Marriage is not merely a social arrangement or a celebration organised by two people. Christian marriage is something holy. It is a vocation, and for Catholics it is one of the seven Sacraments of the Church. Unless we understand what God means by marriage, we cannot live it in its fullness.
People have many ideas about marriage. I once received an email with a humorous definition: marriage is a contract between a man and a woman in which the man loses his bachelor’s and the woman gains her master’s. We laugh at such things, but behind the joke there is a serious question. Has marriage become only a celebration, a social event, a wedding to be made unusual or memorable, while the Sacrament itself is forgotten? The real question is not how creatively two people celebrate the day, but what God does when a man and a woman give themselves to each other in marriage.
Jesus takes us back to the beginning. In Matthew 19, He says that the Creator made them male and female, and that a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, so that the two become one flesh. Then He says, “What God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matthew 19:6). Those words matter: what God has joined together. Christian marriage is not something we invent for ourselves. A man and a woman freely give their consent, but the covenant they enter is received as a vocation from God, and God gives grace for the life they are beginning together.
What God Has Joined Together
A Sacrament is a visible sign through which God gives invisible grace. In Baptism we see water and hear the words spoken over the person being baptised, but something deeper is taking place. God is acting. The same is true of Matrimony. A man and a woman come before the Church and exchange their consent in the presence of God. That consent is visible and spoken, but the grace given through the Sacrament cannot be measured by the senses. Heaven is not absent from that moment. God gives the couple grace for the covenant they have entered.
This is why marriage is not inferior to priesthood or religious life. It is a vocation with its own grace and its own path to holiness. Matrimony should not be treated as something less spiritual than another vocation.
When Jesus says that a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, that leaving must also be understood properly. It does not mean abandoning parents or breaking the bond of love and responsibility toward them. It means that marriage creates a new primary human covenant. Parents can advise, guide and support, but after marriage it is not father or mother who should carry greater weight than husband or wife. The two have become one family.
This leaving has not always taken place emotionally. A mother may complain that another woman has “taken” her son. A father may continue making decisions for a married daughter. A husband or wife may keep returning to a parent whenever there is disagreement at home. But the law of marriage requires a new kind of belonging. Husband and wife must learn to stand together without abandoning the parents who gave them life.
Then comes the mystery I have often wondered about: how can two people from different families, sometimes with only a short acquaintance and very different personalities, live together in such unity? What is the cementing factor? The answer is the grace of God working through the Sacrament.
Christ Is the Centre of Unity
Marriage is not simply the union of two persons. Man, woman and God are involved, and God must remain at the centre. I once asked at a retreat, “Who are the three people involved in marriage?” A small child shouted, “The man, the woman and the priest.” In a way, I understood what she meant because those were the three people she could see. But the deeper truth is that the third person is God.
I want you to imagine the husband standing on one side of the altar and the wife on the other. Between them stands Christ. The man gives himself to Christ. The woman gives herself to Christ. In Christ they meet each other. Christ becomes their meeting point, the one who holds the union together. I used to say, “Blame it on Christ. He is the cementing factor.” That is the mystery of Christian unity in marriage.
Husband and wife are not expected to hold the entire marriage together by personality, attraction or willpower. Christ is the centre of their unity. The closer they remain to Him, the more deeply they can live the grace they received. That is also why estrangement from Christ wounds the unity between husband and wife. Married life cannot be separated from the call to holiness.
The story of Adam and Eve gives us a vivid picture of this. The book of Genesis says that God formed the woman while Adam slept. I used to joke that perhaps God put Adam to sleep so that he could not interfere with the design by asking for a particular nose, particular hair or some other feature. When Adam finally saw Eve, he recognised her immediately as belonging with him: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). I even called her the first “Miss Universe”, because at that moment she had no competition.
The humour points to something serious. Adam sees Eve almost as another self, “my bone and my flesh.” But after sin enters, the language changes. When God questions him, he no longer says, “my bone and my flesh.” He says, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). The one who had been received as part of himself is suddenly spoken of as “the woman You gave me.” Sin has introduced blame and estrangement.
The same thing can happen in marriage. A husband who once saw his wife as part of his own life may later ask the children, “Where is your mother?” rather than thinking, “Where is my wife?” A wife may begin speaking of her husband as though his life has nothing to do with hers. This is why holiness matters so much. Husband and wife need Christ not only on the wedding day. They need Him throughout the whole marriage.
Love That Grows With the Years
I want to put the purpose of marriage simply in three ways: mutual love, helping one another toward salvation, and welcoming children for God. The first is love. Every person desires to love and to be loved, and in marriage husband and wife are called to give that love to each other faithfully.
Scripture gives us a beautiful example in Isaac and Rebekah. Genesis says that Isaac took Rebekah as his wife, loved her, and was comforted after the death of his mother (Genesis 24:67). I used to point out, with a little humour, that Isaac was sad before marriage, while some people become sad after marriage. But the real point is that married love became a source of companionship and consolation for him. He did not need to look elsewhere for the love that marriage was meant to provide.
The same truth appears in the story of Hannah and Elkanah. Hannah suffered deeply because she had no children, and Elkanah asked her, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8). His words reveal the value of the marital bond itself. A marriage does not become meaningless when a couple has no children. Mutual love and the call to help one another toward God remain genuine purposes of the marriage.
But this love should not become colder as the years pass. It should mature. Tobias and Sarah pray together at the beginning of their marriage, and Tobias asks that they may grow old together (Tobit 8:7). That is a beautiful prayer for married couples. To grow old together should mean more than remaining under the same roof for many years. As the years increase, intimacy, faithfulness and love should deepen rather than the distance between husband and wife becoming wider.
So examine your own marriage. After ten, twenty, thirty or forty years, have you grown closer or more distant? Has familiarity made you careless with each other? The purpose of marriage has been misunderstood if love is allowed simply to fade with age.
Real married love also cannot depend only on external attraction. I spoke very directly about this. Some people marry beauty, some property, some money, some long hair. But beauty changes, hair changes, circumstances change and possessions can disappear. If you married the body, the money or the property rather than the person, the foundation is very weak. You married a person, and that person must continue to be loved as a person through the changes of life.
Help One Another Toward Salvation
The second purpose is spiritual. Husband and wife are called to help one another toward salvation. St Paul says that the unbelieving spouse is sanctified through the believing spouse (1 Corinthians 7:14). This does not mean that one spouse becomes the Saviour of the other. It means that God can use the faith, prayer and holiness of one person as a blessing to the other.
A husband and wife may not be at exactly the same place spiritually. One may be more prayerful, one more patient, one calmer while the other struggles with anger. Do not treat every difference as a reason for frustration. Sometimes what she lacks, he has, and what he lacks, she has. Grace can turn differences into places where husband and wife support and complement one another.
I used to compare this with the offers we see in shops: exchange the old item and get a new one. That may work in a shop, but not in married life. When you discover weaknesses in the person you married, do not begin looking for an exchange. Pray for your spouse. Encourage your spouse. Bring your spouse before the Lord. If one is weak, let the other become a source of strength. If one is discouraged, let the other keep faith.
This is why Christ must remain at the centre. If husband and wife look only at each other’s weaknesses, resentment grows. If both keep turning toward Christ, they can begin to see the marriage as a shared journey toward eternal life. The purpose is not merely to make each other comfortable. It is to help each other become holy and reach God.
Welcome Children for God
The third purpose is the welcome of children. Marriage is ordered toward life. Husband and wife are called to receive children as a gift from God and to raise them for Him. Parenthood is therefore not only a biological achievement or a social expectation. It is a vocation within the vocation of marriage.
At the same time, childless couples should never imagine that their marriage has therefore failed. Mutual love and the call to help one another toward salvation remain genuine purposes of marriage even where children do not come. The absence of children does not make the covenant empty.
For couples who are able to welcome children, however, the Christian attitude should be one of generosity toward life. Children should not be measured only according to convenience, comfort or social expectation. Husband and wife are called to discern their family life before God and to receive the responsibilities of parenthood with faith and sacrifice. Near the end of the sermon I said, “I leave it to your conscience and discernment.” That remains important. Generosity toward life belongs within a life of prayerful discernment and responsibility before God.
That brings us back to the heart of the Sacrament. Marriage is a path of holiness, a covenant of love, a place where husband and wife help one another toward salvation, and a vocation open to the gift of life. None of this can be lived fully by human strength alone.
Christ is the centre of unity. When distance begins to grow, husband and wife need to return again to the One in whom they became one. Do not become strangers to each other. Grow old together in love. Pray for one another, carry one another’s weaknesses, and keep meeting each other in Christ, who is the grace and the cementing factor of Christian marriage.