What Are You Looking For? Part 2: The Liturgy and the Sacraments

The Sacrament of Matrimony: Marriage in the Bible

The Sacrament of Matrimony: Marriage in the Bible

            We have now come to our final sacrament, the Sacrament of Matrimony.  Marriage is one of the hot topics of our world today, with many seeking to re-define marriage.  This is because many people don’t really understand what marriage is.  The world has endeavored to remove the sacramental nature of marriage, but it is impossible to do.  Marriage, matrimony, is a sacrament, whether we call it that or not. 

            The very first marriage occurs in the very first chapter of the Bible.  “Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness.  Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.  God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.  God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”  (Genesis 1: 26-28 NABRE)  I

In the second Creation account, God created man and man named all the animals, but none were found to be a suitable companion for man.  “So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.  The Lord God then built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman.  When he brought her to the man, the man said: ‘This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called “woman”, for out of man this one has been taken.”  That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.”  (Genesis 2: 21-24 NABRE)

In these two accounts we see what, at the beginning of time, God intended marriage to be.  Man and woman were equal partners.  One was not dominate over the other.  They were to help and support each other.  They were to cling to each other.  They were to have children and raise them to know their creator as intimately as they did.  But…they blew it.  One of the results of the Fall was the disordered relationship between man and woman, each striving for supremacy over the other.  The results of the disordered relationship between men and women are found all throughout the Old Testament.

When Jesus came, he elevated marriage to a sacrament at the Wedding at Cana.  It was here where Jesus performed his first miracle and turned the water into wine, thus saving the bride and groom the untold embarrassment of not providing enough drink for their guests.  And Jesus didn’t just turn the water into any old wine.  He turned it into the best wine. 

“The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us.  The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament.  They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.”  (CCC 1131)

If this is true, then what does the sacrament of Matrimony signify?  Throughout the New Testament, the Church is also referred to as the Bride of Christ.  A sacramental marriage is a daily sign to the world of the deep love and fidelity of the Bridegroom for his Bride.  Every day we come across people who have been married for a long time.  We even celebrate certain milestones in the married life: 25 years of marriage, 50 years of marriage and so on.  Every one of these couples, whether they realize it or not, are a sign to the world of the love of Christ for his Church.  It is an individual love, just like the love of a husband for his wife and a wife for her husband.  It is a faithful love.  It is a forgiving love.  It is a love that seeks nothing more than the continual growth in holiness of their spouse.  It is a love that, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.”  (1 Corinthians 13: 7-8a)