man in our image, after our likeness." This does not refer to a physical likeness but to a nature. Verse 27 says, "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Read on in Genesis 2:24 -- "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh." Now look at Mark 10:6-9; "But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.' So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder." Jesus used the same words to describe the marriage bond that the Scriptures used to describe the creation of man in the image of the Holy Spirit.

It is in the marriage covenant that man is most fully made in the image of the Triune God. The marriage act is not just a physical act. It is also a spiritual act designed by God to renew the marriage covenant. In all of God's covenants, we have the opportunity for renewal, and the act of covenant renewal is an act or a moment of grace. When you renew a covenant, He releases grace, and grace is life, grace is power, grace is God's own love. In a marital covenant, God has designed the marriage act to show the life-giving power of love. The Triune God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," and God, who is three in one, made man, male and female and said, "Be fruitful and multiply." The two become one and by the grace of God, they may have a child, and then they become three in one. The child proceeds from the man and woman, a personal expression of the mutual outpouring of their love. Each child is therefore three in one; father, mother, child. You are a reflection of your father and of your mother, and yet you are an individual; three in one. This is one reason that the Catholic Church teaches against contraception.

In marriage we come the nearest to imitating the perfection of the Trinity as we are able on earth. We should not let lack of foresight, impatience and rash judgment destroy this most precious gift from God.