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The Meaning of Marriage

How Can Christian Faith Make a Difference?

I’ve spent the last twenty-five years working in family ministry and in churches, encountering people in the midst of their joys and struggles as they created family and home. While studying the theology of marriage in graduate school, I also had the opportunity to attend the Smart Marriage conferences sponsored by the Coalition for Marriage, Parenting and Family Education that provided the latest in marriage education and research. As the rich Catholic teachings on marriage and family were unfolded for me in the master’s program, I began to see a clear and helpful connection between the Catholic tradition and the insights of marriage therapists and researchers about what makes a marriage healthy and long lasting. It seemed to me that many of the findings from social science research on what makes a satisfying and long-term marriage supported the church’s teaching about marriage as a faithful, exclusive partnership for life. My own experience of almost forty years of marriage also bore the truth that our faith, our supportive communities, and our efforts at becoming one flesh and nurturing life together had brought us great happiness and longevity.

In ten years of offering retreats for couples I have found that, for them as well, a belief in God’s presence within them individually and as couples gives them a sense of meaning and hope as they face the ups and downs of life together. They recognize the many advantages of married life and the frustrations that are unavoidable. Most of them admit that their spouse is, and is not, the same person they married. Some couples come to these retreats because their marriage has become stale and routine. Other couples have suffered great losses or experienced profound conflicts. Still others come because their life is good and they have a desire for more in their marriage.
This book has grown out of a series of retreats with married couples in which I asked them to reflect on the promises they made at the altar on their wedding day. I hope this book will be a companion for you as you live into those promises and explore the mysteries of married love and commitment. It is designed to engage you and your spouse in a conversation about how your faith influences and transforms your experience of married life. Doing the exercises is as important as reading the text, so I invite you to take your time in reading, pondering, and communicating about the questions—separately, as a couple, or with other couples. Always do the exercises separately and then together.

What are the best things about your marriage?

Who supports your marriage?

What originally attracted you to your spouse?

What qualities do you most treasure in your spouse right now?

The Good Marriage

Most couples view marriage through the lens that society offers us. In a “good marriage” the partners have fulfilling jobs, plenty of money, smart and successful children, nice homes and cars, good sex, fun and romance, an active social life, and esteem in the community. These things are admirable and worth working toward. But anyone who has been married more than a short time understands that good marriage must go beyond those aspirations. We may not be able to define what good marriage should be, but we long for it just the same.

In the faith tradition of Christianity, much more is revealed about what marriage really is and about what good marriage is meant to be. Through the lens of faith, marriage is seen as a pathway into the very heart of God where our greatest need for intimacy and belonging can be met. In growing into deeper intimacy and love with one another, couples can find intimacy with the divine. Marriage takes us into the heart of God because marriage challenges us to grow in the self-giving kind of love that is in God’s heart, “slow to anger and rich in faithful love” (Psalm 103:8). When we see marriage as the spiritual process it is, we can participate in “ordinary” life with hope and purpose.

The church’s view of marriage gives us a meaning system, a way to understand marriage as a “school of love” (phrase of Pope John Paul II) and to address some of society’s confusion about this great enterprise between God and humankind. The confusion out there is obvious; we are in a marriage crisis. Some 40 percent of first marriages end in divorce, and the rate is higher for second and third marriages. Young people are haunted by the fear of divorce. Failed marriages are common in their experience and many are themselves the children of divorce. They put off marriage until later in life, and, when they do marry, they may view their union as a “trial” marriage. Divorce is only the most flagrant sign of a marriage crisis. Many couples who remain married do so unhappily. They reach a truce with each other. They continue to live together in their disappointment and frustration, and never experience the joy of true intimacy.

Yet God created human beings for intimacy with one another as a pathway to intimacy with our Creator. Though some view the promises of marriage as confining or as curtailing their freedom, the permanence and exclusivity of married love actually free us to achieve greater intimacy with one another. As we grow in love and fidelity, we grow in the likeness of God, in whose image we were created.

What one thing do you know for sure about marriage from your own experience?

As you look at the marriages around you, what lens (attitudes, beliefs, criteria for success) do you use to view them?

The Reality of God’s Presence in Your Marriage

When I ask couples for an image that might describe their experience of Christ present in their married life, the responses are rich and varied. In looking back, one couple described God’s presence as “the stabilizer bars and seat belts on the roller coaster ride they experienced in their relationship” during a period of crisis.
As Catholic Christians, we engage in incarnational thinking. We believe that God lives in us, that God is near in all situations. We even believe that God is present within the relationship of marriage. In fact,

God is near in place—not only in churches but in kitchens, bedrooms, workplaces, and backyards;
God is near in time—in good and bad times, in the big and little events and circumstances that make up our lives as a couple and as God’s people moving through time;
God is near in our religious practice—in church traditions and sacraments, in Scripture, in the larger faith community itself, and even in the faith community formed when two people marry and devote themselves to God’s purposes as a team of two.

God is actually present in marriage in a unique and very tangible way. That presence is experienced differently in each couple. God entered our world in the person of Jesus Christ, taking on human form and sharing the human journey. God does not simply make temporary visits to earth in commonly understood ways such as the sacraments and Scriptures. God makes a home in us, and from within our lives God can be present in the world. And when we are called to the life of marriage, we can be certain that God makes a home in the marital relationship itself.

Read and reflect briefly on Isaiah 43:1–5.

But now, thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my sight,
and honored, and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you.

In what circumstances or situations have you found these words of the prophet Isaiah to be true for you?

We are assured of divine presence in times when we are arguing or not speaking to one another, when we are bored or angry, and when we delight in accomplishments, celebrating the beauty of our children or good times with friends. Place your hand on your heart and feel its rhythmic beating. That is how close God is to you. Nothing we do or experience, however terrible or ecstatic it might seem to us, is ever outside the embrace of God. That is hard for us to comprehend, but it is a truth contained in our understanding of the Incarnation, a deep mystery we see clearly on some days and are blind to on others. In dark times, people often ask, Where is God in this? The real question is this: What is blinding us from seeing the ever-faithful presence of God’s Spirit among us?

This particular understanding of how God is with us is unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Up until Moses, people understood the gods to be distant and uncaring, even competitive and vindictive about humans. Unlike the capricious Greek or Roman gods of history, our God does not require our cajoling or bargaining. God is not indifferent or harsh or judgmental, even if someone has mistakenly told us that.

God is gracious and kind and merciful, “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8). Whatever we may have learned from parents or teachers or fire-and-brimstone sermons, the Judeo–Christian tradition stands behind the truth that God loves us unconditionally, forgives us repeatedly, and stands by us faithfully in every circumstance, even if we do not recognize that presence at the time. The word for this kind of love is hesed, translated as “steadfast love.” This love takes us beyond our own abilities to love and care for another. This love develops within us patience and kindness and understanding.

This amazing love, which is the presence of God, entered your marriage when you vowed to love one another for better, for worse, forever.

Recall a time, happy or sad, when you were aware of God’s presence in your marriage, in an important event, or a decision or circumstance. How was God’s presence manifested to you?

We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is . . . to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.
C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm

The Intentional Marriage

When I ask a roomful of married couples whether they have been to a dentist in the past year, most of them raise their hands. If I ask whether they have changed the oil in their cars in the past six months, most respond with a yes. They generally will have updated the virus protection on their computers and made sure their children and pets were current on vaccinations. We know how to take preventative care of our homes and ourselves.

But what about our marriages? When I ask those same couples whether they have gone out on a date together or taken time to talk, or play, or to exclusively spend time together, most admit that there is little regularity or intentionality when it comes to taking preventive care of their relationship.

InTake Back Your Marriage, Bill Doherty defines “intentional marriage” as a relationship that does not happen by accident but that the couple consciously keeps choosing to build. Your marriage is an even more important asset than your investments, your house, your car, your business, and other valued dimensions of your life together.

Recent research by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, published inThe Case for Marriage, shows that married couples live longer, stay healthier, and have happier and more successful children than those who are not married. They earn more money, accumulate more wealth over time, and enjoy more satisfying sexual relationships than those who cohabit, are single, or are divorced. Another way in which marriage is valuable is in the impact it has on children and on others in your community.

And when you made your marriage promises before God, you raised the value of this relationship beyond anything you own. You made these marriage promises to your unborn children, to your extended families, and to the community beyond. The life you are making together has value that cannot be calculated; it is worth your attention and intentions. Caring for this relationship will have an impact far beyond you.

Name something you have done in the past two weeks that has helped preserve your relationship.

Name something you can do to be more intentional about enriching your life together.

2
The Promise

What Did You Say on Your Wedding Day?

On their honeymoon, Paul and Becky had a wonderful romantic time in Cozumel, but during their last dinner in Mexico the conversation drifted to more somber thoughts. If Paul had failed the bar exam, he’d have to take a preparation course right away to get ready to take it again. He’d have to find a part-time job. How much money could he make? Would he have enough time to study? Even if Paul had passed the exam, he’d have to find a job.

This brought up a problem they hadn’t discussed much and certainly hadn’t settled. Becky wanted to continue to live in or near the Ohio city where they had both grown up and where their families lived. Paul wanted to look for jobs elsewhere as well: Chicago and Washington, D.C. perhaps. They had agreed to put off discussion until “after the wedding.” Well, the wedding had been a week ago.

Meanwhile, they worried about money. They’d used a credit card to pay for part of the honeymoon. If Becky’s car gave out, as it seemed likely to do, they’d have to take out a loan to buy a new one. Becky was realizing that she was much more worried about money than Paul was. His free-spending ways made her uneasy. Becky hopes that he’ll change, now that they’re married and must be more careful with finances.

The honeymoon is over. Like every newly married couple, Paul and Becky are embarking on a mysterious journey of discovery and transformation.

I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them—it was that promise.
Thorton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth

Making the Big Promise

The questions Paul and Becky faced after their honeymoon had to do with what appear to be material issues, such as housing, money, and jobs. But beneath those questions are deeply spiritual issues dealing with the promise to love and honor each other.

The spiritual dimension of marriage is not always easy to recognize in the midst of jobs, household duties, and full calendars. The lens of faith reveals a spirituality woven into the events, relationships, joys, and challenges of everyday life. Your life together is a spiritual journey. The ups and downs, the mistakes and the achievements, the sorrows and the joys—through these things God will form both of you into new people. Marriage is the process through which you can be transformed into a more loving person. It all began with the promises you made on your wedding day.

Recall your wedding day. Go to a quiet place, relax, close your eyes, and think about that day. How did the day begin? How did you feel as you got dressed? What did you look like? What did the church look like when you arrived? Think about some of the details: the flowers, the music, the room where the reception was held.

Recall the people who attended your wedding: your family, the wedding party, friends, special guests who came a long way to be with you.

Chances are, memories of your wedding day will cascade into your mind in a rush of images and impressions. For many if not most people, this day of days, keenly anticipated for years and meticulously planned for months, passes in a rapid blur.

The core of what you did on your wedding day is to exchange vows with your spouse. Here are the words you spoke (or words very similar to what you said). Read them carefully, slowly, and prayerfully. Read them out loud.

The groom says:
I (. . .) , take you (. . .) to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

The bride says:
I (. . .) , take you (. . .) to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

What did those vows mean to you then?

In light of your experience of married living, what do those vows mean now?

Understanding What Honor Means

The fact is, we really don’t know what it means to be married when we first speak those wedding vows. What we do know is that we said we were going to honor each other.
The promise Paul and Becky made to love and honor “all the days of our lives” ushered them into the mystery of married love. The word mystery introduces the marriage rite as the celebrant prays:

Father,
You have made the bond of marriage
a holy mystery,
a symbol of Christ’s love for his Church.

We cannot fully understand (in this life, at least) how marriage can be an image of Christ’s love for his church. We cannot fully understand how God enters our lives in a new way when we vow to love and honor our spouse no matter what. But that doesn’t mean we can understand nothing of these things. The meaning of the marital mystery gradually becomes clearer as we face the questions and decisions of life together.

On your wedding day you didn’t know that you were promising to honor your spouse’s love of hours of television sports, or expensive taste in clothing, or snoring, or need for absolute quiet before coffee in the morning. You didn’t know it involved persevering through illness, unemployment, heartache over children, or serious disagreement about money. You could not even imagine the joy of your first child’s birth or the depth of your own fidelity in hard times. But in facing these challenges, you have the opportunity to be formed—or not—in patience, humility, and selfless love.

In promising to love and honor your spouse, you entered, in a new way, the mystery of God’s love. The well of God’s steadfast presence is always there for us to dip into. And we’re usually most aware of God’s presence when things are tough—when we’re struggling to control the credit card, when we’re trying to decide how to discipline a child, when we’re fearful of the implications of a looming job change.

The greatest mystery, and the most comforting truth, is that God is not simply near. God is here—in your marriage at all times, not just when things are going well and you are feeling satisfied.

On your wedding day you stood up in front of family and friends and publicly promised to “honor” your spouse. This is an unusual thing to do. Christian wedding ceremonies are the only occasions when someone publicly pledges to honor another person. The promise that “I will love you and honor you all the days of my life” is a radical thing to say. We wouldn’t say something like this to an employer or a business partner. Even contractual obligations can be renegotiated. The wedding vows commit us to seek the good of the other person at all times, even when times are hard.

Our society is very skeptical about honor. We’re more likely to tear down people than to honor them. What does “honor” mean?

Honor means that we treat a person with the respect he or she deserves as God’s unique creation. This is easy to do on your wedding day, but it gets harder later on, when you discover that you’ve married someone who chews ice or talks incessantly or watches television when there’s work to do. Nevertheless, this flawed person is your life partner in the great enterprise of married life.

I am reminded of what it means to honor another person when I visit the Benedictine monastery and observe the monks as they gather in church to pray. The monks bow to one another after they bow to the Blessed Sacrament; in this way they acknowledge the presence of Christ in each of them. Though husbands and wives don’t bow to each other, they can show honor through their actions and words and by respecting each other’s unique qualities and preferences. Honor and mutual respect form the foundation for any partnership, particularly a “partnership of love and life,” (one of the memorable terms John Paul II used to describe marriage).

In fact, the differences between husbands and wives deserve special respect. One of the interesting facts I have discovered over many years of working with married couples is that opposites attract. Often we are drawn to another person because he or she possesses qualities that we ourselves lack. A person with an anxious temperament is attracted to someone who is cool and calm. An orderly engineer will connect with an impetuous artist. A deep complementarity lies at the heart of marriage. Men and women are different in many ways, both obvious and subtle, and the differences between us are crucial for a healthy marriage.

Yet these differences often become irritations as the years go by. The calm attitude isn’t reassuring anymore; it starts to look like indifference. The impulsiveness that used to be fun and spontaneous is now perceived as annoying. Thus honoring each other’s differences can become a challenge. Partners in a marriage usually experience a powerful tendency to wish the other person was more like them. This common temptation in marriage is a classic case of dishonoring the other.

A man married eight years commented to me that he felt loved and honored when his wife complimented him or acknowledged his talents in some way. “I don’t have to be perfect with her,” he said. “She knows I need improvement and she tells me straight out if I’m being a jerk, but I know she loves me as I am anyway. She’s straight with me about that too.”

On your wedding day you promised to honor your unique, special spouse. That means that you respect and love the person God made, not the person you wish he or she would become, if only they listened to you. This is not simply a matter of social adjustment—it is a spiritual task, one that requires patience, humility, and unconditional love.

Are there persons in your life whom you honor? If so, how do you do that?

What are some simple everyday ways by which you show your spouse that you honor him or her?

Give an example of a time/situation when you felt loved and honored by your spouse.

Vows and Blessings

As Paul and Becky began the practical work of resolving their differences, they did so under the canopy of the nuptial blessings bestowed on their wedding day. After they said their vows to each other, the priest raised his hands and prayed a nuptial blessing over them. You probably don’t remember this nuptial blessing in any detail—it’s one of the many important things that get lost in the whirlwind of wedding day festivities. But this blessing deserves attention. It expresses the church’s view of what you and your spouse just did. It touches on some important aspects of marriage—aspects that will help you participate in this relationship with wisdom and hope.

Here are excerpts from a nuptial blessing that is commonly prayed at weddings today. The blessing prayed at your own wedding might have been slightly different, but the essentials are the same. The italics in these excerpts have been added for emphasis.

You have a mission.

Holy Father, you created mankind in your own image and made man and woman to be joined as husband and wife in union of body and heart and so fulfill their mission in this world.

In this part of the blessing, the priest is relating marriage to your mission in life. Marriage is a vocation—a way of life to which God calls us. We often hear the word vocation used in reference to God’s call to the priestly and religious life. But marriage is a vocation, too, having its own mission and way of life, distinct from the priesthood and the single life. When you promised to love and honor your spouse, you were setting out on a path that gives a distinct purpose, shape, and direction to your life in the world.

You formed a covenant.

The celebrant continues the blessing:
Father, to reveal the plan of your love you made the union of husband and wife an image of the covenant between you and your people.

This is the “for better or for worse” aspect of the wedding commitment. The marriage is a covenant—a total giving of oneself to another and to God. It is a participation in God’s covenant with his people—the covenant that began with the people of Israel and was completed in the new covenant of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, according to the church, your marriage covenant reveals the plan of God’s love. There are deep mysteries here, which Paul and Becky can now begin to explore.

You are a sacrament.

In the fulfillment of this sacrament the marriage of Christian man and woman is the sign of the marriage between Christ and the Church. Father stretch out your hand, and bless N. and N.

Lord grant that as they begin to live this sacrament they may share with each other the gifts of your love and become one in heart and mind as witnesses to your presence in their marriage. Help them to create a home together and give them children to be formed by the gospel and to have a place in your family.

A sacrament is both a particular manifestation of God’s presence and a broad sign of God’s presence in our world. God is present in your marriage, and your marriage is a way for God to be present to others. This is true all the time, on your worst days as well as your best ones.

At the beginning of the nuptial Mass, the celebrant refers to marriage as “a holy mystery.” Mystery indeed! It seems astonishing that God is present in the cooking and cleaning, the endless chores and the exhausting work, the child rearing and the entertaining, the disappointments and boredom, the frustration and fatigue of marriage. It is amazing to think that our efforts to fulfill these responsibilities reveal God’s love for the world. It’s a matter of reframing our experience, of looking more deeply beneath the surface of our lives, and of adopting a perspective that reveals the spiritual realities of a committed shared life.

Vocation, covenant, sacrament—these are three great spiritual realities of marriage. Think of them as lenses through which you view your life. These lenses will show you that God’s presence is woven through your marriage like brilliant threads in a magnificent fabric.

Who helped shape your view of marriage when you were growing up? What did you learn about marriage by observing or listening to them?

Name one or two things you remember hearing about marriage in your marriage preparation sessions.

Some aspects of a Catholic perspective on marriage are summarized in this chapter. What insight is most helpful to you? Surprising? Challenging?

Acknowledgments	p. vii
The Meaning of Marriage: How Can Christian Faith Make a Difference?	p. 1
The Promise: What Did You Say on Your Wedding Day?	p. 11
Marriage as Vocation: The Call to Partnered Holiness	p. 23
Marriage as Sacrament: Human Love as a Sign	p. 53
Marriage as Covenant: For Better, for Worse, with God	p. 65
Couple Spirituality: The Mystery in the Mundane	p. 85
How Married Love Grows: Seasons of Dying, Waiting, and Finding New Life	p. 99
How Married Love Gives Life: A Spirituality of Nurture	p. 111
Sex and Spirituality: How Marriage Brings the Two Together	p. 125
Forgiveness and Reconciliation: What Makes Covenant Love Possible	p. 143
How to Deepen the Spiritual Connection: Nine Practices for Life Together	p. 161
Epilogue: It's Up to You	p. 189
Homemade Holiness for Married Couples	p. 191
Practical Considerations for Couple Prayer	p. 193
Recreation Inventory	p. 197
Selected Bibliography	p. 199
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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For Better, for Worse, for God : Exploring the Holy Mystery of Marriage

082942766X

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