National Marriage Week

On the Sunday before Valentine’s Day, the Church celebrates World Marriage Day in which we recall the great grace of married life, and in which we witness to the value and the goodness of marriage. From its earliest beginnings, the Church has viewed marriage both as a fundamental human reality and as something that is caught up into the saving mystery of Jesus Christ. Marriage and the family are as old as humanity. The fact that we are made as male and female is obviously related to the continuance and survival of the human race. The book of Genesis suggests that marriage also had from the beginning a deeply personal dimension. Men and women are drawn to one another in order to escape from their loneliness and to find in one another the spouse of their hopes and fears, of their joys and struggles. The first line of poetry we find in the Bible was provoked by the sight of a woman. "This, at last," Adam says, "is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." 

The Church believes that at its deepest level marriage of its very nature always involves certain values and commitments. It entails, for example, an intimate sharing of life and love that is meant to be exclusive and lifelong; it is open to the possibility of children, open not only to having them but to helping them grow and develop into decent and virtuous adults. It is this human reality in all its complexity and variety which, the Church affirms, has taken on a new dimension in Christ. While recognizing the goodness of creation and the unique dignity of human beings, Christianity knows that human life has been undermined by sin and self-destructiveness. It believes, however, that in Christ we have a source of forgiveness and healing. He enables us to become the kind of creatures that God intended us to be from the beginning. In saying that marriage is a sacrament, the Church is affirming that a couple's love and mutual commitment can be strengthened and deepened by being rooted in Christ. It is also saying that their relationship can be for them and for their children a means and instrument of God's healing love. 
World Marriage Day is a happy occasion, but we must be aware of the sad and serious fact that marriage is in decline in our country and sadly, in decline in the Catholic and wider Christian community.

In many parts of our culture, we seem to have just accepted that people will talk about their “partners.” This is a development in our society that must be challenged and resisted. The institution of marriage is precious: it is sanctioned by the teaching of Christ and by centuries of Christian tradition, and it is given such a special place in life and in the life of the Church for a reason. Marriage and family life is the basic unit of human society. It expresses the public and permanent commitment that gives strength and security to the very fabric of our society; it gives confidence and stability to men, women and their children. I would suggest that two things militate against marriage today. One is the idea of a permanent commitment and the other is radical individualism.

The idea of a permanent commitment is hard today. Very little is permanent in our society. Particularly at this moment in history, jobs are likely to be insecure and people may not be secure in the ownership of their individual homes. But long before the present economic crisis, the idea of permanence and commitment has been under threat. It has certainly affected vocations to the priesthood and religious life. I want to say that the loss of a sense of permanent commitment is the loss of a deep spiritual and human value. And that is related to the culture of radical individualism. To understand this, let us remember the very first people who had a Christian calling or sense of vocation, those who were called by Christ Himself. I am thinking of the Apostles who left their boats and went to follow Christ. They did not know what the future would hold; they did not really know who Jesus was. But they left everything and followed Him and gave their lives to Him. And Jesus Himself in His teaching on marriage said that a man who is marrying will leave father and mother and cleave to his wife. In other words, a Christian vocation, whether to priesthood/religious life or to marriage, will always involve letting go, leaving something or some people behind and giving yourself to a new situation, giving yourself to a situation which has a strong element of the unknown. Seeing things in this way involves an act of faith: faith in God’s call and faith in the future. As far as marriage is concerned, it means belief that this man or this woman is intended for me. That this person is the one with whom I will have a relationship that is like no other relationship in my life. Believing that this relationship is the framework in which, within God’s purposes, I am to find my stability, my security, and my identity as a person. That is the grace and gift of marriage. Of course, we must always have the greatest compassion and understanding for those whose marriages are wounded – sometimes through circumstances that are outside the control of either party. But that does not mean that we should give up on the ideal of marriage. The fact that there can be problems in marriage, disagreements, misunderstandings, coldness, jealousy, sometimes even infidelity should not discourage us from continuing to aspire to all that marriage can be; indeed we must give thanks for all the positive things, all the blessings that come specifically from marriage. 

Among the many things that undermine marriage and family life, one of the most powerful is the radical individualism that permeates our culture. Everything encourages us to focus on ourselves, to worry about our concerns and feelings, to do whatever we have to do to get ahead. Marriage, on the other hand, presupposes an ability to give and receive, an ability to go beyond the self and enter into relationships involving others; it demands a capacity for love and friendship. I recently read in an article: “Today we are faced with a new absolutism which goes under the name of equality.” Now equality is obviously, on the face value, a good thing, but it is a word that suggests a way of looking at life that is all about me, and my rights, and what I want. In this way of thinking, no one has the right to question my choices unless my choices interfere with the freedom of another. There is little sense of the common good, of what is good for society. This is perhaps best explained by an example, and I will take the example of contraception. If you give primacy to individual choice, then the choice of contraception seems logical: a sensible way of controlling fertility in the context of your life choices as a whole. But if we ask the question: “Has contraception been a profound benefit to society?” Then, it is hard to say that it has. It has been a major factor in creating a culture in which sex is about personal gratification, and personal recreation. It has isolated sexual activity. It has undermined the crucial connection between the sexual act and procreation, a connection that is vital for the flourishing of family life and society. 

The perceived wisdom of our culture is that the Church is against sexuality. However, it is probably closer to the truth to say that it is one of the few institutions in our society that takes sexuality seriously. It sees it, within marriage, as a sign and expression of a sacred reality. The way in which the sexual act is portrayed in much of contemporary, popular culture has little to do with intimacy and respect, sharing and love. It reduces people to objects rather than affirming them as persons; it turns them into instruments of pleasure rather than seeing them as spouses in a mutually enriching relationship. 

At the heart of marriage is fidelity. It is threatened not only by the way that sex permeates our culture and by our radical individualism; it is also undermined by the tendency today to sacrifice honesty and truthfulness for personal gain. What we are seeing in the worlds of business and politics, we see in some of the young people at the university. A depressing number of them have no hesitation to plagiarize, to download substantial parts of their papers from the Internet or to buy them from one of the numerous sources available to them. What is most bothersome about this is that it seems to reflect a rather staunch “bottom line mentality.” The only thing that matters is the end result. Lying and cheating are not recognized for what they are – sinful! In this kind of environment, truth and honesty become causalities and with them, fidelity.

Our families are not perfect. They suffer from the inadequacies and failures of their individual members, and from the pressures to which they are subjected in our culture. Although imperfect, they remain enormously important. It is in the family more than anywhere else that we first get a sense of ourselves and of our dignity and that we begin to learn how to be decent and loving human beings. The grace and the challenge of the Gospel have much to offer to our families. If baptism and the Eucharist, for example, free us from selfishness and self-centeredness, if they free us for a life of love and service, surely the first place in which we should try to live this is the family. The Catholic Church believes in marriage and the family, believes in their dignity and value. In spite of their vulnerability, they are precious realities which are meant to be for the individuals who live in them a source of life and strength, of affirmation and love. They merit our support and commitment and our prayers. 

Let today be a day of thanksgiving for all we can be grateful for as individuals, as couples, and as the Church. “Home is a holy place!” This is a phrase we often hear in the context of the Church’s work to build up and support the institution of marriage. It is in the home that the faith is taught and that children learn to pray as something natural and normal and spontaneous. There is a special spirituality of marriage and of family life which has been part of the very fabric of our lives. We must share with others the Good News about marriage and family life. There is a special task of evangelization in bearing witness to the values of Christian marriage. That is a task that can be yours at any age and any circumstance. 


Fr. Robert T. Cooper, Pastor