Chapter 5: Conclusion

e live in a time when, according to census data, more than half of all marriages fail. Being raised by one parent is commonplace among children, and few are unaffected by the dissolution of a marriage. “No-fault” divorce has become an easy option for marriages stuck in disillusionment. Rarely do we hear or read good news about marriage in the secular media.

Yet, there is good news about Christian marriage when seen clearly with eyes of faith. Instituted by Christ, and a conduit of grace from God, Christian marriage embodies all the hopes of our Catholic faith. Marriage is a conversion journey that shapes married people and calls each into communion with another and with God. The journey has a “Paschal Mystery” character that joins the married couple with God.

Sacred Heart Sister Kathleen Hughes explains:

What is the conversion journey that marriage celebrates? To which facet of the paschal mystery do couples who decide to have their marriage solemnized by the church join themselves? Why are we even using the language of “conversion” and “paschal mystery” for an experience as joyous, as beautiful and tender as falling in love and getting married?

 

Simply stated, we use language about conversion and paschal mystery because loving and dying are synonymous. Every loving is a dying—a dying to my own time, comfort, convenience, wants, needs, concerns, interests. Every loving is a dying to self-interest and self-aggrandizement in an act of generosity and self-giving. Every loving is a dying to egoism, a dying to “I” in order that two “I’s” become a “we.”

 

Every loving implies acceptance of the other, single-heartedness, mutuality and giving and taking without keeping score—and all of it happens not just when one or the other feels like it but daily, and for all the days of ordinary time as well as in the high holy seasons of a marriage.

 

We use language about conversion and paschal mystery in speaking about the reality of married love—and about mutual and lasting fidelity as a witness to God’s steadfast love—because these realities need to be spoken to a starry-eyed couple caught up in the easy springtime of relationship, where life abounds and death in its many guises seems remote…A wedding does not make a marriage. A wedding simply makes a marriage possible.

 

Some of the dimensions of the paschal mystery that a couple faces are spelled out explicitly both in the promises and in the exchange of consent that are part of the ceremony. There are three questions asked of a couple at the beginning of the celebration, questions about freedom and faithfulness and children (RM, 44), and each of them is really an invitation to a kind of personal death for the sake of new life: “Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?” The couple is invited to state before all present that they choose freely to bind themselves to each other without reserve. “Will you love and honor each other for the rest of your lives?” In pledging faithfulness, the couple accepts the death involved in choosing one person and the foreclosure of all other choices. “Will you accept children lovingly from God?” Couples are asked to make a public promise that the world they share is radically open to others lest the death of the ego that becomes “we” simply becomes the closed world of “ego squared.”

 

The vows of consent also spell out a rhythm of dying and rising: better and worse, sickness and health, poverty and riches (#45). The exchange of consent names some of the ways in which the paschal mystery will touch the lives of this couple, and the metaphors of health and prosperity and their loss are just that, metaphors for the rhythm of our days, of dishes and work schedules and children to be fed and cars that need servicing and the thousand details of life, large and small, that constitute the keeping of these promises—to say nothing of the crises, the moments of grief and loss, grave illness, financial woes, that form larger challenges to promise keeping.

 

But how is any of this possible? Keeping promises is the way by which the old self is changed into something light and generous and good and for the other. One couple said, “I think we found a lot of our identity in the whole paschal mystery, in death and rising and that kind of rhythm of life. That’s why we chose to have our marriage at a eucharist. It’s where we have found our deepest identity.”

The care and support of one another, children, parents, families, friends, and the community of the Church are vital for engaged and married couples. This concern is particularly necessary to enable the engaged to assess their readiness and prepare for marriage, and to support and encourage married persons to live in the hope that is promised in their union. This support is manifested in the sharing of experiences, gifts, and wisdom that will nourish the dreams and crystallize the realities of their love.

Participation in this care and support for engaged and married couples presents a great challenge for the Church. It is also an opportunity for building relationships, offering a sensitive presentation of the Church’s vision of marriage, participating in the joyful celebration of weddings, and deepening a continued bond with couples throughout their married life.

Every person who is married, considering marriage, preparing for marriage, or struggling to stay married should have the encouragement, care, and support of the faith community. Every person who is part of the Body of Christ is a source for this. The local Church, to accomplish this, provides direction in the form of these Guidelines for Pastoral Outreach to Christian Marriage.

Marriage is communal, and it takes a “village” to make it work. It is in the community that a man and a woman choose each other; it is in the community that they live out their purpose as sacrament; and it is in the community, with God’s grace, that they are sustained, encouraged, and protected.

As Paschal Mystery and “the most fundamental sacrament of adult vocation,” Christian marriage serves the couple, their family, and the entire community. The purpose of this document is to help us to meet the challenge to lift up, preserve, and protect marriage, and seize the wonderful opportunities to evangelize the world through the Sacrament of Matrimony.

By addressing marriage at all stages of life—Formation, Preparation, Celebration, and Continuing Education—this document is intended as a pastoral tool for all who interface with marriage, “from cradle to grave.” May this intentional outreach aid the Church in being a blessing to marriage, and marriage as a blessing to the Church.