Transcript

During the Catholic rite of marriage, the priest prays what is called the nuptial blessing over the couple.

This extended prayer contains a beautiful summary of what the church believes about marriage, especially about the sacrament's origins.

According to Christian belief, marriage is not a creation of man for man's benefit, but of God for man's happiness.

God created marriage at the very moment that He created the human race, male and female, establishing the one flesh union of man and woman as the regular way that men and women would naturally achieve perfection and happiness in life.

With all the poetry of a prayer, the nuptial blessing speaks of the origins of marriage in this way: O God, who by your mighty power created all things out of nothing, and when You had set in place the beginnings of the universe, formed man and woman in Your own image, making the woman an inseparable helpmate to the man, that they might no longer be two but one flesh, and taught that what you were pleased to make one must never be divided, look now with favor on these Your servants joined together in marriage.

We cannot overemphasize the lesson contained in this blessing.

Marriage is an institution created by God in which man and woman, through an exclusive and permanent bond, achieve a kind of perfection in each other and bring forth children into the world.

Following the indications of nature, the Christian affirms that every man is oriented to reaching maturity in being a husband and father, and likewise, every woman is oriented to reaching maturity in being a wife and mother.

Achieving the goods of marriage and parenthood are not mere options in life, but the very reason for our creation as male and female.

There are legitimate reasons, of course, including religious ones, why individual men and women might forego marrying or starting a family.

But the truth of marriage is so ingrained in our nature that no individual's feelings, no individual's failures, and no society's attempt to redefine marriage can change the essential truth of marriage, written as it is into our very DNA. The nuptial blessing expresses the primordial, and indeed tenacious nature of marriage in this way.

The blessing praises God for the fact that the companionship that man and woman had in the beginning is endowed with the one blessing not forfeited by original sin, nor washed away by the flood.

Not any of life's tragedies, nor any of a person's sins exclude him from affirming the truth of marriage.

The church affirms that the truth about marriage applies to everyone at every time in every place, even if not every time and place has recognized and embraced marriage's full truth.

Although different cultures and religions have strayed from this truth, it remains remarkable how consistent the practice of marriage has been across times and peoples.

Still, errors regarding marriage mark human history.

Even the chosen people developed a rationale for divorce, which eventually Jesus corrected.

He said to the Pharisees, who defended the Jewish practice of divorce, For your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so.

And so I tell you, whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.

The beginning to which Jesus refers is the creation of man and woman, when God established as good for man that he leave his father and mother and cling to his wife.

From the beginning, this clinging was created by God to be lifelong.

Although the truth of marriage applies equally to all men and women, it manifests itself in Christian marriage in a particular way.

When two Christians marry, they do not simply enter into a natural institution, but they celebrate a sacrament.

Because the baptized possess the virtue of charity, a baptized man and a baptized woman enter into marriage with the ability to share the love of God, the very love that charity gives them with each other.

Christian marriage, therefore, stands apart from all other instances of marriage.

When Christians marry, the very love of God Himself, possessed by the couple in charity, becomes the foundation of the couple's marital love.

This is the mystery to which the Church refers when she says that marriage is the only institution raised by Christ the Lord to the level of a sacrament.

When a baptized man and a baptized woman enter marriage, their marriage itself becomes a channel of grace through which God communicates His love to the couple, and through which the couple expresses its love for God and neighbor.

Furthermore, Christian marriage becomes an image in the world of Christ's union with the Church, in which husband and wife are given the grace to submit to each other.

The husband, in imitation of Christ's sacrifice for the Church, and the wife, in imitation of the Church's reception of Christ's sacrifice.

Christian reflection on the nature of marriage has long recognized that marriage has two principal ends or purposes.

First, the good of the couple, and second, the procreation and education of children.

Any attempt at marriage, therefore, that does not have both of these ends in view is invalid.

Because marriage has these two ends, every marriage should have each of the following marks: unity and indissolubility, fidelity, and openness to new life.

These marks are not artificial or arbitrary, nor are they mere ideals.

They are of the essence of marriage, and establish the contours of the couple's sexual life.

And though sex is only one aspect of marriage, it remains a potent one that requires the qualities of indissolubility, fidelity, and openness to life in order to keep it selfless, self-giving, and chaste.

Divorce, which is opposed to marriage's indissolubility, adultery, which is opposed to marriage's fidelity, and contraception and unnatural sex, which are opposed to marriage's fruitfulness, are all inimical to achieving the God-given ends of marriage.

Since the sexual revolution, there has been much confusion over the goods of marriage for individuals and for society.

Many have despaired that these goods can even be achieved, or even that they should be sought with only one person over the course of a lifetime.

The rise of substitutes for marriage, including cohabitation, reveals the uncertainty that many feel towards God's plan for man and woman.

Nevertheless, the truth of marriage endures, and there remains grace, especially in the sacraments of matrimony, confession, and the Eucharist for the healing and strength necessary for every man and woman to say I do to his or her spouse for the whole of their natural lives.

The nuptial blessing ends with a prayer for this very thing, that every couple relying on the grace of Christ may reach old age, and eventually Heaven together.

Grant, O Lord, that reaching at last together the fullness of years for which they hope, they may come to the life of the blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven.