THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY
1. NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE Dr. de Mesa, as cited by Efren Naῆo, O.S.A., in his
SACRAMENTOF MATRIMONY
The Sacrament of Matrimony is the Sacrament by
which man and woman unite themselves before God
to found a Christian family; human love is made into
GODLY love.
Why did God dispose man and woman for each
other?
God himself instituted marriage in paradise, when
he united Adam and Eve in an unbreakable bond. “It
is not good that man is alone,” God created then Eve
and joined man and woman together. The scripture
(Genesis) then concludes: For this reason, a man
leaves his father and mother, and clings to his wife,
and the two become one flesh.” (Mt. 19:4-6)
These words indicate the essential unity, and
indissolubility of marriage, characteristics inherent
in the very nature of the bond that unites the
spouses.
Means a man can have only one
Unity wife and woman only one
husband.
Means the union of marriage is
Indissolubility for life and cannot be dissolved
except by death.
The best way to express the deep meaning of
marriage is to speak of it in terms of “covenant”. A
covenant in the scripture is a binding agreement or
bond between two parties. God’s dealings with His
people were within the context of a covenant. Both
the Old and the New Testament use marriage as a
symbol of God’s covenant which his chosen people.
This reality of marriage as a covenant has its basis
in the story of Creation (Genesis 2:23-24).
ONE “BODY” (Flesh) (v. 24) this expresses the
intimate partnership of life and love that a married
couple shares. “Become” – The day of their wedding
is just the beginning of a life-long process
of becoming one for the couple.
book Celebrations of life: Sacraments and Liturgy,
has listed the IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF
MARRIAGE AS A COVENANT:
1.MARRIAGE IS A TOTAL AND FAITHFUL
COMMITMENT
Just as Yahweh was faithful to unfaithful Israel, so
Jesus to his unworthy disciples. Jesus’ covenant with
us is total and faithful: even if we abandon him, he
remains the same. “If we are unfaithful, he will still
remain faithful, for he cannot deny himself (2 Tim.
2:13).
2. MARRIAGE IS AN ACCEPTING COMMITMENT
God made covenant with His chosen people not by
reason of Israel’s worthiness by God’s own initiative.
We do not deserve to be loved yet God cares for us
and loves us. The creator simply loves us because
we are, with our strengths and weaknesses. He
accepts us as we are.
3. MARRIAGE IS AN EXCLUSIVE COMMITMENT
God wants us to recognize no other God except Him.
He wants that our relationship with Him to be
exclusive: “Set your mind on God’s kingdom and His
justice before everything else.” Mt. 6:33. His desire
is our whole and undivided attention. Marital
relationship is exactly the same.
4. MARRIAGE IS A CONTINUING AND GROWING
COMMITMENT
Marital commitment is dynamic, on-going; it is a
day-to-day reality. Like love for God, it is never
accomplished once and for all, but only for the day
that lies immediately at hand.
CHRIST MADE MATRIMONY A SACRAMENT
1. To sanctify the love of husband and wife
2. To help them the Christians in rearing of the
children
MARRIED LOVE AND FAITHFULNESS
The married love of a man and a woman makes God
present in their marriage. Faithfulness in marriage
means more than just avoiding to commit
adultery. It also means growing in faith, trust and
love in each other and in the marriage union itself
(CFC, 1596).
MARRIAGE SERVES LIFE: OFFSPRING
Married love is creative. It is open to the procreation
and education of children. One of the sources of
fulfillment within marriage is the participation in
God’s own work of bringing forth the new human
life. Children are themselves sign of God’s love
because they were born of God’s love sacramentally
present in the love of the husband and wife.
PURPOSES OF MARRIAGE
1. Mutual love and companionship of the spouses
Seen in the creation of woman as man’s helper, in
her being formed out of man’s rib:
“Then the man said, “She is now bone of my bone,
and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for
from man she has been taken.”
Their mutual union in marriage is a divinely
established and of their mutual perfection and
happiness.
2. Begetting of children and the formation of a
family where children can be cared for, educated
and reared, in this way the human race is
propagated.
Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament
for Christian. Transformed by Christ into a
Sacrament, Christian marriage becomes the means
by which the Church is enriched with new members,
the family of God with new sons, heaven with new
citizens.
The Sacrament makes the married state a means of
redemption and mutual sanctification for those who
embrace it. Human love is transfigured that it
becomes the living symbol of the love between
Christ and the Church.
Marriage among Christians, celebrated at the altar,
in the presence of the priest who witnesses to and
ratifies the act, immediately creates the
supernatural bond which no human authority may
lose, but only the death of one of the spouses.
At the same time, it confers upon the spouses an
increase of sanctifying grace. Their new state of life
is set under a continuous supernatural influence, by
which they enjoy the particular divine helps to carry
out worthily and to their mutual advantage the new
duties that their state imposes.
All that the Church legislates and teaches about
marriage, all that she demands from society and the
State, and from spouses. All that sacrifices and
battles she has to bear through the centuries in
defense of marriage – all these arise from her clear-
sighted view of marriage in itself and marriage as a
Sacrament.
2. SACRED SCRIPTURES AND THE TEACHINGS
OF THE CHURCH ON MARRIAGE
Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man
and woman in the image and likeness of God, and
concludes with a vision of the "wedding-feast of the
Lamb" (Revelation 19:7, 9). The bond of marriage is
compared to God's undying love for Israel in the Old
Testament, and Christ's love for his Church in the
New Testament of the Bible.
Jesus stresses the importance of the marriage bond
in his Ministry (Matthew 19:6, 8). The importance of
marriage is substantiated by the presence of Christ
at the wedding feast of Cana, where he began his
public ministry at the request of his mother Mary by
performing his first miracle (John 2). It is the Apostle
Paul who calls matrimony a great sacrament or
mystery, and who identifies the marriage of man and
woman with the unity of Christ and his Church.
Genesis 2:24 "For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the
two shall become one flesh."
Mt. 19:4-6 = Jesus said: Have you not read that the
Creator from the beginning made them male and
female and that he said: “This is why a man must
leave father and mother and cling to his wife, and
the two become one body. They are no longer two,
therefore but one body. So then what God has
united, man must not divide.”
Ephesians 5:25 "Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ loved the Church."
Ephesians 5:32-33 "This is a great mystery, but I
speak in reference to Christ and the church. In any
case, each one of you should love his wife as
himself, and the wife should respect her husband."
Eph. 5:25; 29-32 = Husbands should love their
wives, just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed
himself for her to make her holy… A man never hates
the Church, because it is his body – and we are its
living parts. For this reason, a man must leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the
two will become one body. The mystery has many
implications: but I am saying it applies to Christ and
the Church.
Vat. II LG 1 No. 11 – Finally Christian spouses, in
virtue of the sacrament of matrimony signify and
partake of the mystery of that unity and fruitful love
which exists between Christ and His Church (cf. Eph.
5:32). The spouses thereby help each other to attain
to holiness in their married life and by the rearing
and the education of their children. And so, in their
state and order of life, they have their own special
gift among the people of God.
GS 1 No. 48 – The intimate partnership of married
life and love has been established by the Creator and
qualified by His law. It is rooted in the conjugal
covenant of irrevocable personal consent
3.THE MATTER AND FORM OF MATRIMONY
The matter of the matrimony – is the marriage
contract
The form the words that expresses the free
consent to this contract.
The rite consists in the mutual consent and the
joining of the pair, in the blessings and giving of the
rings, and in the invocation and exhortations.
SYMBOLS OF MARRIAGE
1. Arrhae – symbolizes sufficiency of material
possessions, which they may use to attain eternal
life.
2. Rings – symbolize mutual love in an unbroken
loyalty.
Accompanied by the witnesses and relatives, the
bride and the groom enter the Church, kneeling on
the benches prepared for them at the altar.
The groom as the head of the family takes his place
on the right; and the bride kneels at his left
side. The bride is dressed in white – symbol of
purity and bears a crown on her head to signify that
in the family she should reign in goodness and in
grace.
The Church upholds and promotes marriage by
proclaiming it as central in God’s plan as well as for
human society, its essential characteristics are the
permanent, exclusive and binding qualities of the
marriage bond (cf. GS 48).
Premarital Instructions is arranged at the diocesan
or inter-parish level, should be obligatory for all
engaged couples. They will have to reflect on the
nature of the marriage relationship, the joys and
problems of married life, and the responsibilities
they will assume toward each other and their
children.
4. THE SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE SACRAMENT
OF MARRIAGE
1. It confirms the essential sanctity of marriage –
a.1. its unity and indissolubility
a.2. its ends of mutual love and perfection
a.3. it elevates the natural institution to something
supernatural
a.4. the begetting and educating of children
a.5. making it a participation in the love Christ bears for
His spouse the Church.
2. It increases sanctifying grace and confers the
sacramental grace.
It entitles the spouses to all the divine help they
will need for a happy and holy married life. The
dispositions and cooperation of the spouses who
receive the Sacrament will of course determine
the degree of grace conferred.
JURIDICAL EFFECTS OF MARRIAGE
1. It gives the right to each partner over the other for
the fulfillment of the rights of marriage.
2. It assures the legitimacy of the children born of
the union
3. It carries with it the obligation to live together.
5.DUTIES OF CHRISTIAN SPOUSES
1. To love and help each other and to remain faithful
until death
2. To accept the children which God may give them
and to train them for Christian living.
Christian marriage is the union of two baptized, man
and woman, who freely give themselves to each
other in a lifelong covenant of love. Their
relationship imitates the love of Christ for his Church
(Eph 5. 2f), and manifests that love for others to
see. Christ condemns divorce by saying “What God
has joined together, let no man asunder.” (Mt. 19:6).
To receive Matrimony worthily, Catholics should be
in the state of grace. Catholics should prepare for a
happy marriage by:
1. having a clean and not too long courtship of which
their parents approve.
2. Consulting the parish priest at least one month
before marriage
 Can a Catholic Christian marry a person from in mutual acceptance, in hospitality and being for
another religion? others.
The Church does not generally favor mixed marriage Nothing in the early Church fascinated people more
because: about the “New Way” of the Christians than their
1. The Church is interested in the happiness of her “domestic churches”. Often someone “believed in
children the Lord, together with all his household; and many
2. Such marriage easily results in the loss or neglect believed and were baptized” (Acts 18:8). In an
of Faith on the part of the Catholic unbelieving’s world, islands of living faith were
3.Disagreement on fundamental principles of formed, places of prayer, mutual sharing, and cordial
morality hospitality.
4. Lead to the neglect of the religious education of ROME, Corinth, Antioch, the great cities of antiquity,
the children were soon permeated with domestic churches that
were like points of light. Even today families in
However, the Church grants dispensations from this
which Christ is at home are the leaven that renews
rule in individual cases.
our society.
What should be done if a Catholic wants to marry a
non-Catholic Christian?
Church approval must be obtained for the wedding.
This is because a so-called “mixed” (that is,
interdenominational) marriage requires from both
partners a special fidelity to Christ, so that the
scandal of Christian division, which has still not
been remedied, does not continue in miniature and
perhaps even lead to giving up the practice of the
faith.
What is the Church’s stance on people who are
divorced and remarried?
She accepts them lovingly, following Jesus’
example. Anyone who divorces after being married
in the Church and then during the lifetime of the
spouse enters into a new union obviously
contradicts Jesus’ clear demand for the
indissolubility of marriage. The Church cannot
abolish this demand. This retraction of fidelity is
contrary to the EUCHARIST, in which it is precisely
the irrevocable character of God’s love that the
Church celebrates. That is why someone who lives
in such a contradictory situation is not admitted to
Holy COMMUNION.
Far from treating all specific cases alike, Pope
Benedict XVI speaks about “painful situations” and
calls on pastors “to discern different situations
carefully, in order to be able to offer appropriate
spiritual guidance to the faithful involved”
(Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis, 29).

What does it mean to say that the family is a “Church

in miniature”?
What the Church is on a large scale, the family is on
a small scale: an image of God’s love in human
fellowship. Indeed, every marriage is perfected in
openness to others, to the children that God sends,