Christian Marriage: Inviting God In

Sexual Love and Marriage

Tony and Pam meet at a party, and find they enjoy each other’s company, so much so,
that they get a buzz out of being together and are sexually attracted to each other.
They decide to start going out and getting to know each other. They discover that
their original attraction grows into a desire to want to be together all the time. They
can’t stop thinking about each other. As their relationship develops, they start taking
responsibility for one another, and learn to respect each other’s differences. After a
few months, they find that their attraction has grown to the point where they want to
live together for the rest of their lives. Up to now, their relationship has been
private. Now, they plan to make this commitment to each other public, and to create a
new life together – have a family. They decide to get married.

The Wedding Ceremony

It is their wedding day. They are in the church,

standing before the priest, their family and their
friends.
After the initial rites, the congregation settle down
to listen to the readings. Two of these have been
chosen from the bible. The readings are about
love, and about how to love, because married
love is more than just romantic love, is it is going
to last. It has to be the kind of love that Jesus
showed, when he put other people first, no matter
what they did to him, and how they treated him.
The Bible teaches us this kind of love.
Then there is the Marriage Rite. This includes the
couples’ promises to each other and the
exchanging of rings. Joining hands, they make a
sincere promise before God and the public, to
take each other as husband and wife. Their rings
are blessed and they put the rings on each other’s
fingers, promising to be faithful to each other for
the rest of their lives, through thick and thin, to
love and to cherish, in good times and bad, in
sickness and in health, all the days of their lives:
“Wear this ring as a sign of our love and fidelity, in
the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit.”
The Sacrament of Marriage
A Sacrament is a sign of an interior, invisible grace.
In a sacramental marriage (ie. in a marriage ceremony
that takes place in a Church at the hands of a priest), the
grace of God comes down on the marrying couple,
confirming them in their promises to each other. The
Sacrament part, is God’s guarantee that the married
couple can call on Him in their need to help them stay
together, and that this marriage can be what the
marrying couple want it to be: faithful, devoted and
everlasting. This grace of this Sacrament gives the
couple strength because they will always know, that
because they made their promises to each other standing
before God , that He Himself has validated their
marriage, and guaranteed that He wants it to exist.
A Sacramental marriage is also important for another
reason: it is a reminder and sign of God’s love for his
people because the faithful, devoted and unending love
of a husband or a wife for each other is the way that God
loves us – faithfully, devotedly, and unendingly. We can
look at a married couple and see in them the way that
God loves us.

Divorce is a problem in the Church, because the marriage of a husband and wife are a sign
of God's unending love for us. God's love for us can never end in divorce. God is
faithful even if we are not. Even if one of the partners of a marriage is faithless to
the marriage bond, the other, by remaining faithful, and not re-marrying or having other
sexual relationships, gives a powerful witness to everybody else of the exclusive and
devoted way that God loves us, no matter what.

Another reason why the Church is against divorce is that Jesus said “Nobody must separate
what God has joined together” (Mk 10:9) Also, by getting divorced, the married couple
seem to be saying that God’s grace wasn’t enough for them to see their marriage through,
when in fact it was their own lack of faith in God’s guarantee and help that was at
fault.
Christian Marriage: Inviting God In
Christian Marriage: Inviting God In
Questions

1. Sexual Love and Marriage

What are the two reasons given for getting married ?
Which of the two reasons do you think are not essential in a non-Christian
marriage?

1. The Ceremony
Why is it important to have Bible readings in a Sacramental marriage?
What do the marrying couple do in the Marriage Rite?

2. The Sacrament

Either:
a. What are the two reasons why Sacramental Marriage is important?
How does the sacrament help married couples fulfil their promises?
Read Hosea 2:19-20. What does this passage tell you about the way that God loves us?

Or:
b. “Married love is a sign of the love of God.” Do you agree? Give two reasons for and against in your
answer, and then write what your view is in your conclusion.

3. Divorce
“ The Church is too strict in refusing people the right to divorce.” Do you agree? Give two reasons for and
against in your answer, and then write what your own view is in your conclusion.