Marriage Meditation

Marriage is a permanent and lifelong union between two people, undertaken for the benefit of each person and directed to the common good of the family and the wider human community. The sacrament of marriage takes the nuptial commitment and places it as the focus of God’s ongoing renewal of human life through the ministry of Christ and Christ’s body, the Church. Two people who, participating in the given to us in Christian baptism, give their lives to one another become living embodiments of how God is saving the world by means of Christ’s life-giving fidelity to his people.   

The sacrament of marriage is how women and men follow Jesus in the context of world and family. The married life is a source of God’s gift of friendship and blessing, not just for its own sake, but for the sake of the world. Marriage is fruitful: it generates love and reconciliation and peace and growth. It does this by providing daily opportunities for pleasure, for gratitude, for enjoyment; but also opportunities for conflict, suffering, and hard work. As a way of following Jesus, marriage invites us to participate in Christ’s journey to the cross for the sake of our resurrection.

Marriage asks us to share everything with our spouse. Not just the pleasant and safe things, but our struggles, our fears, our hardships, and our shames. Marriage is a sharing, not a fixing. In marriage, we learn to be receptive, together, to all that life has in store for us. It means learning to listen, to accompany, to support. At times, marriage will ask more of us than we are prepared to give. This is why marriage is a sacrament:  need God’s strength and the support of others for our marriages to be sources of life and happiness.

Half of all marriages fail. In most cases, marriages fail not because the wrong people got married, or because life got too hard, or because one or both persons changed. Marriages fail because healthy relationships require intimacy and vulnerability, and cultivating and maintaining intimacy and vulnerability in the midst of life is tremendously difficult. But when you share your feelings, needs, and desires with your spouse, and when you listen to your spouse’s feelings, needs, and desires, and when you consistently renew your commitments to these feelings, needs, and desires, you will experience a kind of intimacy whose only parallel is the life we will all share with God in the Resurrection.

Marriage preparation is only the beginning. Within the first few years of marriage, after the so-called “honeymoon” period wears off, one or both partners usually discover that marriage is not exactly what they imagined it ought to be. This is especially true when couples conceive a child. These experiences are not indicators that the marriage is failing, but instead are signs that the true work of marriage is beginning. It is especially important at such times that couples find support outside of their immediate family: a trusted friend, a counselor, a pastor. If the marriage preparation process at Christ the King gives you only one thing, let it be our assurance of ongoing support, no matter where you find yourselves.

In the meantime, God is blessing you abundantly with a permanent and lifelong friend, partner, and lover. Be sure to truly relish this exciting time of preparation for your new life together. It all gets better from here.