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

The Sacrament of Matrimony: To Wed, or Not to Wed, That is the Question

The Sacrament of Matrimony: To Wed, or Not to Wed, That is the Question

                One of the important things to understand about the Sacrament of Matrimony is that it is just that: a sacrament.  It is just as important a sacrament as the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  Maybe, in some ways, perhaps it is even more important, because if every man became a priest, there would be no men for us women to marry.  This would mean the eventual end of the human race. 

                Not everyone is called to the Sacrament of Marriage, however.  Some are called to religious life, as friars, brothers or monks, if they are men, or as sisters if they are women.  These are people who have given up the Sacrament of Marriage for the sake of the kingdom of God.  They chose to live their lives as consecrated virgins in a religious order such as the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Jesuits or any one of the other religious orders which are part of the Roman Catholic Church. 

                There is another group of people that may not be called to the Sacrament of Matrimony, but also aren’t called to a religious order or to the priesthood (if they are men.)  There are some that feel they are called to the celibate single life as a lay person.  They live and work in the world, but they are unmarried, and choose to be unmarried.  In actuality, all single people are called to this state until such time as they find their spouse and have celebrated the Sacrament of Matrimony.

                One of the most important things a young Catholic must decide is whether or not they are called to the vocation of marriage.  In order to make such a decision, the most important thing they can do is to seek God’s will for their lives, to ask him what their vocation is.  God knows what he created them to be: priest, religious, chaste single person or married.  Only by living in that vocation can anyone be truly happy.

                To help discern whether to wed or not to wed, we need to have an understanding of what married life is like.  What is it for?  One of the things marriage is for is for the creation of life.  Marriage is also for the mutual support of the other.  I don’t mean just financial support, either.  The job of the husband is to get his wife to heaven.  The job of the wife is to get her husband to heaven.  The job of both is to give their children the firm foundation necessary so that when they get married they can get their spouse to heaven also.

                Marriage isn’t easy.  After the honeymoon wears off, it’s a lot of day to day stuff.  It’s coordinating work schedules so you have time with each other.  It’s letting another into the deepest parts of you.  It’s late nights walking the floor with a sick child.  It’s putting another’s needs above your own.  It’s recognizing that you won’t always be “growing together” but making sure you don’t “grow apart”.  In any two people’s faith journey everyone recognizes that each will grow at their own pace in their own way.  The same is true in marriage.  In short, it’s not all roses, rainbows and unicorns.  In today’s world, we have come to expect it to be.  We have come to expect that, as a couple, we will always be on the same page and as “madly in love” after ten years and several kids as we were when we said “I do.” 

                Marriage is a lot like our relationship with God.  This is why it is a sacrament.  When we first are baptized (if we were old enough to remember) or first confirmed, or received our first Eucharist, if asked, we would boldly say that we love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind.  But twenty years later, that love should have grown and deepened.  And while we still can say that we love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind, we also recognize that our love has changed and grown as we have.

                Marriage is the same way.  After 29 years married to the same man, I can honestly say I don’t love him the way I did when we were first married.  We have been through too much.  Instead, I can honestly say that my love for him, and his for me, is deeper, stronger, more real, and very different from when we said “I do” back in 1983.

                Our world today desperately needs to see people properly living the vocation of marriage.  They need to see homes that are stable.  They need to see couples that are so deeply committed to each other and to God that divorce isn’t even an option.  They need to see couples that don’t insist that the other grow exactly the same way they do, at the same pace.  They need to see couples that understand that marriage is so much more than just the marital embrace. 

                To wed, or not to wed.  That is a question only God can answer for each single person.  But if you wed, remember, it is a sacrament.  It is a sign of God’s grace, love, fidelity and yearning for each of us as individuals to the world.  For those of us who are married, may all our marriages not only be sacramental, but look sacramental as well.