My Catholic Perspective of Marriage
The fact that Jesus performed his first public miracle at the wedding at Cana is very telling about how God feels about marriage: God will reveal His glory through your marriage if you are willing to give up your self love, and pick up your cross with Him.
Like the serpent in the garden, pop culture and mainstream society present a false and damaging picture of marriage:
Lie: Marriage = Happiness
You can delight in your spouse just as God delights in us, but if you don’t always delight in your spouse it’s okay.
A marriage now is not only about this life but the next to come. Remember, we are all merely pilgrims on this earth, in this life on our way to the next. Happiness is not always from God. Worldly pleasures and desires of the flesh can bring happiness, but death to our souls.
Truth: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.” - Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Bernadette Soubirous.
A spouse cannot bring you true joy. Only God’s Holy Spirit can bring comfort, joy and peace amid life’s many tribulations. Jesus said of the latter, we would have many:
“I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33)
When Jesus died on the cross He said:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27)
If you can find peace in Jesus in all your seasons of life and marriage you are blessed even in times of great suffering.
Truth: Marriage is meant to sanctify you.
In a nutshell, Catholic marriages aren’t meant to make you happy. Like all Catholic sacraments, marriage is a sacrament that is supposed to unleash the power of the Holy Spirit upon you and make you more holy. Additionally, if you bear children in your union then you are creating more eternal souls for God as part of the Church Militant on this earth.
So God the Father creates, the son Jesus redeems humanity, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies us.
God’s plan for marriage
- Help each other glorify God;
- Sanctify each other;
- Fast for each other;
- Pray for each other;
Marriage allows us to participate with Jesus in our own salvation. Jesus didn’t need us to participate but He wants us to and one way is through a sacramental marriage. He is constantly seeking communion with us. Another example is intercessory prayer: He doesn’t need our intercessory prayers rather He wants us to participate in his saving souls through them. He’s so delights in and loves us so much! It’s like parents letting children join in on chores, we can do them so much better and faster without our kids but we delight in them being with us and learning good things.
Truth: Civil Marriages Reject God’s Sanctifying Grace.
Get married via a Catholic priest to protect your family! Why did these good Catholics choose a wedding via the state versus their church? Because it’s faster than the 6-month wait or cheaper? You don’t need to host a wedding just get married in a church with 2 witnesses and accept God’s gift of Himself in your union!
Jesus’s First Public Miracle
Jesus’s first miracle was at the wedding at Cana, where he turned water into wine: …Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs[g] in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him… (John 2).
“but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” (John 19:34)
Don’t forget, the evil one’s first attack on humanity was against a husband and wife. Why didn’t he go after Adam when he was alone? Perhaps he hates the spiritual strength marriage can bring.
Sanctification
All seven Catholic sacraments are for the ultimate purpose of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist. So how does marriage fit into the Eucharist if you have already been baptized Catholic and completed first communion beforehand?
Although it is true, that you can already receive the Eucharist. You can grow in holiness through marriage. And be in a state of grace in order to receive the Eucharist and thirst for it how Christ thirsts for us.
The holier and more sanctified you are the better you receive the heart of Jesus in the host at Eucharist. Marriage provides many opportunities for sanctification. And the road to sanctification is suffering, you don’t have to suffer greatly, but you do have to be obedient to God and follow His commandments and treat your spouse how Jesus told us to treat others in the beatitudes and through His parables. You must be willing to become Christ and suffer the way Christ did for us, for your spouse and pray for their sanctification. If that is not real love of God, I don’t know what is. You must crucify your pride and desires and become Jesus in this life. Not all are called to the vocation of marriage, but if you were sanctification is the reason. To join yourself more intimately with Christ.
Suffering can be a fast track to sanctification. All of us no matter how disciplined we are in the natural world can suffer well without Jesus’s supernatural intervention.
Suffering can bring about a closer relationship with Jesus. Fortitude is a Gift of the Holy Spirit. Fortitude is the virtue of suffering well, like Jesus. You can’t suffer well without supernatural graces from God. Marriage further releases additional sanctifying graces!
Truth: We are all called to be saints
The purpose of marriage is not happiness and romantic love. It is being good (sanctification). Most of us are familiar with the Genesis story of creation: God made lots of things and for each God “saw that it was good.” All except one of His creations.
“The Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.” (Genesis 2:18)
The reality of marriage in a fallen world.
No marriage is perfect since it is the union of two imperfect people with their own family of origin wounds and to top it off this union happens in a fallen world.
You are not supposed to love your spouse or yourself more than God. That was the sin of Adam. He loved Eve more than God: Adam knew that Eve had fallen and he couldn’t let her go. Eve loved herself more than God and foolishly allowed herself to be deceived by the serpent, but Adam knew before he bit the forbidden fruit the consequence of Eve’s disobedience and followed her with full knowledge of what he was doing. Adam lost his holiness on purpose for Eve. This was not a good marriage.
Holy is more pleasing than happy to God
We are not called to find someone that will make us happy, but really the best spouse for us, is someone who will make us holy! Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit so the more holy you become the more joyful you will be even in a hard marriage.
You need to be holier even if that means enduring suffering after being married. By suffering I mean the suffering that brings forth humility, modesty, and meekness.
How? In the words of Father Ripperger: “…if you have a problem with pride you will find you have a husband or wife that will cause you lots of suffering, but you must ask God and our lady to show you what vice or sin that is unpleasant to God, what virtue does God want you to develop?”
Fast
God must come first. Especially if you have created eternal souls in your union together. In the spirit realm your union has eternal consequences.
Fasting is a good practice for detaching from self and attaching to God.
Sometimes peace comes when hard life moments arise and you know, God did not promise to make us happy in this life but in the next. Furthermore, you can be humble. Choose to be modest and remain quiet when your spouse says something hurtful while still honoring God. Remember, you can be humble and also respond with the knowledge in Christ that “You are a temple of God and His spirit dwells in you.”
Pray
Additionally, even in the best of times you should be praying for your spouse to love Jesus and become a saint. Yes, God wants your spouse to become a saint! And saints don’t have to be famous, they can live quiet lives and only be known by God in private. Offer your suffering to Jesus for the sanctification of your spouse. Consecrate your suffering to God.
“ Take up my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. (Matthew 11:29)
Is it better to live this life in romantic bliss, and feel lukewarm toward Jesus and never know Him in this life? Or is it better to push limits you never knew you could by depending fully on God. Do you know God the way Job did? After suffering Job thanked God:
“By hearsay I had heard of you, but now my eye has seen you.” (Job 42:5)
True communion with God often comes through great suffering, but he bares our pains with us.
“Cast all your worries upon Him because he cares for you.” (1Peter 5:7)
Love
I have been with my husband for 12 years. However, I only began really loving him how Christ directed us to love 3 year ago.
Lie: You can’t love anyone else until you love yourself.
The truth is much deeper and may blow your mind. Are you ready?
Truth: You cannot love your spouse until you love God properly.
God tells us how to love him in the first commandment. Abraham shows us how to love God in Genesis. Until you properly love God for being God, not all the lovely stuff He does for you and the way he makes you feel, you can’t truly love your spouse, yourself or anyone else (not even your kids)!
How crazy would it be if a mother could only feel love if her baby was good and made her feel happy? Humans wouldn’t have made it very far if that was the case. It’s the same with God. He wants us to love him in a rightly ordered way. We need to restore our love of God first. If we struggle to properly love God, we will struggle to properly love our spouse. We must love our husband or wife the way Jesus loves us: Showing our spouse Mercy and Grace.
How do we do this?
- Silently
- Through praying for our spouse.
- Fasting for our spouse, (yes even if he or she is horrible)
- Sacrificing for our spouse
- Surrendering all to Jesus. You cannot do this alone.
- Asking Mary for the grace to sacrifice. You cannot do this alone.
- Reading scripture, God talks to us through His word. You must know the word of God to be lead by God.
- Going to confession: Have you ever been an occasion of sin for your spouse?
If you are engaged and not willing to deny yourself for God and suffer for your spouse don’t get married. Yup you gotta do all this on top of raising kids and working your job. If you are married start praying for them now: “Immaculate heart of Mary pray for [spouse’s name here] now and at the hour of his/her death.”
As a Catholic, on your wedding day, you are really making a promise to God, to help your spouse attain holiness. You promise to sacrifice your will to support your spouse in fulfilling his or her, God-given responsibilities, even if they inconvenience you and vice versa!
Just one spouse living in God’s grace is not good enough in God’s eyes. That’s not the promise made at the altar.
If one spouse is doing bad, the other must be strong enough to lovingly fast, pray and only then confront the wayward spouse (with God’s help) to steer him or her back toward God’s plans for them.
When a man becomes a husband, he gains the spiritual authority to bless his wife. HUSBANDS, USE YOUR AUTHORITY!
Our Heavenly Father is loving and good to us. He never leaves us. Call on him together, in all circumstances for Jesus said:
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20)
Peace,
Laura
Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.
“Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:21-22)
Love one another in Christ
“For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
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