“God created man in His own image and likeness [cf. Genesis 1:26-27]: calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same time for love. ‘God is love’ [1 John 4:8] and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion [cf. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 12]. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being . . . Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person, in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in its own proper form, an actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his being ‘created in the image of God’” (Saint John Paul II, The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, 11).

When a couple approaches the Church with a view to marriage, they do so seeking her assistance in discerning God’s will in their lives (see Pontifical Council for the Family, Preparation for the Sacrament of Marriage, 2). They come to the Church having recognized signs in their lives that God is calling them to marriage and family life as the specific way of realizing their fundamental human vocation to love. Indeed, “the intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by Him with its own proper laws . . . This sacred bond does not depend on human decision alone. For God Himself is the author of marriage and has endowed it with various benefits and purposes” (Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 48).

After having properly discerned their vocation, the couple desires to accept from God that gift of married love and to begin to live it in the married state. When both parties are baptized this vocation to married love enjoys a special dignity, that of a sacrament (see Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 48; Code of Canon Law, 1055; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1601). “The Sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved the Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life” ( Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1661).

The couple’s embrace of the divine gift of their vocation through legitimately manifested consent (exchange of vows) is the “indispensable element” ( Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1626) that brings the marriage into existence (see Code of Canon Law, 1057). This matrimonial consent “is given when a man and a woman manifest the will to give themselves to each other irrevocably in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love . . . For a valid marriage the consent must have as its object true Matrimony, and be a human act which is conscious and free and not determined by duress or coercion” ( Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 344). The marital covenant – more than a mere contract – “is by its very nature ordered to the communion and good of the couple and to the generation and education of children. According to the original divine plan this conjugal union is indissoluble, as Jesus Christ affirmed: ‘What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder’ [Mark 10:9]” ( Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 338). Indeed, the sacramental union of man and woman “establishes a perpetual and exclusive bond between the spouses. God Himself seals the consent of the spouses. Therefore, a marriage which is ratified and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved. Furthermore, this sacrament bestows upon the spouses the grace necessary to attain holiness in their married life and to accept responsibly the gift of children and to provide for their education” ( Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 346).

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! Saint Luke, pray for us! Father Kevin C. Louis, STL