Sacramentology Tangaza: March 2011

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE
Bibliography
Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, Paulines, Nairobi, 1981.
Pontifical Council for the Family, Preparation for the Sacrament of Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 1996.
Benezeri Kisembo, Laurenti Magesa & Aylward Shorter, African Christian Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 1997.
Benezet Bujo, Plea for Change of Models for Marriage, Nairobi, Paulines, 2009.
John Burke, Catholic Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 2006.
John Burke, Marriage Annulment, Paulines, Nairobi, 2007.
Mary Kibera, Love and Conflict in Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 2007.
Michael Lawler, Marriage and the Catholic Church, Collegeville, Liturgical, 2002.
Theodore Mackin, The Marital Sacrament. New York: Paulist Press, 1989.
Alan Loy McGinnis, The Friendship Factor, St Paul’s, Mumbai, 2008
James & Evelyn Whitehead, Marrying Well: Stages on the Journey of Christian Marriage. New York: Doubleday, 1984
Mercy Oduyoye & Musimbi Kanyoro, The Will to Arise, (esp. articles by Musimbi Kanyoro & Anna Nasimiyu Wasike and other articles on marriage), New York, Orbis, 1992. H. Norman Wright & Wes Roberts, Before You Say ‘I Do’, Eugene, Harvest House, 1997.
Saying I Do, New York, Paulist, 2006.
Today and All the Days of Your Life, Archdiocese of Saint Louis, Liguori, 2002.
William Blum, Monogamy Reconsidered, Nairobi, Gaba Publications, 1989

Chapter One OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis
• Sacredness - rooted in the creation narrative – Gen 2:18-24.
• Preservation of husband’s clan
• Children are regarded as a blessing and a gift from God.
Family Affair
• Marriage was a family affair that was arranged by fathers for their children.
• Scriptures say little about marriage customs and nothing about ceremonies since marriages were private affairs.
• Generally monogamous. Most Israeli men had only one wife.
• Polygamy tolerated (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob).
• Adultery forbidden by the Torah.
• Women had few legal rights and were seen as the property of their fathers or husbands. Adultery is wrong because it violates the property of father or husband. Even the Ten Commandments placed coveting a neighbour’s wife on the same footing as coveting his goods (Ex 20:17).
Monogamy
• Prophets present the faithful love between husband and wife as ideal and they see Yahweh’s faithful love for Israel in this context.
Hosea
• Waiting for Gomer, as Yahweh waits for Israel.
• Perception of husband’s love for wife as image of Yahweh’s love for Israel.
Other Prophets
• The imagery of husband-wife becomes the basic way in which prophets depict the relationship between Yahweh and Israel (Hos 2, Is 54.4-5, Jer 2.2, 3.20).
• Ezekiel 16: Yahweh’s love for Israel is like of a husband who loves his wife but is deserted by her.
• Song of Songs: Extols ecstasy of love
• Tobit 6-8: The perfect marriage is one of love between husband and wife.
• Sir 25-26: Dangers and Rewards of Domestic Life.
• Proverbs 5-7, 31: The virtues of the perfect wife.
Divorce
• While Malachi 2.16 denounced men who divorced their Jewish wives to marry foreigners, divorce was an accepted way to end an unhappy marriage.
• Adultery: Dt 20:22-24.
• Only husband has right to it. A woman desiring divorce had to request his husband for it.
• Remarriage accepted, except for wife to her first husband
• Dt 24:1-4 – ‘A man could give his wife a written note of dismissal if he found in her something indecent’
• Shammai: Adultery. Hillel: Displeasure of husband.
Yahweh is a merciful God who remains faithful to his people. The husband-wife relation becomes in the prophetic writings an alternative to the king-subject relation. The use of this imagery began to alter the understanding of the relationship between married people.
Yahweh Significance: The meaning of God in his relationship to humans became part of the meaning of marriage, and marriage became capable of explicitly signifying and revealing this God. So just as Yahweh loves Israel, husbands are to love their wives. It gives a richer significance to marriage; the personal aspect and fidelity are stressed and the woman is to be respected and loved as a person.

Chapter Two JESUS CHRIST
Kingdom of God
• Everything seen in light of the Kingdom of God
• Mk 12:25 – no marrying in Heaven.
• Lk 14:20, 17:27, Mt 24:38-39 – Concerns of marriage superseded by Second Coming.
Divorce
Divorce and Remarriage = Adultery (Mt 5:31-32, 19:3-12, Lk 16:18, Mk 10:1-12).
Permanent and Indissoluble Marriage.
Porneias
‘Except on the grounds of porneias, unchastity,’ Mt 5:32.
• Softening of Jesus
• Separation without remarriage for adultery
• Generally accepted as referring to an incestuous union, which was forbidden (Lev 18:6-18) and would nullify the marriage (Acts 15:20, 29.
Jesus gives New Significance to Marriage - Eph 5.32 – This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church.

Chapter Three NEW TESTAMENT
• Perhaps, the only real difference between Christian marriages in the NT and the rest of society was that of attitude. The Eschaton was expected, so marriage was seen as provisional. Paul prefers celibacy, giving one a focus on preparation for the end-time. He advised people not to make changes.
• Missionary Ideal Affirmed: Leave all for Kingdom of God.
• Marriage was never condemned.
• Messianic Period described as a Wedding Feast
• Slaves free to marry citizens.
• Divorce & Infidelity was Rejected by Christians.
Covenant: Ephesians 5:21-33 – Married Christians are to love in a way that reflects the covenant between Christ and the Church. Ephs 5:32 – “This mystery has many implications; but I am saying that it applies to Christ and the Church.”
Mystery was translated as Sacrament, which led Augustine to see marriage as a Sacrament. Paul lays the foundation for seeing marriage in personal terms, in terms of its being an outward sign of the loving union of Jesus and his bride, the Church.
I Corinthians 7 – Contract: The exchange of mutual rights and obligations. Paul was the first to set down equal rights for men and women – the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband.
Pauline Privilege: When a non-Christian is baptised and his/her spouse will not live at peace with him/her, then the Christian can obtain a divorce and be allowed to remarry.
Pastoral Epistles – Household Codes: Church leaders are to be successful in marriage and family life and be faithful to their wives. Younger widows are advised to remarry (I Tim 5.14). Husbands are to treat their wives with consideration because they are equally heirs to the life of grace (I Pet 3.7)

Chapter Four EARLY DEVELOPMENT
Patristic Period
• Civil Weddings. For first three centuries, marriage was a family affair and the Church had little or nothing to do with it. For marriage the Roman government required mutual consent.
• No religious ceremony was deemed necessary.
• Church Blessings were developed as time went on.
• Pope Nicholas I in 866: Marriage by mutual consent was accepted as valid.
• For first 1200 years, no Church ceremony. With Trent, 1563, the presence of a priest was demanded.
• The first ecclesial obligation was that in certain cases, particularly in the case of the clergy, permission had to be received from the bishop to marry.
Three Severe Pressures
1. Gnosticism: The body and sexuality are evil. The only way to live ‘spiritually’ was to be celibate.
2. Bible: Sex is really ‘Plan B.’ Plan A was a God given design where Adam and Eve lived in perfect unity and harmony that either did not require sex, or, if it did, was under perfect control at all times. The evidence was there; sex was the first act recorded after the fall and the Fathers sensed that humans do not control their sexuality; it has an unruliness and an irrational energy of its own. This was seen as an evil curse, a punishment, a come-down from Plan A.
3. New Testament: Jesus was celibate and his disciples left everything to follow him (Mk 12.35). John the Baptist and Paul were also celibate. In heaven, there is no marriage. Paul spoke of marriage as medicinal; it is a lawful remedy for concupiscence; it is better than burning (I Cor 7.9).

Procreation justified sex and marriage. Society and the Church needed children. Sex was justified because it brought children into the world. Besides God commanded us to increase and fill the earth, Gen 1:28, and infertility was seen as a curse. Paul says a woman will be saved through child-bearing, I Tim 2:15.

Augustine
• He saw marriage as good, but was ambivalent, if not negative, about sex. He saw our sexual desires as an unfortunate effect of original sin. Sexual intercourse itself is not sinful but concupiscence, the sexual appetite gone out of control. A man who is too ardent a lover of his wife is an adulterer. He also presented marriage and sexuality as good because they were created by a good God (I Tim 4.4). However, the interpretation of his teachings presented a negative view on sexual intercourse.
• The Values of Marriage: Fidelity of the Spouses to each other, The Procreation and Nurturing of Offspring, and Being a Sacrament, the visible sign of the invisible union between Christ and the Church (Eph 5.32).

Control, Sacrament, Ceremony, Contract & Consent 500-1450
Control – After the barbarian invasions, the local pastor was virtually forced to take over the work of the city hall, verifying marriages, registering marriages and keeping records. Once the Church was involved in the marriage process, it was hard to get out.
Movement towards Sacrament
The Doubts.
1. Marriage good – Sexuality suspicious. In Middle Ages, most Church people held virginity in higher esteem than marriage. Paul said that marriage distracted one from the things of the Lord. Marriage was often viewed negatively as a remedy against the desires of the flesh rather than positively as a way to become holy. People wondered how engagement in sexual intercourse could be seen as a path to holiness.
2. Marriage involved Financial arrangements.
3. Marriage existed before the coming of Christ.
The Energies
1. The Renewal of Augustinian Thinking. Augustine saw marriage as a sacrament (Eph 5.32). It was a sign of the union between Christ and the Church and a sacred pledge of fidelity between husband and wife.
2. The Spiritual Renewal in the 11th and 12th Centuries.
3. The Reaction against the Albigensian Heresy, whose proponents saw marriage and sexuality as evil.

These three powerful impulses forced the Church to focus on marriage as a vehicle of holiness and in some sense a sacrament. So Peter Abelard with some hesitancy listed marriage with the other sacraments. Then Peter Lombard included marriage as a sacrament in his influential list. The Council of Verona (1184) confirms this and justifies it as a sacrament on the basis of Paul’s teaching that it is a living sign of Jesus’ Covenant with Church. The grace of the sacrament assist people grow in Holiness and fulfil their Marital Duties. Marriage was declared indissoluble to reflect Jesus’ faithful union with the Church. Subsequently at a number of ecumenical councils marriage was listed among the official sacraments of the Church.

The Wedding Ceremony was developed in the 12th Century and bishops began to insist that all weddings be blessed by a priest.
Marriage came to be seen as a Contract, with a precise exchange of rights over each others bodies for those acts needed for the procreation of children. Marital sex could have no other function. A spouse had a duty to render the marriage “debt” of intercourse under pain of sin. There was no room in this contractual concept for other personal matters, like covenant love and community of sharing and affection.

Consent: Finally, during this period, the Roman perception of marriage was challenged by the general European perspective. According to Roman tradition marriage was by consent. In the Frankish and Germanic tradition, however, the giving of consent came at the betrothal, and the marriage was not considered to be completed or consummated until the first act of intercourse had taken place. For the Europeans, marriage was preceded by a whole series of steps and this raised questions as to just where in all these steps did marriage become indissoluble. The Roman side was reluctant to have the bride treated as so much barter at the exclusive whim of her father. The European side was equally reluctant to recognise private mutual consent marriages because they undermined the father’s and family authority. This led to the question of what officially effected the marriage bond: Roman mutual consent or European first intercourse
Popes Alexander III, Urban II, and especially Gregory IX, settled the issue with a final decision by declaring that mutual consent makes the marriage, but the bond is perfected and becomes absolutely indissoluble through consummation. A decision was made officially, which effectively excluded control over marriage by everyone but the bride and groom. Henceforward the marriage bond would be considered indissoluble not only as a Christian ideal but also as a rule of law.
• Council of Florence, 1439, affirmed the sacramentality of marriage and stressed the Triple Good of Marriage:
1. Children
2. Faithfulness
3. Indissolubility

Chapter Five COUNCIL OF TRENT
Reformers
The Protestant Reformation instigated another milestone in the Church’s teaching about marriage. The reformers, distressed by the Church’s over-involvement in marriage and by the easy nullities granted to the influential and wealthy, jettisoned the whole notion of marriage as a sacrament. They upheld the sacredness of marriage in the order of creation, but denied that it belongs to the order of grace as a Christian sacrament in the strict sense. They argued that it existed before Christ, did not need clerical administration, and non-Christians were being well married all the time without the benefit of the Church. The reformers therefore returned marriage to the secular, legal domain and concentrated on it as a state of life and as a domain of moral holiness. They rejected the Church’s juridical function in matrimonial matters. Most prohibited divorce until modern times, but some admitted the legitimacy of divorce because of adultery and other causes; some also held lenient opinions on bigamy.

Council of Trent
The Council of Trent, 1563, reacted by affirming marriage as a sacrament whose grace raised natural love to perfect love. So Christian marriage was perceived as superior to other forms of marriage. It did not, as often thought, defend the absolute indissolubility of marriage. After all, the Council Fathers were aware of their tradition of dissolving the marriage bond and of the Eastern tradition of allowing divorce; they did not condemn that. Moreover, the Council defended the Church’s claim to be competent in and to legislate for matrimonial matters. Trent vindicated both the sacramentality of marriage and the Church’s right to regulate it.
Tametsi
The greatest threat to the sacredness of marriage was the continuing practice of secret marriages that enabled people to enter unions which they later renounced, and that allowed them to seek annulments of public marriages on sometimes doubtful grounds. These clandestine marriages caused great harm. There was no way of verifying marriages under the Roman system. So the bishops at Trent decided to take a drastic step. In a separate decree, called Tametsi, which means ‘although’ or ‘even if,’ they recognised the validity of all previous secret marriages but declared that henceforth no Christian marriage would be valid and sacramental unless it was contracted in the presence of a priest and two witnesses. The text reads: ‘Those who attempt to contract matrimony otherwise than in the presence of the parish priest or of another priest with leave of the parish priest or of the ordinary, and before two or three witnesses, the Holy Synod renders altogether incapable of such a contract, and declares such contracts null and void.’ Those who tried to contract a marriage in any other way would be guilty of a grave sin and treated as adulterers.
Furthermore, as proof that a marriage had been celebrated according to law, each parish was required to have a book in which the names of the parties and the witnesses were to be inscribed, together with the date and time of the wedding. Each marriage had to be publicly announced three weeks in advance. This clarifies what was decreed at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which inaugurated the proclamation of the banns of marriage. Today, each Bishops’ Conference has the responsibility of laying down norms concerning the publication of marriage banns or other appropriate means of enquiry to be carried out as a prerequisite for marriage. When the parish priest has faithfully observed these norms he may proceed to assist at a marriage (Can 1067). The Council thereby changed fifteen centuries of tradition by introducing a mandated form of marriage. However, the decree was not promulgated evenly throughout the world and there were still clandestine marriage taking place over 300 years after Trent. This situation was corrected by the decree Ne Temere in 1907, which made the provisions of Tametsi universal law. In this decree Pope Pius X imposed the canonical form on all marriages where one of the parties was Catholic, except in Germany and Hungary. The requirements of Tametsi are still in force, though a deacon with delegation or a mandated lay person (where there is a great shortage of sacred ministers) may now assist at a marriage. Exceptions are also made when a priest is not available and when there is sufficient reason for the marriage to be celebrated in another Christian Church, in a non-Christian religious rite, or even in a civil ceremony.

Minister
The bishops’ decree effectively put an end to clandestine marriages, but the legal requirement for valid marriages, the giving of consent before a priest and two witnesses, raised additional questions for theologians and canon lawyers. The first was the reappearance of an old question, namely, who was the minister of the sacrament of marriage. In the Middle Ages the possibility that marriages could be contracted without a Church ceremony and even without any witnesses led most theologians to conclude that the ministers were the couple themselves. Other theologians argued that the priest was the minister of the sacrament, and so secret marriages were real but not sacramental since no priest joined them in marriage or blessed their union. Then in the sixteenth century, a Spanish theologian, Melchior Cano, claimed that in marriage the mutual consent of the partners was the “matter” of the sacrament, while the priest’s blessing was the “form.” This implied that people could validly marry (as in Protestant countries) even though they did not receive a valid sacrament (since the required form was not followed). It also implied that the priest was the minister of the sacrament since without his presence, which the Catholic Church now demanded, the marriage was non-sacramental. For Cano, the marriage contract was something separate and distinct from the sacrament. This position was defended by Catholic theologians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who wanted to agree that civil governments had the right to make laws governing the secular aspects of marriage even though the Church’s hierarchy had sole jurisdiction over the sacramental aspects of marriage. However, these theologians were in the minority. The hierarchy had had complete control over all aspects of marriage for so long that most theologians and canonists continued to assert that only the Church had the right to make marriage laws for Christians.

Civil Marriages
Those who were not under the administration of the Catholic hierarchy thought and acted differently. Other Christian communities developed their own wedding ceremonies and considered them valid, and as a matter of fact for over two centuries after the Reformation almost all marriages in Europe were Church marriages. But then, this picture began to change. The Church’s claim to have exclusive control over marriage was bitterly challenged by the rising national states of the seventeenth and eigh¬teenth centuries. The states protested that they should have total control. The hostile climate caused Pius VI in 1783 to go further than was warranted when he asserted that the jurisdiction of the Church over matrimonial cases was complete and exclusive. In France the revolution of 1789 brought an end to the ecclesiastical control of marriage, and the Napoleonic Code of 1792 made civil weddings mandatory for all French citizens. During the next century almost all the other countries in Europe began to allow people to marry before a civil Magistrate rather than a priest or minister. Governments also continued to regulate the other secular aspects of marriage and divorce (legal registration, inheritance rights, and so forth) as they had done before the French revolution.
The Church, while acknowledging the states’ traditional rights, felt that she should maintain some rights, at least the moral ones. She did not see how she could surrender its position on the sacramentality of Christian marriage. The Church had long recognised that baptisms even by heretics and schismatics were sacramentally valid, and now Rome followed a similar course with regard to non-Catholic marriages. In 1852, Pope Pius IX reacted to the claim of civil governments that all marriages between their citizens were legally dissolvable by declaring that since sacramental marriage was instituted by Christ, “There can be no marriage between Catholics which is not at the same time a sacrament; and consequently any other union between Christian men and women, even a civil marriage, is nothing but shameful and mortally sinful concubinage if it is not a sacrament.” In other words, marriages between Christians were either both valid and sacramental or else they were not marriages at all. The same position was reaffirmed by Leo XIII in 1880: “In Christian marriage the contract cannot be separated from the sacrament, and for this reason the contract cannot be a true and lawful one without being a sacrament as well.” Though distinguishable, contract and sacrament were not separable. Leo XIII vindicates the Church’s authority over the marriages of Christians, because the marriage contract and the sacrament are inseparable. He claims exclusive jurisdiction for the Church over the marriage contract. In the historical context this can be understood as a reaction against various secularist tendencies which tried to deny the Church any right over it. Hence this teaching does not exclude the possibility of an amicable agreement between the Church and the civil power.

Ministers – Spouses
One of the reasons why the Popes could be confident that the sacrament was identical with the marriage contract was that by this time historical research had shown that through the early Middle Ages the priest’s blessing did not have to be given for a marriage to be valid; all that was needed was the mutual consent of the couple. This consent, then, established the contract between the two parties, and so at the same time it had to be the act which established the marriage as sacramental. The theory that the sacrament was conferred by the priest was therefore no longer tenable. Since the contract was established through the giving of consent, the sacrament had to be administered by the bride and groom to each other. Since the sacrament was administered by the bride and groom, even non-Catholic Christians would confer the sacrament on each other whenever they contracted a valid marriage.

Other Questions
This conclusion raised even further questions for canon lawyers. Were marriages between Christians and non-Christians sacramental as well? If non-Christians became Catholics did they have to be married again, or did their prior marriage automatically become a sacramental one in virtue of their baptism? If non-Catholic Christians divorced and remarried, was their second marriage valid, sacramental, both, or neither? Could a legally divorced non-Catholic validly marry a single Catholic? Could a divorced non-Christian do this? Suppose a Christian of another denomination became a Catholic and was divorced because of this by the non-Catholic spouse, could the “Pauline privilege” be applied so the Catholic could remarry? Or suppose that two non-Christians were married and divorced, and later became Catholics. Were they free to remarry or was their previous non-Christian union now sacramental and indissoluble in virtue of their baptism? Questions such as these were actually raised before Catholic marriage courts. They were cases that had to be decided, and the decisions set precedents for future cases. The ecclesiastical regulation of marriage was becoming more complex than it had ever been.
The Catholic hierarchy was forced to re-examine the official teaching on marriage and determine more precisely when and how the sacrament was conferred. Technically all baptised persons who were not married in accordance with Trent’s decree were living in sin because their marriages were not canonically valid. But Catholic bishops in Protestant countries began complaining to Rome that this put them in the awkward position of having to regard all Christians who were not married in the Catholic Church as adulterers and their children as illegitimate. The Popes by this time realised that the Protestant reformation and the civil regulation of marriage were not going to be reversed, and they allowed that the Tridentine decree should be taken as applying only to those who were baptised Catholics and thus still under the legal jurisdiction of the hierarchy.
Still the Catholic theology of marriage remained relatively simple. Marriage was a sacrament instituted by Christ in which two legally competent persons became permanently united as husband and wife. The sacramentum was the giving of consent, the external rite in which they agreed to the marriage and took each other as their spouse. The primary purpose of marriage was the procreation and education of children; its secondary purpose was the spiritual perfection of the spouses by means of the grace of the sacrament, the mutual support they gave to each other, and the morally permissible satisfaction of their sexual needs (Martos, DS, pp. 384-385).

1917 Code
The 1917 Code of Canon Law defined marriage in contractual terms as the mutual exchange of rights over one another’s body “for acts that are of themselves suitable for the generation of children.” The Code claimed that marriage was essentially a contract, a juridical matter, concerned with the exchange of rights to sexual intercourse to beget children. This was marriage’s first and foremost purpose. Canon Law did not take any account of the notion of marriage as a mutual sharing of affection or a sharing of community. It reduced marriage to the most specific of legal descriptions: it was a contract, pure and simple, of sexual rights whose sole purpose was to have children. Marriage had officially arrived at being a juridical entity. Conjugal society was reduced to mutually exchanging sexual acts for the sake of procreation, even though very few people thought of their marriage primarily as the exchange of rights over one another’s body.

Casti Connubii
The encyclical Casti Connubii (1930) of Pius XI gives a complete exposition of the Catholic teaching on marriage. Though the stress is somewhat on the institutional aspect, the encyclical also brings out many personal elements. While it calls the procreation and education of offspring the primary end of marriage, it also refers to mutual union as “primary cause and reason” of marriage perceived as a partnership.

Chapter Six RECENT TIMES
Changes in Marriage
Social duty → Individual right
Compliance to Parents → Personal love
Love after wedding → Love before it
Extended family → Nuclear family
Basic unit of society → One social unit among many.
In short, marriage was coming to be seen mainly as an expression of love between a man and a woman, and the family was no longer needed to educate children the way it used to be.
Personalist Influence
Moreover, Catholic thinkers began to redefine Christian marriage in line with the contemporary experience and understanding of marriage and to insist that marriage was fundamentally a community of persons. For them, the meaning of marriage was the unity of two persons in a common life of sharing and commitment, and the meaning of intercourse was the physical and spiritual self-giving that occurred in the intimate union of two persons in love. So, in their view, the primary purpose of marriage was the personal fulfilment and mutual growth of the spouses which occurred not only through their sexual relations but through all the interpersonal relations of their married life. Sexual activity has a much deeper glorification in human life than biological reproduction. While children are to be loved and nurtured, they are in a sense secondary to the purpose of marriage; they are really the result of the love of two people, not necessarily a primary goal to be achieved. These theologians appealed to reality itself, so different, they claimed, from Canon Law’s juridical description. People did not get married only to increase the population. They married to enter into a relationship and they had sexual relations not just to have children. They wanted to give and receive pleasure, to strengthen, support, and encourage each other. Marriage was much more personal than the official description allowed.

Roman Reaction
All this discussion was not well received by Rome. The Holy Office in 1944 reaffirmed that marriage indeed was primarily a contract, juridical at the core. Pope Pius XII saw some merit in the personalist approach to marriage, and in some of his speeches he granted that interpersonal values like commitment and personal fulfilment were essential even if they were secondary in Christian marriage. Taking this as an official acceptance of their efforts, theologians continued to explore the long-neglected personal aspects of marriage. Some tried to avoid the classic dichotomy between primary and secondary ends in marriage and preferred a more integrated approach. Others tried to translate the traditional scholastic teaching into more contemporary language. All of them tried to move away from a legalistic theology of marriage and sex, insisting that marriage was far richer than a contract to exchange sexual rights, and towards one that was more scriptural, more personal, and more related to contemporary married life. They turned to scripture with its notion of covenant love. They could perceive little graced action in a sacrament that was tied in with a contract. It was difficult to see grace in the lives of two people who might be basically indifferent to each other, but who declared their “I do” and had sex. Their persistent questioning and research plus the on-the-scene pastoral realities brought by many African and Latin American bishops had their effect on Vatican II.

Second Vatican Council
• Gaudium et Spes 48-50 (1965)
• Lumen Gentium 11 (1964)
1. Covenant
Now our primary vision for marriage is that of a covenant, an intimate partnership of married life and love. The Council did not use the traditional term “contract” to describe the marriage bond. Instead, it adopts a remarkably personalistic standpoint and speaks of the “marriage covenant” which is sealed by an “irrevocable personal consent” (GS 48). The Council caused the 1983 revision of the Code to see marriage more as a covenant between the spouses, reflecting the covenant between God and humanity. For example, Canon 1055 talks about the marriage covenant. The Latin text uses the word foedus, which is translated as covenant.
2. Interpersonal Communion
Gaudium et Spes insists on the personal nature of married love which pervades the whole of marital life and is uniquely expressed through the conjugal act (GS 48-49). Marriage is the “primary form of interpersonal communion” (GS 12) and is of the highest importance for the well-being of the individual, and of human and Christian society (GS 47). Husband and wife are equal in personal dignity (GS 49). By cultivating constancy of love, they give witness to faithfulness and thus help to bring about a renewal of marriage and family life (GS 49). Marriage, then, is primarily seen as a sharing of life by two human beings who love each other.
3. Sexuality and Procreation
Vatican II turned away from the language of primary and secondary ends of marriage. Sexual intimacy is perceived in the context of the total marital relationship (GS 49) and the procreation of children is seen as grounded in marital love and in the orientation of marriage itself. The begetting of children is not so much an explicit purpose of marriage as it is a natural development of two people who love each other (GS 50) (Bausch, NLS, p. 232).
4. Consummation
The old theology and the old canon law asserted that a marriage between two baptised Christians, once performed according to the rite of the Church (ratum) and once consummated by a single act of physical union (consummatum), can never be dissolved. According to the Council, the expression of the mutual love which is at the heart of the sacrament consists of more than biological union. Consummation without love is without meaning. The Council speaks of the “intimate partnership of married life and love” (Intima communitas vitae et amoris coniugalis, GS 48).
5. Sacrament
Because marriage is such a noble and sacred calling, “Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state.” Through this sacrament “they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ” which “suffuses their whole life with faith, hope and charity”. Moreover, “authentic married love is taken up into divine love and is ruled and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ and the salvific action of the Church...” (GS 48). So marriage is a path to holiness (LG 11). This new emphasis is consistent with the growing trends that now people marry and remain in marriage because they love each other. The stress is on the mutual exchange of love as constituting the sacrament of marriage, on married love as the source of the institution of marriage, on the need for growth in this love to bring the sacrament to its full realisation, and on the need for the Church constantly to bring forth the witness value of this sacrament to the whole community of faith. As husband and wife are called to be faithful, generous, and gracious to each other in fulfilment of their marriage covenant, so is the whole Church called to be faithful to its covenant with God in Christ. When Christian marriage flounders, the witness of fidelity in all Christian vocations flounders.
6. Faith Commitment
The Council emphasises the necessity of a faith commitment for the sacrament of marriage (SC 59). Marriage is not just a ceremony by which two people are legally bound together. As a sacrament, it is an act of worship, an expression of faith, a sign of the Church’s unity, a mode of Christ’s presence. Indeed the Council spoke of the sacramentality of marriage in an even broader sense, saying that Christian couples should be signs to each other, their children, and the world of the mystery of Christ and the Church by the testimony of their love for each other and their concern for those in need. The Council uses the term christifideles. Marriage is not just a union between baptised Christians; it is a union between faithful Christians.
7. Ecclesial
The ecclesial dimension of the sacrament is not only maintained but extended. The Council asserts that “Christian spouses, in virtue of the sacrament of matrimony, signify and share in the mystery of that union and fruitful love which exists between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:32)” (LG 11, 1964). But also the LG 11 text continues, “In what might be regarded as the domestic Church, the parents, by word and example, are the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children.” So marriage not only signifies the union between Christ and the Church, but also forms an ecclesial community.
8. Indissoluble
The sacramental nature of marriage, the unity of love, and the welfare of children all imply that marriage is indissoluble. “Thus a man and a woman, who by the marriage covenant of conjugal love ‘are no longer two but one flesh,’ render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union, as well as the good of the children, imposes a total fidelity on the spouses and argues for an unbreakable oneness between them” (GS 48)
9. Tribunals Challenged
When Gaudium et Spes was finally promulgated, the marriage tribunals around the world were thrown into something of a panic in dealing with annulment cases, since it would be much more difficult to determine whether a person was capable of entering into a marriage covenant in terms of “an intimate partnership of life and love” than it had ever been to determine whether the elements for a valid marriage “contract” were present. The latter could be determined with fairly objective accuracy. The former, however, involved a lot more uncertainties, psychological issues, heart matters, and the most puzzling issue of all: “love.” Nonetheless, the bishops at Vatican II refused to retreat from the interpersonal realities involved in marriage and insisted on placing them up front regardless of the difficulties in dealing with annulments.

Humanae Vitae (1968).
Here Pope Paul VI presents a very enlightened vision on marriage, never using the word ‘contract’, and giving prominence to marital love, mutual gifting and responsible parenthood. He uses the word covenant and sees the mutual gifting of the persons of the spouses for the sake of forming a communion of their beings as the object of marital consent with procreation being the culmination of this communion. Responsible parenthood is deeply related to the moral order established by God which requires that the finality of the conjugal act be ordained to the union of the spouses and be open to procreation (The Christian Faith, ND, 2001, p. 778).

Familiaris Consortio (1981)
John Paul II does not follow the Tridentine preference for celibacy/virginity over marriage. For him they are “two ways of expressing and living the one mystery of the covenant of God with us. When marriage is not esteemed, neither can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist; when human sexuality is not regarded as a great value given by the creator, the renunciation of it for the sake of the kingdom of heaven loses its meaning” (16). So marriage like celibacy is a way of expressing and living the one mystery of the covenant of God with His people. It is a sacrament or real symbol of the event of salvation in Christ, from which flow the unity and indissolubility of the marriage bond (13). The family as the first vital cell of society must be the prime concern of the whole of the society. It has a share in the life and mission of the Church. It is a community in dialogue with God through worship and prayer. The Pope emphasises the need for pastoral care of the family.

Recent Thinking
Since the Council the theology and the ecclesiastical regulation of Catholic marriage have tended to become even more liberal, moving away from a uniformly legalistic understanding of marriage and toward a more person-centered theory and practice. In theology there has been a shift away from the identification of the sacrament with the marriage bond or contract and toward a more liturgical and scriptural identification of the sacrament with the marriage itself. According to Edward Schillebeeckx, married love and life is transformed as a human experience because of its perceived role as a revelation of God’s loving presence to humans. So Christian marriage should continue to be a sacramental sign of God’s redeeming activity in human life and of the fidelity and devotion between Christ and the Church. Karl Rahner sees Christian marriage as a unique sign of the incarnation because in it men and women incarnate the transforming reality of divine grace in their total love for one another. Marriage is an actualisation of the Church in and through the everyday incarnate love that married persons have for each other.

Chapter Seven Friendship

Every person recognizes that he or she cannot survive without other people. The Zulu proverb expresses this well: umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – a person is person because of other persons. The philosopher, Gabriel Marcel has a famous saying esse est co-esse, to be is to be with others. The people that I let into my life, and who reciprocate by letting me into theirs, are apart from the general crowd and are special. They are called friends. Philosophers have given a great deal of attention to friendship, but Christian theologians have given it scant attention, and they have never listed it among the Christian virtues. Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of friendship: first, that of pleasure, someone amuses me and gives me pleasure. In the second, the other person is perceived as useful to me and in the third, I am attracted to and love something good in the other person. In each of the three friendships, it is something good that is loved, for good is always the object of love, but in each of the three it is a different good that is loved. Though all three loves may be called friendship, only the third is true friendship. Everyone who has experienced true friendship knows that it takes time to develop. Aristotle says: “It is impossible for men to know one another before they have eaten salt together.” They cannot admit each other to intimacy nor become friends before each appears to be worthy of friendship and confidence. To be perfect, friendship must be reciprocal. Aristotle suggests three reasons why we need friends. First, friendship is a crucial source of self-understanding. Second, friendship supports us against loss of interest in and commitment to even the most necessary activities, including the pursuit of good. Third, I cannot become morally good except in relation to another self, a friend, because virtue cannot be attained alone.
Cicero claims that friendships based on desire of gain, prestige, power, or wealth, or those based on carnal or erotic pleasure, are not true friendships. These benefits may derive from true friendship, but they are not its motivation. A rule of friendship is this: “We expect from our friends only what is honourable and for our friends’ sake do only what is honourable.” True friendship for Augustine is a gift from God, is rooted in God, transformed by God, and brought to its full perfection in eternal friendship with God. By living it in imitation of Christ, friendship is transformed into Christian universal neighbour-love.
Aelred of Rievaulx writes that there are four steps towards true friendship. “The first is choice, the second is testing, the third is acceptance, and the fourth is ‘the highest agreement on both human and divine affairs, combined with good will and mutual esteem.” There are two things to look for when choosing a friend, vices that make friendship impossible and virtues that are congenial to it. Among the vices are reproach, pride, betrayal and slander. Among the virtues conducive to friendship are faithfulness, intention, judgement and patience. What distinguishes true spiritual friendship is the love of God. Aelred is so convinced of the eternal character of true friendship that he dares to transpose the consecrated biblical phrase “God is love” (agape) (1 Jn 4:16) into “God is friendship” (philia).

Love and Friendship: Agape and Philia
There are two Greek words for love: agape and philia. Philia is the particular, preferential, and reciprocated love of a friend over all others. Agape is the universal, non-preferential, and not necessarily reciprocated love of others, the love commanded by Jesus: “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mk 12:31) and “love your enemies” (Mt 5:44). Though there is evidence that the early Christians referred to themselves as “friends (philoi) of God,” it was quickly superseded by “children of God,” which might have been judged to be more familial and intimate.
The relationship between philia and agape became problematic when the latter was promoted as Christian love, the love that makes us perfect as our heavenly father is perfect (Mt 5:48), leaving philia to languish as a lesser love that does not measure up to all that is required of the Christian. Friendship may be a good and powerful love; it may be necessary and very useful in every human life. It is just not specifically Christian and does not lead to God as agape does. Love of one’s neighbour is self-renouncing love and self-renunciation casts out all preferential love just as it casts out all self-love.
But it is not so clear that agape and philia are separate and unconnected. Augustine certainly does not think so. For him, friends are brought together by God. When friends respond to their friendship as a gift of God, root it in God, and live it as disciples of God, their friendship leads them to God as surely as agape. Indeed, when accepted as gift of God and lived in Christ, philia leads to agape, for when friends learn to love whom God loves they learn to love all God’s children as friends. The love of all comes best when the love for those, one is next to, comes first. Friendship has a twofold function: it teaches men and women to love particular friends, and it teaches them to love their universal neighbours. Far from being opposed, agape and philia are truly inseparable.
The problem in history is that agape was enthroned as the norm of all love and philia did not measure to that norm. Agape, however, is not the norm of love; God is the norm of all love, both agape and philia. Friendship by itself is not a non-Christian love; friendship without God and Christ is a non-Christian love. Human friendship-love and neighbour-love both originate in and are images of the love of God.
If friendship leads to a Christ-like life, it leads to God as surely as agape. “God is love” (agape), John tells us. However impossible it is to describe the inner relationships of the divine Trinity, it is equally impossible to imagine a divine love that is not particular and reciprocal benevolence between the three divine persons. In God, deep and lasting philia must surely coexist and particularize agape. If that is true in God, there is no reason to think it is not true also in humans made in God’s image (Gen 1:26).
Philia and caritas-agape so mutually enrich and nourish one another that Aquinas is led to identify them. To be friends with God, or to love God as a friend, is possible only because God has first loved us as friends (I Jn 4:19). Citing John 15:15, where Jesus calls his disciples “friends,” Aquinas suggests the friendship-love of Jesus for his disciples as a model for us.

Friendship and Marriage
Both inclusive and exclusive love, agape and philia are extolled in the Scriptures. Still, the tension between the universal, inclusive love of all and the particular, exclusive, or preferential love of some is retained in Galatians 6:10. Christian love is both universal (“all”) and legitimately particular (“especially”). The particularity is made even more exclusive, the relation even more preferential, in Timothy’s community: Note 1 Tim 5:8. The universal love of all comes easiest when the particular love of some, spouse, parents, children, fellow Christians, come first. The developing Christian tradition held firmly to this Pauline tradition. Martin Luther King teaches that agape is ‘love seeking to preserve and create a community.’ Community is preferential, mutual, reciprocal love, or philia. It is agape longing for communion, King adds, that impelled Jesus towards the cross, which is the symbol of the length to which God will go to restore broken community.
The Second Vatican Council defined marriage as “a community of love… an intimate partnership of life and love” (GS 47-48). Community derives from the Latin communis and is defined as common or reciprocal sharing, common or reciprocal ownership, common or reciprocal responsibility. For friendship, it is not enough to love another; my love of benevolence must be explicitly reciprocated. Thus it is conceived as adding to a one-sided love of benevolence (agape) a certain society of lover and beloved in their love. For the majority of modern men and women, the interpersonal partnership or community created by love continues to be publicly formalized in marriage and, in the community between spouses, marital love includes the reciprocal responsibility to maintain and develop the friendship love that founded communion in the first instance. Spousal love cannot be only agape, it must be also philia. It must be also affection (storge) and sexual love (eros); these are not being dealt with here.
The communion between spouses in marriage is not a monarchy, which is about unequal individuals; it is not a democracy, which is about equal but separate individuals. It is about equal individuals who are so united that they can truly be said to be “two in one body” (Gen 2:24), a small community a relational and coupled-We. When such love is Christian, it is a school for learning philia, particular, preferential, and reciprocal friendship-love of another and others, and agape, universal, non-preferential, and unconditional neighbour-love of all. Social-scientific evidence show that preferential philia is the best lasting foundation of a good marriage, because it cements with mutual virtue the community and communion marriage is. Research shows that friendship between the spouses makes good marriages succeed.
Loving is affirming the being, the very well being, of another. To love is to will the good of another. Willing the good of another is not yet friendship-love; that occurs only when my love is reciprocated by another, who wills my good in return. This mutual friendship-love between equal selves creates between us the communion, the reciprocal bond that is the distinguishing mark of lovers, the fertile root through which we draw life from and give life to one another. Reciprocal love does not lead to communion; reciprocal love is communion. Love can consent to bind itself further by social ritual. In marriage, it consents to bind itself legally by law; in sacrament, it consents to bind itself religiously by the grace of God. In a marriage between Christians, therefore, three bonds arise: an interpersonal bond of love between the spouses, a legal bond of marriage, and a religious bond of sacrament.
The most fundamental bond is the bond forged by both friendship and unconditional neighbour-love. It is the bond ritualized in both marriage and sacrament. Only if this root is healthy and strong can the bonds of marriage and sacrament flower as lasting bonds of satisfying and stable commitment. When the root friendship-love, through which the spouses give marital life to and draw marital life from one another, is healthy, so too are the marriage and sacrament which draw sustenance and flower from the root.

Chapter Eight COVENANT and SACRAMENT
Covenant
Sinai Covenant – Ex 19 ff
Last Supper – l Cor 11:25
1983 Code: Canon 1055, 1 – marriage covenant
Canon 1057, 2 – matrimonial consent is an act of the will by which a man and a woman by an irrevocable covenant mutually give and accept one another for the purpose of establishing a marriage

Contracts and Covenants
Things – people
Services – persons
Period of time – forever
Broken with material loss – cannot be broken: broken hearts
Secular affairs – Sacred affairs
Market place – Home, Temple, Church
Lawyers – poets
People & state is guarantor – God & God is guarantor
Children – mature adults
Legal reality – Bond of Love
Impersonal – Personal
Limited – Open-ended
Rights & Duties – Relationship
(cf., Christian Marriage, Paul Palmer, TS 33 (1972), 639)
Reflection of God’s Covenant
1. Covenant between God and People: Is 61:10-11, 62:4-5.
2. Covenant between Christ and Church.
3. Covenant of Marriage.

Prophetic Symbol
A sacrament may be seen as a prophetic symbol with which the Church proclaims and makes real and celebrates for believers that presence and action of God which is called grace. In the bible, we see that a prophetic act is an ordinary human action that proclaims something deeper and more sacred (Jer 5.1-6, Ezek 19.1-13). The Church recognises Jesus as the Spouse of Israel. The prophetic act that comes to be interpreted as the origin of Christian marriage is based on the event narrated in (Mk 2:18-20). "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?" This is a sign of the eschaton, the endless banquet between the Bridegroom and his Spouse, the Church.
First Completion of Prophetic Act: Paschal Mystery (This is my body given for you).
Marriage – Makes visible the attitude of Christ’s fidelity to Church.
The Intermediate Accomplishment of fidelity – Marriage.
Final Completion - Entry of faithful Church into the eternal joy of her Spouse.
So marriage is a two tiered reality: the human tier is the love between husband and wife, the religious tier is the proclamation of the covenant love between Christ and the Church. Christian married love is modelled on and reflects the love of God; it is Hesed, steadfast faithful love
There are two quite distinct prophetic actions in Christian marriage. There is, first, the action ritualised in the wedding ceremony, the action of mutual consent "by which a man and a woman by an irrevocable covenant mutually give and accept one another for the purpose of establishing a marriage" (Canon 1057, 2). There is, secondly, and perhaps more crucially, the action of living that conjugal covenant in an "intimate partnership of married life and love."

Two-Tiered Reality
1. Celebrates intimate conjugal community
2. Celebrates steadfast faithful covenant between Christ & Church Eph 5:21-32

Experiencing the Sacrament
1. Sexual: The newly married couple is very often filled with gratitude to each other and to God that their sexual experience of each other is both thrilling and fulfilling. In their gratitude they thank God for their bodiliness, for their God-given capacity to be able to express their love for one another so intimately and completely. The invitation is for spouses to use their bodies responsibly and with respect for each other, to be chaste in their sexual relationship. When they love each other this way, they are proclaiming the desired harmony between body & soul, man & woman, parent & child, loved & undesired and they are opposing a vision that favours exploitation, abuse and domination (Pleasure & Chastity).
2. Creative: The capacity to be creative is another level on which Christian couples experience their marriage as sacramental. Their love summons them to an expansive care for others. Their call is to nurture and generate a world of care, compassion, reconciliation, justice and peace (1 Tim 5.8) (Creative & Generative).
3. Loving: A husband and wife are truly grace to each other. This is the core of marriage as a sacrament because that special comprehensive and unconditional love between the marriage partners makes real God’s love in the world (Philia & Agape).
4. Ecclesial-Domestic Church: The Church proposes to the couple the mutual love between Christ and the Church as a model for their own love relationship. Christian marriage is meant to be the most basic instance of Christian community. Many writers, including Popes and the Bishops of Vatican II, have spoken of the Christian family as a domestic Church, a place where the love of God and religious faith are learned and celebrated. The Fathers of the African Synod acknowledge that seeing the Church as God’s family is particularly appropriate for Africa. ‘For this image emphasises care for others, solidarity, warmth in human relationships, acceptance, dialogue and trust’ (EA 63) (Community & Ecclesial).
5. Spiritual: The fifth level of sacramentality experienced by Christian couples is called the spiritual experience of God’s love. Perhaps the most difficult thing to believe is that one is important enough to be loved by God. Nothing makes this more credible than the discovery of being important to and loved by another human. The bedrock of every friendship is generativity. For a marriage to be genuinely Christian, it must nurture Christian life and communion not only between the spouses and their immediate family, but also within the human community in which they live (Love & Life).

RITUAL
1. The Vows: these are promises of fidelity before God, exchanged between the partners as they declare their consent. The mutual consent of the partners, their acceptance of each other with the words 'I do', has been seen by many theologians as the essence of marriage. When the couple exchange the words of the consent, they are declared to be husband and wife. If that moment is lacking or in any way flawed, there is no valid marriage. Before they exchange consent, they are questioned individually about their freedom with which they are undertaking their marriage, about their mutual love and their openness to having children. After their consent, there may be a blessing and exchange of rings.
2. Prayers said over them, possibly including a celebration of the Eucharist, commending their union to God and seeking divine grace for them.
3. Consummation: The sacrament is ratified with the exchange of consent, and is consummated by the conjugal act. For obvious reasons, the sexual act takes place at a later time, when the marriage ceremonies are over. If a marriage is not consummated by the sexual act, it may be dissolved (CCL 1142).
4. Process: Marriage is not just an event that occurs on a given day at a given time, but a process that had already begun before the wedding ceremony and that will continue long after.
5. The characteristics of a friendly agapaic consent are:
a. linking each other’s well-being;
b. mutual consultation;
c. now a coupled-We;
d. shared interpersonal identity;
e. investment in freedom of coupled-We.

See Rite of Marriage in other posting on Blogspot.

Chapter Nine Commitment and Fidelity
A marriage covenant is a deeply serious commitment. To covenant is to commit oneself radically and solemnly. Together the husband and wife commit themselves mutually to create and sustain a climate of personal openness, acceptance, trust, and honesty that will nurture intimate community and abiding love. Marital responsibilities are certainly not of the kind that can be undertaken lightly
Moreover, we live in a time when long-term commitments, including the commitment to a lifelong monogamous relationship, do not attract many people. The trend toward temporary relationships is strong. The number of unmarried couples living together has greatly increased in recent decades. In the US, a 2000 study found that more than half of newlyweds have lived together, at least briefly, before walking down the aisle. It is also becoming common in many African countries. Co-habitation for convenience and for discernment is a growing world-wide trend.
Beyond question, absolute fidelity is similar to celibacy for the Kingdom, and is just as demanding. The apostles understood this well (Mt 19:10). The obligations in marriage are, indeed, quite frightening, and it is not surprising that people shrink from them. Can we really expect young couples to enter into such a profound marital commitment that calls for mental, emotional, and spiritual maturity? Would it not be more sensible to make only a provisional commitment? ‘If things work out, I stay with this; if not, I look elsewhere’. Many people think this is the common sense approach to relationships; they think that the ideals of Christian marriage have become obsolete. Before we accept this view, we have to ask whether it is compatible with becoming a truly human person.
Forming Character. All of us, in matters small and great, are constantly making promises, committing ourselves, taking on obligations. Such a core of commitments form a unified personality, rather than a bundle of loosely connected and possibly competing instincts, opinions, urges, likes and dislikes. Some commitments are essential to the attainment of a full personhood.
Love leads to Commitment: Because they are living together as long as they are happy with each other, and not for life, an atmosphere of insecurity prevails; they can never be fully themselves in the relationship. This results in a slowing down of the personal maturation process and the formation of character, which in turn leads to detrimental effects for the children born in such relationships. The couple who love each other deeply will want to make a firm commitment in their relationship. (The Church has never accepted co-habitation as a preparation for marriage, because the partners are doing what they will promise not to do when they get married. They are living a contradiction in relationship and an inconsistency in faith. So the Church invites them to move towards a marital situation).
Created in Image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27). Since we are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27), partners in marriage have the ability to be like God in being a community and in living faithfully towards each other
Faithfulness and forgiveness. Faithfulness to a covenant involves the ability to forgive. Since God is always faithful, the God of the covenant is the God of forgiveness. In marriage, faithfulness and forgiveness are always linked. Since couples have the ability to forgive, they can make fidelity a reality in their relationship.

Chapter Ten FAITH and SACRAMENT
Non-Believing Catholics
• Sacrament and Contract: The Council of Trent states emphatically: "If anyone says that marriage is not one of the seven sacraments…Let him be anathema." The 1917 Code states equally emphatically: "Christ the Lord raised the marriage contract between baptised persons to the dignity of sacrament. Therefore, there cannot be a valid marriage contract between baptised persons without it being, by that very fact, a sacrament" (Canon 1012, 2). The 1983 Code makes the same statement (Canon 1055, 2).
• Faith: In Catholic tradition, only the Church offered sacrament approached in personal faith is a personally accepted sacrament and, therefore, only that marriage approached in Christian faith is Christian sacramental marriage.
• Baptised non-Believers: The Catholic tradition holds that the gift of faith is bestowed in baptism. Baptism gives the know-how to faith and to being a believer, but it does not make believers. Before that gift may be attributed to anyone it must be activated freely, consciously, and deliberately into an actual act of faith. It is the personal act of faith that transforms both the human being in a Christian believer and human marriage into sacramental marriage. Sadly, our times have brought to the forefront of Christian consciousness a new phenomenon of countless numbers all over the world who have received the gift of faith in baptism, but who have never made a personal act of faith. They comprise a group of baptised persons; those who though baptised remain all their lives nonbelievers. These baptised nonbelievers ought not to be equated with Catholic faithful in Catholic law.
• Church Weddings: Those who marry without Christian faith, be they ever so baptised, whether they marry with or without the prescribed canonical form, marry indeed validly and do not live in concubinage, but they do not marry sacramentally.
• Delay: We withhold or delay the Eucharist and all the other sacraments for lack of adequate faith. All the newer rituals warn that the sacraments are not to be celebrated lightly by those of little or of no faith. Delay, at least, is recommended until such people reach a tolerable faith and practice level.
• Marriage outside Church: Since the Church has so identified the contract and the sacrament, if it refuses or delays a marriage because of lack of faith; it in effect denies the couple their natural and human right to marry. If the couple is honest about their lack of faith, what option is open to them? Not to marry at all? Marry “outside the Church”? But if they adopt the latter course, the Church will not recognise their marriage. In Church eyes their natural right to marry is thwarted. They have a right and they cannot, according to the Church, exercise it. One has to ask, “Has baptism rendered them totally incapable of intending a permanent union unless it is a sacrament?”
• Stages towards Marriage: This in turn might lead the Church, from a pastoral point of view, to permit and recognise several stages towards a full sacramental marriage, much like the various stages of holy orders or the stages of the RCIA.
• The 1980 Roman Synod of Bishops urged the development of just such betrothal rites and even of celebrating engagements in the presence of the community.
• Autun: In the early 1970s, the diocese of Autun, in France, initiated a radical marriage programme. A couple considering marriage was given a pamphlet which outlined three forms of marriage, and was asked to reflect and choose the form which corresponded best to their situation. The first form listed is civil marriage. The second form listed is welcomed civil marriage, a celebration which takes place, perhaps, at home, in the Church, in the town hall, but always with some sort of Church setting. The third form is sacramental marriage, celebrated by those couples who, in Christian faith, wish their marriage to be an explicit symbol of the covenant union between Christ and his Church.
• Not Accepted: Despite the fact that the Autun solution was later banned by the Vatican, it presented a practical and forthright way of dealing with large numbers of baptised non-believers.
• Experience Marriage as a Sacrament: It is one thing for the Church to state in the Code of Canon Law that every marriage between baptised Christians is de facto a sacrament; it is another thing for the couple themselves to experience their marriage as a sacrament.
• The Way Forward: - Recognition of Consent, Inculturation and Independence of Earthly Affairs: Some theologians think that the time has come for the Catholic Church to assert the inalienable validity of every human marriage constituted by proper consent, including the validity of the marriages of the baptised outside the Tridentine form. For many centuries the Catholic Church taught what it continues to teach today: consent makes marriage. So, an ecclesiastically-witnessed ritual should not be essential for a valid human marriage. Such decisions would seem to be well in line with the proclamation by Vatican II on the independence of earthly affairs. Human marriage is one of those created realities that enjoy its own meanings and values apart from the Church. To acknowledge that simple fact would free marriage to be a truly human reality which, in its very created humanness, can become the basis for the sacrament of covenant marriage.

The Present Situation
1. Tradition: The recent tradition of the Church teaches that the marriage between two baptized persons is a sacrament and the Church leader as a representative of the official Church is expected to hold this position.
2. Love and Faith: While people may not believe intellectually in the Church’s teachings or practice as members of the Church, this does not imply that they do not have faith. Indeed the love they have their spouse, however imperfect it may be, is a sign that they have some faith.
3. Strengthening the Bond: We believe marriage is a gift from God and marital living is graced by God - Mt 19:11. The gift of their marriage continues to be graced by Christ. Christ is present in it, providing the model of steadfast love on which it is based, nurturing the love and faith the spouses have for each other and making the spouses holy by his presence (CCC 1641). When the couple respond to this gift by becoming married, the sacrament of their marriage in itself strengthens their commitment and consecrates them for their marital duties (CCC 1638). Besides, sacramental marriage shows that the couple is open to receive help from God in their relationship, an opening that gives the pastor and the ecclesial community an opportunity to support and care for the marriage. Couples, who receive help, are more likely to grow together in love and understanding. Sacramental marriage, then, may facilitate a greater commitment in the couple to grow in their love for each other and may strengthen their bond of union.
4. Marriage Preparation: Canon Law states that the pastor has a responsibility to provide personal preparation for entering marriage, so that the spouses are disposed to the holiness and the obligations of their new state (1063, 2). Priests are to facilitate the strengthening and nourishing the faith of those about to be married, for the sacrament of marriage presupposes and demands faith.
5. Family of God: Where there are no Christian families, the Church community struggles to exist. “The Family is a primary sphere of the Church’s life.” The first step towards a Christian family is sacramental marriage. So the pastor has a responsibility to promote sacramental marriage among Christians and to support the Christian families under his care, because they are the basis of the Church he leads.
6. Prophetic Calling: Sacramental marriage, which is graced by Christ and supported by the Christian community, facilitates this prophetic example expected by the spouses.

For these reasons, the Catholic pastor has a responsibility to encourage Catholic couples intending to marry to do so sacramentally.

Invitation for Inculturation
An important way of encouraging couples to marry sacramentally is to ensure that the marriage rite is significant and meaningful for people. This involves work at inculturating the rite in the local traditions and an invitation to create new canonical rites of marriage for peoples of diverse cultures so as to preserve their own authentic marriage customs. In the 1980 Synod, many African bishops demanded a thorough revision of the Christian marriage rite to make it compatible with the customs of Africa. The Praenotanda to the Marriage Ritual encourages such adaptation and inculturation. The creation of new marriage rites would be a remarkable sign that the Catholic Church is becoming a truly world Church, as distinct from an exclusively European one. Pastors, therefore, are encouraged to reflect on ways of adapting the marriage rite so that it is attractive, evocative and sacred for couples.

Chapter Eleven Marriage Preparation

Because of all the challenges in married life, the Catholic Church now emphasises the necessity of having marriage preparation for her members. Catholic dioceses offer marriage preparation courses for engaged couples to help them as much as possible to have a happy marriage and be an effective symbol of Christ’s love. Priests are expected to counsel them about the duties and responsibilities of marriage as well as help them prepare their wedding liturgy and strengthen their faith (Can 1063, FC 66). It is common today for a diocese to require that the parish be notified six months before the wedding so as to have adequate time for preparation. Research shows that marriage preparation is most helpful when it is preceded by adult religious education, when it is presented by a team of clergy and lay people, when it is done in a participative workshop style and when it deals with the six Cs, which are as follows: communication, commitment, conflict, children, church, and careers (Noll, SNUG, p. 155). In marriage preparation, these elements may be explored and discussed with the couples in a participatory manner.

1. Communication.
• Transparency.
Good communication does help to increase the love of the couple for each other. The one characteristic that people with deep and lasting friendships always have is a lack of pretence with each other; they do not cover-up, they have a certain transparency, they allow their loved ones to see what is in their hearts. Jesus stated: “I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father" (Jn 15.15). Jesus clearly sees transparency as essential for friendship and a loving relationship. Emotionally intelligent couples are intimately familiar with each other’s world. Moreover, the sharing of hopes and desires is necessary for any good relationship; good friends never assume they can read each other’s minds. The aim of the course facilitator is to help the couple perceive that cultivating transparency and good communication is essential for a loving marital relationship and to assist them in opening up to each other and becoming familiar with each other. An important place to begin is to invite the couple to share their family story and to talk about the family they grew up in and that raised them. The facilitator helps the couple to be aware of the feelings and attitudes they bring into the marriage that each has imbibed from their upbringing. He/she assists them to see more clearly that their feelings – their hopes and fears, their joys and pains – influence how they relate with each other, and to distinguish effective ways of communicating, which will enrich their relationships, from poor ways of communicating, which can only lead to difficulty. He/she leads them to see the value of turning towards each other and of allowing their partner to influence them and of encouraging each other to talk honestly about their convictions.
• Talk
Talk is cheap, they say, but it still is an essential ingredient in the best relationships and there can be no intimacy without conversation and many close relationships break down because the talk dried up. To know and love a spouse over the years, you must have regular breaks for talks. Because sometimes it requires a great deal of energy, spouses avoid regular periods of sustained conversation with their partners. Some spouses and friends also do not have the self-awareness and confidence to speak of their idiosyncrasies, preferences, styles of living and desires. The facilitator assists the couple in growing in self-awareness and self-understanding so that they know their idiosyncrasies well and are able to explain to their partners their preferences and desires. He/she helps them to see the importance of talking to each other and of fixing in leisurely breaks for talk in their married lives.
• Personal Conversation
Conversation, the informal verbal exchange of ideas, can be divided into three categories: facts, opinions, and emotions. We can track the degree to which two people are getting close by noticing how the talk moves from facts to opinions to emotions. New acquaintances usually restrict their conversation to facts. Then they begin to trust each other with their opinions, and finally, if they become genuine friends, emotions begin to emerge. Studies show that newly married couples talk to each other more than twice as much as couples married for years. But the content of their talk is even more telling than the amount. At first, it is the sort of talk that close friends enjoy; the exploring and revealing of beliefs and feelings, likes and dislikes, and the trading and comparing of ideas about aesthetic subjects, sex, beliefs, and plans for the future. Later the talk is more mundane – decisions about money, household matters, problems with the children. The facilitator helps couples to realise that to cultivate their intimacy, it is necessary for them to talk freely about their feelings to each other.
• Listening.
The first duty of love is to listen (Paul Tillich). The road to the heart is the ear (Voltaire). Jesus was a master conversationalist, but he also listened to the men and women before him. For married couples to grow in intimacy, it is important to learn to listen. The facilitator helps the couples to realise that listening is important for deepening their relationship and he/she presents them with some guidelines for listening (See Appendix I at end of Chapter).
• Affection
When one distils the core of our living, it has almost nothing to do with houses or bank accounts or business achievements. It is all about love and affection. Jesus did not miss any opportunity of declaring his affection. He said in a hundred different ways that he loved his friends. There could have been no doubt in their minds of his affection. We might be slow in saying openly our care and love because our affection may not be returned, or we may be rejected, or even worse, for men, that we will be laughed at for our sentimentality. So out of fear, some of us some of us hold back expressions of warmth and seldom declare our love to the people we are close to. Chesterton once said that the meanest fear is the fear of sentimentality. The facilitator’s task then is to assist the couple to talk about their affection for each other and to explore various ways that they can express their love for each other and to help them understand that we communicate with everything we have – body, mind, and soul.
• Affirmation
“I can live for two months on one good compliment” – Mark Twain. "A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall” – Abraham Lincoln. So to increase your success with people, master the art of affirmation. The way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. To cultivate intimacy: Be liberal with praise. "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated" – William James. "As long as one can admire and love, then one is young forever" – Pablo Casals. The facilitator assists couples to realise that in being liberal with praise to each other they are deepening their relationship.
• Intimacy
Our bodies can become our best tools for achieving genuine intimacy with those around us. If you observe those who have deep relationships, you will find that, although few of them are indiscriminate grabbers who hug everyone in sight, most have delicately tuned their sense of touch and it is in use every time they are with people. They listen with their eyes, they draw close to another person during conversation, and they make body contact frequently to keep the communication at a warm level. In his ministry, Jesus touches people again and again. He "stretched out his hand and touched" the leper, for instance (Mt 8:3). When Peter's mother-in-law was sick, Jesus "touched her hand, and the fever left her" (Mt 8:15), and when mothers brought their little children to him, "he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them (Mk 10:16). Both men and women confide often that the thing they long for most is to be able to go to their mate and be held for a while. Physical gushing is as offensive as verbal gushing, but when it is a genuine expression of your affection, touch can bring you closer to another than thousands of words. In our contacts with the opposite sex, touching need not always have a sexual connotation. We can give encouragement, offer comfort, or express tenderness with physical demonstrations. It is not accidental that the Bible prescribes the laying on of hands as part of Christian healing. We can often do more than we realize with touch.
It is a mistake for couples to limit their physical contact to basic sexual intercourse. If a husband and wife differ in how often they would like to make love and they spend leisurely amounts of time caressing each other, their sexual needs will level out somewhat. The partner who formerly complained about not getting enough sex is content with less frequent intercourse because of the glow he gets from intense touching, and the partner who formerly was turned off much of the time becomes highly aroused by these new experiences and desires more frequent lovemaking. The facilitator helps couples see that to cultivate intimacy it is necessary for them to use their bodies to demonstrate warmth and to touch and caress each other often, that sexuality involves much more than just sex, that their engagement in sexual activity is an expression of their love for each other, and that their attitudes towards sexuality shape their approach to it.
• Space
There is always a little tendency in us to control and dominate others, but if this gets too strong, it will only disturb people. “At the heart of love, there is a simple secret: The lover lets the beloved be free.” Those who have successful relationships allow their loved ones plenty of space & freedom. Rather than possessing their friends, they try to help them expand and grow and become free. Sometimes spouses can be so much together that they suffocate each other. So, it is essential for couples to create space and freedom in their relationships. Kahlil Gibran advises: Stand together, yet not too near together; for the pillars of the temple stand apart, & the oak tree & the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” The facilitator guides them to understand the importance of creating space in their relationships. In general, the course aims at facilitating the couple’s growth in familiarity, their awareness of the need for transparency, their expression of affection for each other, their sensitivity towards sexual intimacy and their acceptance of space in their relationship.

2. Commitment.
Marriage preparation is a Time for Discernment for the engaged.
• Priority
This involves the commitment to become an intimate couple faithfully loving each other and it happens first of all by assigning top priority to the relationship. People, who make the choice for friends and spouses, have good friends and good relationships with their spouses. They regard their relationships as so important that no matter how busy they are, they develop a way of living that allows them be with their friends to love them & care for them. Lonely persons, though they moan over their lack of close companions, actually place little emphasis on the cultivation of friends. They are occupied with other matters. Success in marriage is not a matter of finding the right person but it means being the right person yourself. We become the right person by assigning top priority to our marital relationship. The facilitator helps the couple to understand that becoming a couple does not happen spontaneously and that it requires they make their relationship a priority and give it focus, time and commitment so as to move from being two good people living together to being a loving couple intimately sharing their lives.
• Gestures of Love
The best friendships are built up with many small acts of kindness. Love is not an emotion or an idea; it is something we do. St Paul says: Love is always patient, kind, never jealous or rude or selfish, always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, & to endure whatever comes. A small act of kindness has great power because it shows that we have not taken our friend or loved one for granted. We took the time to think what might bring a moment of happiness. Husbands and wives strengthen their love with many little ceremonies: kissing good-bye, celebrating anniversaries, giving presents, telephoning when they are apart, taking a walk together. The couple sensitive to the deepening their friendship and love will be on the lookout for similar small gestures. The facilitator, then, leads the couple to see that their commitment to each other is realised in living the gestures of love, and assists them in seeing that love is more than a romantic feeling and is a decision to act. He/she helps them explore ways of creating opportunities for intimacy and of nurturing their love, fondness and admiration for each other.
• Loyalty
Those who are rich in their friendships seem to be those who believe in lifelong relationships, who stay with their companions through thick and thin, who weather the dry spells. In a permanent relationship, like marriage, there are going to be periods when your spouse is not functioning well and consequently the marriage is not functioning well. The test is whether you can stay and wait. All of us, at one time or another, have such off periods. A fine line divides our normal coping with reality and our slipping into some unreality. And all of us cross over it occasionally. For most of us it occurs briefly-perhaps for less than a day-and a good night's sleep is its cure. But others have periods when they need the support and guidance of people who love them. What is significant is that people almost always get over their periods of instability. The loss of control is temporary. Given some quietness, it is likely that our minds will heal and we will be all right soon. There is need for a perseverance in human relationships that will keep us connected until that part of the journey has passed. Then the relationships that were once good can be good again. The facilitator helps the couple to see that their marriage is for life, that their relationship will blossom when they are loyal to each other, especially when one of them is in need, that their thoughts towards each other partner may change over time and that this change can affect their relating, and, hopefully enrich their marriage.
• Self-Denial
The demand for complete reciprocity all the time can hurt a friendship. The self-help industry seems capable of cranking out an endless supply of books, tapes, and seminars that advocate believing in yourself, tapping the unlimited power within yourself, asserting yourself, and competing confidently. When people push others away and intimidate their competitors, they get to the front of the line and discover that there is no one there to hand them any prizes. Jesus dismissed such a way of living, saying that those who save their lives will end up losing them and those who lose their lives will save them. The Bible is full of statements to the effect that sacrificing ourselves and denying ourselves for some higher good will in the long run bring happiness. In other words, happiness does not ordinarily come to those who set out to "be happy". The most fulfilled people do not worry about intimidating others; they have a certain confidence that comes from giving to others. The lovers in this world are the strong ones. They are the builders. They are the creators. For rather than compounding the amount of hate in the world, they compound the amount of charity. The facilitator leads the couple to perceive that self-sacrifice is necessary for the deepening of their relationship.

3. Conflict and ways of resolving it.
The facilitator helps the couple to be aware of the aspects of anger and conflict in relationships and explores ways of dealing with them that lead to expression, forgiveness and resolution.
• Anger in the Love Relationship
The Nice Guy Syndrome. Psychologists display surprising unanimity on one point: There is no such thing as a person who never gets angry, but there are some who suppress anger. Delaying the expression of anger may be necessary. But sending anger underground can produce a thousand psychosomatic problems-such as ulcers, migraines, and hypertension, as well as some serious relational difficulties. The ‘nice guy’ smiles a great deal, is cheerful with everyone, is frequently religious, never quarrels, seldom gets angry, appears to be universally liked, and might be thought to have many close friendships. But in fact, generally such persons not only develop a host of psychological problems, but also have clogged up relationships. Popularity is not synonymous with intimacy, and this man who is superficially liked by everyone is rarely loved fiercely by anyone, because he is never perceived as open. If he cannot show anger, he is inept at showing love as well. His emotions are so tightly controlled that he has no range. Without knowing it, he poisons his relationships with his passive hostility.
Disproportionate Anger Cuts Off Communication. When passively hostile people blow, their expression of anger is disproportionate to the complaint because they are really ventilating a lot of past grievances all at once. The result is that communication is cut off. Another danger in swallowing our irritation is that our anger, when it finally erupts, is often displaced. The most common example is the husband who has had a bad day, is frustrated and irritated at his business associates, and takes it out on his wife and family. They are all getting messages that are addressed to someone else, but they have no way of knowing that, and the family system begins to become muddled.
Healthy Anger. Because aggression, frustration, and anger are emotions common to us all, the best relationships build in an allowance for negative feelings. There is no intimate relationship of any duration that will not need to encompass some irritation and hostility from time to time, and if a couple can agree early in the friendship that occasional negativity will be welcomed, it can help enormously. Actually, anger can be a positive force and can be well-managed. Anger can send adrenaline into the bloodstream and glycogen to fatigued muscles to restore them. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger (Eph 4:26).
Let Anger Deepen the Relationship. If neither of you panic because of a few outbursts, and if you follow some of the rules for clean fighting, it is quite possible that your friendship can be much better after the catharsis of an angry exchange. There is a certain clean feeling about restored love after a good airing of grievances. Frequently, feelings are deeper and more tender than before. In several instances deep friendships have begun after a confrontation, even after a shouting match. As we shout at each other, we are being authentic, we are directly experiencing the other. Then, once the problem was resolved, we can become close for the first time. We are taught when we were growing up that to be angry is sinful. Jesus is often presented to us as meek and gentle, never experiencing the emotions we do. However, the Bible reveals that Jesus was angry more than once, and, indeed, God himself does not always contain his wrath. In the Old Testament, there are more than 450 uses of the word ‘anger’ (compared to about 350 uses for ‘love’), and fully 375 of them refer to the anger of God.
If you dish it out, you have to take it. The healthy relationship stays healthy not only because you let your negative feelings out when they occur, but also because you let your beloved do the same. Your friends are fortunate if they do not always have to be good company with you, if they can be cranky when they need to, knowing that you will not reject them for it. It will be easier to be such a friend if you recognize that the angry outbursts of others sometimes have nothing to do with you. They are simply in a foul mood and need to drain off some of the poisons with your help. The trick is to learn to listen without making judgements about the emotions.
The Art of Letting Them Hate You for a While. What happens when someone's anger is directed at you? That’s never easy. What person enjoys being the butt of another’s hostility? But it will happen now and then, and it’s healthy for the friendship if you can manage to deal with your friend's bitterness.
Give Warnings: When a partner realises that there is something heated to be faced in the relationship, it can be helpful to warn his/her partner.

• Creative Forgiveness
Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change, and when we are right, make us easy to live with – Peter Marshall. Forgiveness is a positive force: The forgiving person is sometimes caricatured as weak and spineless, but the opposite is true. One must be strong to forgive, for forgiveness is a very positive force. It changes both you and your beloved. In fact, the dangerous thing about bitterness, slander, wrangling and malice is that these attitudes eat away at us like acid. Not only does our bitterness slop out on those around us and corrode our relationships, it also eats away at our own souls.
If we forgive positively, we'll take the initiative in forgiving. This is very difficult to do. It is easy to let bygones be bygones, when someone apologizes, but it is harder when I have been wronged (or think I have) and my enemies don't even admit their errors. What about the person who never says "I'm sorry"? Here we can profit by noticing how it is that God forgives us. The startling thing about divine love is that God did not wait until we had apologized to send his Son. He took the initiative. "While we still were sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). When we have been loved in such a fashion, we want to change.
What did St Paul mean in his great hymn to love when he wrote, "love does not keep a record of wrongs" (1 Cor 13:5)? He meant that to love we must be able to believe that people do repent, and that at times they do change. To put it another way, he was urging that when we are in relationships of long standing we must live in the present, forgetting some of the slights we've endured in the past. For sooner or later, in any friendship, someone will be wronged. In a weak moment, the beloved will severely criticize or embarrass, or temporarily walk away. If we allow ourselves to dwell on those misdeeds, the relationship is doomed. Jesus, in his encounters with people such as Peter and the woman at the well, saw them for what they were trying to become and what they would eventually be. To extend such understanding toward our intimates can do a great deal to build strong friendships.
The facilitator assists the couple in becoming aware of their anger, the ways they express it and the importance of expressing it openly. He/she helps them to see the creative ways of expressing their anger and negative emotions so that they may deepen their relationship. He/she guides them towards ways of expressing their negative feelings so that they will not alienate each other and helps them to see conflict as an opportunity for growth, change and deepened intimacy. He/she helps them, not just to apologise, but to look for forgiveness and to discover the importance of reconciliation. The facilitator assists them in seeing the values of compromise, toleration of each others faults, and movement from deadlock to dialogue. He/she enables them to talk about the barriers to intimacy, about ways of overcoming disillusionment with each other and about dealing with personal addictions.

4. Children: This aspect focuses on the invitation to create a family, to become parents and raise children. This entails teaching them the Church’s marital values and doctrine on birth control, discussing issues around the planning and spacing of children and natural family planning, and reflecting on ways of being creative in the wider family network and community. Most parents will agree that “children really are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute substantially to the welfare of their parents” (GS 50), and so we need not spend time establishing procreation as an end of marriage. We do, however, given the physical, emotional, and social fate of children in contemporary families, need to spend some time emphasizing that the generativity and fruitfulness of a marriage are not achieved by the biological generation of children. To be parentally fruitful requires not only the momentary act of intercourse but also the long term nurture of the children resulting from that intercourse into functioning adulthood. Maternity and paternity may generate children; only motherhood and fatherhood, the long-term nurture of those children, generate functioning adults. It is the generation of functioning adults that has always been the desired end of the act of procreation, and it is certainly functioning adults that are required today in both society and Church. Couples should also be invited to see how the arrival of children will affect their own relationship.
5. Church: This element deals with discernment, spirituality, faith and ecclesial community. The pastor encourages the couple to enter into a discernment process regarding their aspiration towards marriage. This will deepen the decision to marry the particular intended person or it may result in a decision against marrying him or her. Marriage preparation is to help the engaged to understand that marriage is a sacrament and a covenant. No-one has the right to a marriage ceremony; the right to a nuptial ceremony refers to the right to celebrate an authentic marriage. The preparation also involves explaining and planning the wedding liturgy with them, strengthening and deepening their faith and increasing their knowledge of Catholic teaching and working out how they will pray together and share faith with their children. Besides Catholics who have not yet received the sacrament of confirmation should receive it before being admitted to marriage, if it can be done without serious inconvenience. (Can. 1065, §1) For the sacrament of marriage to be received fruitfully, it is highly recommended that the parties receive the sacraments of penance and the holy Eucharist. (Can. 1065, §2) In interchurch and interfaith marriages, the facilitator helps them explore the tenets of the different confessions and faiths and the diverse confessional and faith practices, and assists them in coming to some resolution that will help them remain faithful to their confession or faith and be nourished by it.
6. Careers: The focus on this issue helps them explore their perception of the different roles in marriage, their expectations of marriage, their talents and employment, and their responsibility towards charity, justice and peace. It also leads them to see that financial responsibilities are a vital part of their relationship. The facilitator encourages the couple to talk openly about their finances in a way that focuses on their relationship, and to work at sharing their attitudes and expectations towards finance in the hope of reaching a common vision on it. He/she enables them deal with debts brought into the marriage, with their spending habits, and with their ways of making financial decisions.
The Pre-Cana Programme and FOCCUS, facilitating open couple communication, understanding and study, as resources for a marriage preparation course. Information on them can be got from their web sites. Note also the acronym SPICE, signifying, we feel loved when spiritually we pray together, when physically we touch and hold each other, when intellectually we share a project or new learning, when we creatively communicate with each other in written or oral forms, and when we emotionally share our feelings, desires and humour.

Chapter Twelve UNITY & SEXUALITY
Unity
In the human person three levels of being and action may be distinguished, which may be designated as the physical, the psychological, and the spiritual. The physical is the level of biology and physiology; it is the level that humans share with others in the genus animal. The psychological is the level of sense and imagination and memory and understanding and reason and judgement and emotion; it is the level that is specific to the human animal. The spiritual is the level of all that transcends the physical and the psychological, all that reaches to the depths and without to the beyond of the human; it is the level which only the religious animal attains. To become one biblical body, one whole person, a man and a woman must become one on all three levels.

Needs
If spouses are to grow, individually and together, each needs both to esteem himself or herself and to feel esteemed by the other.
Comfort & Challenge
It is precisely because of the difficulties in becoming one body, and therefore adequately sacramental, that Christian marriage is an essentially eschatological symbol. Although it is already a prophetic symbol and sacrament of the covenant union between Christ and his Church, it is not yet the perfect symbol it needs to be. This already-but-not-yet dimension of Christian marriage presents it with both a comfort and a challenge. A comfort to the extent that Christian spouses can claim, in faith and in truth, that their intimate union is both modelled upon and a model of the intimate union between Christ and his Church. A challenge to the extent that they confront constantly their falling short of and their need to be more attuned to their model.

Sexuality
• Human: Sexuality is essentially human; there has never been a normal human being who was not sexual.
• Spiritualising: There is a danger in modern Catholic theology of a spiritualising approach to sexuality and sexual intercourse in marriage. To transfer human sexuality up to the exclusively spiritual level is just as untrue to human nature as is transferring it down to the exclusively animal level.
• One Body: Becoming one person with another human being includes becoming not only one spirit and one mind, but also one body. Married love is agape; the love of the spouse for the spouse's sake, but it is also more than agape. Married love is philia, the love of the spouse as a friend, but it is also more than philia. Married love is eros, the love of the spouse for one's own sake, but it is also more than eros.
• Selfish Love: Married love that leads two to become one body is never exclusively selfish love, but it is unquestionably in part selfish love. Married love is loving your neighbour (spouse) as yourself (Mt 22:39).
• Eros & Agape: Eros cannot be transformed; it is an essential form of human love. We do better to accept it, to integrate it, and to give it a distinctively human form. That distinctive form appears when the power of eros is harnessed by human wisdom. Eros, by definition, is the love of the spouse for one's own sake. Where eros dominates, I trample others and make them means to my ends. Such an approach produces what it seeks to avoid, emptiness and loneliness. Where wisdom dominates, I recognise that my partner's happiness is the only way that I, too, can be happy. In that wisdom, strangely, eros is not transformed into, but is allied to, agape. It is precisely this alliance of eros and agape that allows married love to persist and to grow when those things that fuel eros, youth, beauty, health, grace, have long since passed away.
• Sexual Pleasure: Sexuality, sexual passion, sexual pleasure, eros, derive their sacramental character not from any purpose that human beings might assign to them, but from the simple theological fact that they are from God. They are God's gifts to us, and they are good gifts. For two human animals to become one body-person includes essentially, though not exclusively, becoming one body physically. Physical union is not all there is to becoming one body. Still it has a place in Christian marriage, as prophetic symbol of the covenant uniting humanity and God, who does not shrink from proclaiming his love for his beloved in that most beautiful, and most erotic, of love songs, the Song of Songs.
• Song of Songs: This Song has always posed problems for both Jews and Christians, specifically whether it is a poem to divine or human love. For centuries, unwilling to consider that human, erotic love would have any place in the Scriptures, commentators opted for an allegorical reading. The Song of Songs, they explained, was about divine love. But even if it is, God, good communicator that he is, always reveals himself in the language of his hearers. The emergence of the historical-critical approach to reading the Bible led to a growing consensus that the meaning of the Song was its literal meaning. It is about the love of humans, male and female, who in love always seek the bodily presence of the other. This love is celebrated as gift, and as image of the Creator God and of his love for us.
• Acceptance & Integration: In response to the view that sex cannot be fully humanised, it does not need to be humanised because it is already fully human, precisely as gifted to us by the God. While human sexual passion can never be fully humanly mastered, because such mastery attains only to the rational, and sexual passion and pleasure have much in them that is non-rational, one fully human way to respond to the non-rational is to accept it joyfully and playfully. Man and woman, husband and wife, do not become fully human by ignoring eros, or by negotiating their way carefully around it, above it or beyond it. They become human only by accepting it and integrating it into the rest of their human and Christian lives. (From Michael G. Lawler, "Theology of Marriage: A Contemporary View," Chapter Four of Secular Marriage, Christian Sacrament. Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1985, pp. 56-80).

Chapter Thirteen DIVORCE & RE-MARRIAGE
CIVIL DIVORCE
At the present time, marriage and family life seem to be falling apart. In our globalised secular world culture, divorce is becoming more and more acceptable to alleviate difficulties in marriage. However, divorce has the following very serious consequences for marriage, family life and society.
1. The introduction of divorce in any society abolishes the right to life-long indissoluble marriage by making 'for life' become 'as long as'.
2. Inhibitions: Some spouses, fearing the ever-present threat of divorce, pull their punches out of fear of provoking their partner into leaving.
3. The unity and indissolubility of marriage ensure a greater security and stability in the relationship. The availability of divorce introduces instability and uncertainty into the marriage.
4. The absence of divorce allows people to enter into marriage with a greater sense of commitment, and within marriage they will take their commitment more seriously. Where marriage is permanent couples are more inclined to struggle to make a success of their marriage; with divorce, they are more inclined to give up. There are people who are chronic failures at all their intimate relations and who are always on the move. The absence of divorce could be of great benefit to them because a permanent union may assist them to hang on when the going is tough, may help them see their own part in a strained relationship and may be facilitative of their maturation as persons.
5. The absence of divorce invariably means that individuals are more cautious in selecting a partner because marriage is seen as permanent.
6. The solemn obligations undertaken by the marriage partners cannot fail to affect them in the very depths of their being, and they usually do, even if they separate at a later time. God's promises are indefinitely open toward the future, and once made, will never be revoked. Marriage vows are similarly absolute and irrevocable. They establish a relationship so profound that it can never cease to be of personal significance. For they bring into being a new unit, no longer you and I, but we; and however much we fail to act out this unity, once each of us is committed together with the other to the intention of constituting such a unity; neither can ever be the same again. The marriage relationship has itself become sacred for the couple and, generally, this awareness strengthens their commitment to each other. However, in a divorce culture, it is not simply failed and problematic marriages that are dissolved; divorce also destroys happy marriages.
7. In difficult circumstances, once the option for divorce is taken, spouses are inclined to act consistently and follow through on their decision.
8. Divorce, once introduced, gathers pace. Even while society highly prizes both marriage and family life, the universal experience is that divorce legislation results in more people availing of it.
9. It seems that most people who are unhappy and discontent with their partners will be equally unhappy and discontent with the partners of a second marriage. Generally, a divorce culture does not help to make people happier.
10. Children: Parental divorce is a major disruption in children's lives.
11. Divorce has no basis in human rights.
12. Law: It has been argued that the law cannot make people morally good. However, while you cannot by Act of Parliament make a person morally good, you can by Act of Parliament supply the conditions which facilitate the growth of moral goodness and remove conditions which obstruct it. Moral convictions need the support of law. It is common sense that laxity in the law, e.g. through the introduction of divorce, makes decent living more difficult for all.
13. The machinery of the State switches sides and actively facilitates people who wish to abandon their pledge of lasting fidelity and who seek to remarry.
14. Good of Society: Because divorce damages society, a prohibition on it should not be seen as lacking in compassion but rather appreciated as an attempt by the State to help promote the stability of marriage and family life and, in a particular way, to protect the welfare of women and children.
15. Government Support: In the short term the government should provide adequate support for the institution of marriage. If society wants to have successful marriages and strong family life then there must be a similar commitment to the legal and social conditions which will encourage these. The government should take steps to assess all legislation to ensure that it has a positive family impact; should ensure that taxation and social welfare systems financially favour married couples living together; should provide tax incentives and adequate child allowances for married couples; should examine the social problems, especially alcoholism, which contribute to family breakdown with a view to alleviating them; and should provide meaningful support to organisations promoting family life based on marriage.
16. The individual, rather than the family or the institution of marriage itself, is a starting point in the realm of principle for many proponents of divorce.
17. The provision of a right to remarry rewards infidelity.
18. Divorce indirectly results in serious long-term social disorder.
19. Finance: Divorce is a very expensive activity. Many second families are broken up because of the tension over supporting the first family.

CATHOLICS & MARITAL BREAKDOWN
While many other institutions are open to dissolution of marriage, the tradition in the Catholic Church against divorce is very strong. Even though people know of the serious consequences that divorce has on marriage and family life, the Church is often encouraged to make things easier for those who have found the demands of marriage and parenthood too severe, by lowering her traditional standards. The reasons given by those who recommend the Church should be open to divorce are as follows:
1 Divergent Scriptural Interpretations: Biblical and patristic research calls into question the historical justification for the present doctrine and judicial system and shows that the theology and practice of the Church with respect to divorce and remarriage are not as faithful to the New Testament as is claimed. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith purported to articulate Catholic doctrine concerning divorce and remarriage and claimed, citing Mark 10:11-12, “fidelity to the words of Jesus.” The implication was that, since the doctrine in question is based on fidelity to the words of Jesus, it is irreformable. That argument might be true if the words of Jesus as cited from Mark were the only teaching in the New Testament on divorce and remarriage and the only one which the Church followed. That, of course, is not the case. Paul, with his acceptance of divorce in favour of the faith (I Cor 7.12-15) and Matthew, who allows divorce for porneia (Mt 19.6), contribute their own interpretation of and exception to Jesus’ remembered command.
First, it is incorrect to speak of the New Testament teaching on divorce and remarriage, as if there was only one. There are several teachings and they do not all agree. Second, not all these teachings derive from Jesus, as the Catholic Church historically insinuates. Third, diverging accounts of divorce and remarriage are in integral part of the New Testament and later Christian traditions because the diverse cultural followers of Jesus sought to translate the meaning of his life, death and resurrection into the circumstances of their concrete lives.
2 Council of Nicea (325), Canon 8, goes to the very heart of the question of divorce and remarriage: “As regards those who define themselves as the Pure and who want join the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the holy and great Council decrees that they… will have to communicate both with those who married a second time [digamoi] and with those who failed under persecution but… whose moment of reconciliation has arrived.” So, the ‘Pure’ had to accept to live in communion with those who had been married twice. Digamia refers to remarriage either after the death of a spouse or after a divorce. Since, however, remarriage after the death of a spouse was not considered a sin, the Council’s digamoi must be those who have remarried after a divorce or repudiation. That “sin” according to the council, can be forgiven and reconciliation with the Church can be achieved after a period of suitable penance. Acutely relevant is the fact that neither the Church before Nicea nor the Council itself required the repudiation of the new spouse as a prerequisite for forgiveness and reconciliation.
3. The Orthodox Churches, while stressing the indissolubility of marriage in theory, in practice allow for solubility and second marriages for the greater good. When a marriage is dead, even if the spouses still live, oikonomia impels the church to be not only sad, for the death of a marriage is always “the death of a small civilization,” but also compassionate, for the Church represents the merciful God. This compassion extends to permitting the remarriage of an innocent or repentant spouse. The Orthodox practice of oikonomia flourishes within a context of spirit and grace, not of law and grows out of the powerful Orthodox faith in the continuing benevolent and merciful action in the Church of the Spirit of God and of Christ. It heeds the Gospel injunction that “the letter skills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6).
4 Tradition: Use of Pauline and Petrine Privileges
There is a continuous tradition that in special cases the Church has dissolved marriages. The Pauline Privilege of I Cor 7:10-16, II Cor 6:14-18 and Rom 7:2-3, already referred to chapter three, is now enshrined in Canon Law. This permits dissolution and second marriage to a person who receives baptism when the non-Christian partner is unwilling to live with the baptised person or to live peacefully without offence to the Creator, unless the baptised partner has, after the reception of baptism, given the other just cause to leave (Canon 1143). Exploring the Pauline Privilege Gratian in 1140 claims that marriages among non-Christians are valid, but are not indissoluble because they are not sacramental. Later, Popes have extended the Pauline Privilege to grant dissolution of natural marriages to enable a new convert to remarry. So dissolutions were permitted in virtue of what is called the Petrine Privilege, which, by custom and not by law, gives permission to the Pope to dissolve a natural marriage between a baptised and non-baptised person in special circumstances and even sometimes in more extensive situations. The consistent and acknowledged nuancing of the words of Jesus expressed especially today through the Pauline and Petrine Privileges would seem to make it feasible to permit divorce in exceptionally serious situations.
5. Sacrament and Love: A marriage is sacramental when it embodies and expresses the kind of love that exists between Christ and the Church. But if the marriage no longer embodied and expressed that kind of love, it would in fact be no longer sacramental, and by the same token it would be liable to end in divorce.
6. Ethical Demand: Indissolubility as a sign and a precept is an ethical requirement (the person should not put asunder) rather than a statement of fact (the person cannot put asunder). The person does not have the right to separate what God has united, but this does not exclude the possibility of what God has united being separated, whether by unfaithfulness, danger or death. The absolute character of Christ’s precept is an ethical demand to which we must always pay attention, and not a juridical law of absolute validity.
7 Authority: While it is true that the Catholic Church never grants the dissolution of the bond of a consummated sacramental marriage, it remains a disputed question among theologians if this stance is rooted in an enduring prudential judgment or is the result of a perception that the Church lacks the radical power to dissolve such a bond. Presently, no satisfactory theological explanation exists why and how the consummation of a sacramental marriage can restrict the power of the Church over the bond.
8 New Perspective of Living Relationship: The theological justification for the permanence of the marriage bond is weakened in the shift from scholastic to personalist philosophy and in the view that the marriage is not a legally binding contract but a living relationship between two people.
9 Reality of Divorce: The theological justification for the permanence of the marriage bond is weakened in the shift from scholastic to personalist philosophy and in the view that the marriage is not a legally binding contract but a living relationship between two people. The practical justification for the impossibility of divorce is questioned by the fact that the prohibition no longer deters Catholics from obtaining divorces but rather prevents them from remaining Catholics.
10 Annulment: Reluctance and Irksome System: Most legally divorced Catholics are unwilling to put themselves through the equivalent of another divorce trial in an ecclesiastical court. Some canonists, a minority, have questioned the value and relevance of the whole ecclesiastical judicial system which researches and tries marriage cases, and have recommended that it be dismantled. Then the clergy could concern themselves with the pastoral and religious aspects of Christian marriage.

The Church maintains marriage is indissoluble by divine law on the basis of Mk 10:11-12 and Lk 16.18. In the perception of the Magisterium, Jesus asserts the permanence of the marital bond. Just as Christ always remains faithful to the Church, spouses are always to remain faithful to each other. So how does the Church come to terms with marriages that are breaking up or have fragmented?
• Separation: When one spouse is unfaithful or causes grave danger of soul or body to the other or to the children or makes the common life unduly difficult, then the other spouse has a case for separation (Can 1151-1155).
• Dissolution of the bond: Divorce is never granted or recognized by the Catholic Church in the case of a sacramental (between two baptised persons) and consummated marriage. In the case of all other marriages, although theoretically held indissoluble, as a matter of pastoral practice, for reasons of faith and religion, the Church is willing to declare the dissolution of the bond. Thus, divorce with freedom to marry can be granted in the following cases: (a) if a sacramental marriage has not been sexually consummated, a dispensation that brings with it the cancellation of the bond can be obtained; (b) if a marriage has taken place between two non-baptized persons, and one converts to Christianity and receives baptism, after which the unbeliever refuses to live with the believer "without insult to the Creator,” the Christian party is free to marry again; (c) if a non-baptized man, living with several wives simultaneously (polygamy), receives baptism, he is entitled to choose anyone of his women to be his only wife; the same rule applies to a woman in similar situation with several husbands (polyandry); (d) if man and wife, neither of them baptized, become forcibly separated and for no fault of theirs they cannot restore their common life, the reception of baptism even by one entitles both to marry again; (e) if both of such forcibly separated persons receive baptism, theoretically a sacramental non-consummated marriage comes into existence; still if they are not able to restore their common life, the law grants them the freedom to marry; this amounts to a dispensation by the law from the bond of a non-consummated sacramental marriage; (f) if a natural bond exists between two non-baptized, or one baptized and another who is not, dispensation from the bond can be requested through the competent ordinary from the Apostolic See; to obtain it an appropriate reason is required, e.g., the desire to marry a Catholic.
• Annulment: Many divorced and remarried Catholics who want to be reinstated into full membership in the Church try in increasing numbers to have their first marriage officially annulled.
• Preparation and Support: Catholic dioceses offer marriage preparation courses for engaged couples; priests are expected to counsel them about the duties and responsibilities of marriage as well as help them prepare their wedding liturgy and strengthen their faith (Can 1063, FC 66). The Christian Family Movement, Marriage Encounter (George & Salome Mwangi, Kenyan ME Coordinating Couple, package@wananchi.com), Retrouvaille, which gives assistance to marriages in difficulties (Tablet, 12 August 2006, p. 17), and similar organisations offer group support for maintaining married and family life.
• Compassion: The Church has always tried to offer support and compassion to those whose marriages have failed, as she counsels the parties to live a single lifestyle as long as their spouse is still living. Unfortunately the Church’s efforts to encourage permanence and to discourage divorce have often led to a very negative attitude toward those who have experienced a divorce. This has caused many of the divorced and separated to feel rejected by the Church community, precisely at a time when they greatly need the support of the community.
• Permanent Commitment: For the past eight hundred years or so the Catholic Church has vigorously maintained that a validly contracted marriage is indissoluble not only by Church law but also by divine law. The future of Christian marriage is bound up with the future of Christianity itself.

Chapter Fourteen Polygamy
Bibliography: Cairncross, John (1974). After Polygamy Was Made a Sin: The Social History of Christian Polygamy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7100-7730-0. Hillman, Eugene. Polygamy Reconsidered: African Plural Marriage and the Christian Churches. New York: Orbis Books. ISBN 0-88344-391-0. Evangelizing Polygamous Families, Peter M Kanyandago, Amecea Gaba Pubs, Eldoret, No 116-118.
Polygamy exists in three specific forms, polygyny (one man having multiple wives), polyandry (one woman having multiple husbands), or group marriage (some combination of polygyny and polyandry).
Judaism
Scriptural evidence indicates that polygamy among the ancient Hebrews, though not extremely common, was not particularly unusual and was certainly not prohibited or discouraged. The Hebrew Scriptures document approximately forty polygamists, including such prominent figures as Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Esau, and David, with little or no further remark on their polygamy as such. Exodus 21:10, Deuteronomy 21:15-17, Deuteronomy 17:17, Deuteronomy 25:5-10. At present, Judaism has essentially outlawed polygamy.

Christianity
Augustine refrained from judging the patriarchs, but did not deduce from their practice the ongoing acceptability of polygamy. Martin Luther granted Philip of Hesse, who, for many years, had been living "constantly in a state of adultery and fornication," a dispensation to take a second wife. In response the Council of Trent: “If anyone says that it is lawful for Christians to have several wives at the same time and that this is not forbidden by divine law (Mt 19:9ff), anathema sit” (CF 1809, p. 769). The Church asserts that "polygamy is not in accord with the moral law. [Conjugal] communion is radically contradicted by polygamy; this, in fact, directly negates the plan of God which was revealed from the beginning, because it is contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women who in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and therefore unique and exclusive." (CCC 2387, FC 19). Moreover, the Church states: “Polygamy is incompatible with the unity of marriage” (CCC 1664). Note also CCC 1645, GS 49, and GS 47. The Catholic Church cannot accept polygamous marriages because she values the unique and exclusive communion of the partners in marriage, the total love of the partners for each other, the equal personal dignity of men and women, and the unity of marriage. Sociologists claim that polygyny discriminates both against women and against less privileged men, since some men have many wives while many younger, poorer men have none. Others see polygyny as an extension of social, political and economic power into sexual relationships.

In Africa, there has often been a tension between the Churches' insistence on monogamy and traditional polygamy. In recent times there have been moves for accommodation in some non-Catholic churches.

Pastoral Care
1. Towards polygamous family
• Follow diocesan guidelines.
• Admit them into the catechumenate.
• Show explicit care.
• Be firm and resolute.
• Be open to conversion and administering the sacraments at the time of death.
• Note CCL 1148, 1 – When a non-Christian person living in a polygamous receives baptism he/she may retain any one of his/her spouses, if it is a hardship to remain with the first.
• In cases of conversion, try to ensure that the other wives and their children are maintained.
• Be sympathetic to the plight of the former wives and their children.
• Dialogue with the local Community.

2. Towards a baptised married man who takes a second wife.
• Follow diocesan guidelines.
• Show understanding.
• Be caring to the first wife.
• Be open to helping a practicing Catholic husband and second wife.
• Dialogue with the local Community.

Chapter Fifteen CONCLUSION & CLARIFICATIONS
1. Secular
Marriage is without qualification a secular human reality, and, so, subject to development and evolution. There is a universal sense that something important is happening in the union of man and woman in marriage. There is a sense that something gracefully “good” happens in a good marriage. Oscar Wilde observes that “Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.”
2. Scriptural
Matrimony is rooted in the OT notions of creation and covenant. The ambivalence of the NT regarding marriage (it is at once holy and to be avoided, if possible) may be explained by its sense of the imminence of the Kingdom of God. In later NT writings (Ephesians) this sense has waned, and so marriage is linked with the union of Christ and the Church.
3. Institution
The basis for the sacrament is given in Jn 13:34-35, “Love one another, as I have loved you”; the institution is expressed in Mt 19:3-6; the practice is proclaimed in Eph 5:22-32 and the prophetic act is realised in Mk 2:18-20.
4. Augustine
The largely negative attitude of Augustine toward marriage and sexuality is well known, but neither he nor the other early writers of the Church denied the basic sanctity of marriage. Besides, Augustine recognised marriage as a sacrament. The Council of Verona in 1172 formally accepted marriage as one of the seven sacraments and later the Councils of Florence and Trent affirmed this.
5. Covenant – Vatican II
For many centuries marriage was perceived as a contract, a precise exchange of rights, namely the rights to each others bodies for those acts needed for the procreation of children. Vatican II introduces a whole new perspective on marriage and sees it as a covenant, not a contract. A contract is a mutual agreement for the fair exchange of goods and services. A covenant is an intimate partnership of love pledging permanent faithfulness to one another. Mutual love is not “secondary” to the begetting of children, but is sanctified by the sacrament. The sacramentality of marriage is not automatic; it requires faith. The sacrament incorporates one more fully into the mystery of the Church.
6. Prophetic Symbol
Secular marriage is a God-gifted, life-long community of love to ensure the most appropriate conditions for the life of the spouses with one another as couple and with any children as family. Christian marriage is that same secular marriage perceived and lived in faith as prophetic symbol and sacrament of the community of love resulting from the covenant between Christ and his Church.
7. Sacrament
Marriage is a sacrament, because the love of husband and wife reveals the love Jesus has for the Church (Eph 5:22-32). The sacrament presents Jesus as one whose whole life and being are oriented toward the loving service of others for the sake of creating and sustaining a community of love. Marriage lives out his call to love one another as he has loved us (Jn 15:1-17).
8. Wedding
The sacrament of marriage is also expressed in the wedding ceremony. It began in the Middle Ages, evolved through a variety of forms, became stabilised during the Tridentine reforms, and is now evolving again. Wedding ceremonies are always sacramental, in the sense of being celebrations of the sacred value of marriage, and of being rituals of initiation to a new style of life which is honoured and meaningful, supported by social custom and religious tradition. Similarly, Christian wedding ceremonies have always been sacramental, for they have celebrated the sacred value of marriage and they have initiated men and women into a style of life that was to be modelled on the relationship between Christ and the Church. The words and gestures of the ceremony, even the bearing and expressions of its participants, symbolise to the bride and groom and the others who are present the meaning and importance of what is happening and what is about to happen to this couple. They are being transformed, and they are going to be transformed even further. The wedding is a door through which they enter into that sacred transformation.
9. Ecclesial
When seen as a covenant rather than a contract, Christian marriage is a sacrament of the union between Christ and Church (Eph 5:22-32). The sacrament of matrimony is a decisive moment when the Church reveals herself as the bride of Christ, as the sign that God is committed to the human community. The Church comes into being at various levels of Christian community. The family is her most basic level; the family has been called “the domestic Church”. “This means that there should be found in every Christian family the various aspects of the entire Church,” (Paul VI, EN). So, the Christian family is perceived as a domestic Church, a place where the love of God and religious faith are learned and celebrated. Just as the Church throws light on the family, likewise the Christian family helps us to understand the Church community. The new community signified and realised by marriage is also a sign of what the Church is, a community of love brought about by the Holy Spirit. The Fathers of the African Synod see this clearly calling the Church God’s family and accepting that this expression is particularly appropriate for Africa. ‘For this image emphasises care for others, solidarity, warmth in human relationships, acceptance, dialogue and trust’ (EA 63, CCC 1655). So they see evangelisation as aiming to build up the Church as Family.
10. Community
A good marriage renews and affirms a believing community. Reciprocally, a strong believing community facilitates the formation of good Christian marriages. Married life and community life are intimately related. Indeed, because Christian marriage is not only a private matter, but is for the entire Church, whose covenant with Christ is symbolised prophetically in it, some argue that the minister, whose presence is required for the validity of the marriage since Trent, is more than just a legal witness, is also a co-minister with believing Christians of the sacrament.
11. Fidelity
In a Christian marriage, the spouses are called to a life-long faithfulness to each other. Christian marriage is modelled on and reflects the faithful love for Christ towards his Church. So Christian marriage makes real the value of fidelity and challenges the egoistic tendency of finding intimacy with no responsible commitment to others.
12. Friendship
When we realise the basic sacramentality of all human experience and the way Jesus transformed this sacramentality, there is good reason for seeing human friendship as the most basic sacrament of God’s saving presence to human life. Human friendship reflects and makes credible the reality of God’s love for humans; human friendship gives us some insight into the Christian revelation that God is a “self.” Within human friendship there is a paradigm role played by the love between a Christian wife and husband. Building on the transformation of marriage’s meaning that began with the prophets of Israel, Christianity sees the love relationship of a Christian couple as sacramentalising the relationships between Christ and the Church and between God and humanity. God’s saving action consists essentially in the divine self-giving. This is expressed by and present in the couple’s self-gift to each other; they are sacrament to each other, to their children, and to their fellow Christians. This sacramentality, though specially instanced in Christian marriage, extends to all genuine human friendship.
13. One Body
In Christian marriage, the two spouses become one. To become one biblical body, one whole person, a man and woman must become one physically, psychologically and spiritually. So there is a quest to integrate all three levels to become one body-person. Becoming one at the physical level involves the spouses accepting their sexuality and integrating it into the rest of their human and Christian lives. Erotic love is now given greater emphasis in a Christian marriage, not because such love is the be-all and end-all of a marriage, but because the Christian tradition has been largely negative towards such love and its rightful place in Christian marriage.
14. Process
Marriage is never static but truly an ongoing relationship in which the partners must literally become more “Christlike” in the depth and manifestation of their love.
15. Faith
All sacraments, including marriage, are sacraments of faith. Only the active Christian faith of the marrying persons actively embracing that added prophetic dimension found in Christian marriage transforms valid secular marriage into grace-full Christian sacrament. In marriage preparation and support, the priest has the responsibility of deepening the faith of the couple, so that they may be open to receive the graces and responsibilities of the sacrament.
16. Baptised non-Believers
The official Church has to engage in the issue of baptised unbelievers; those who were baptised as infants but never thereafter socialised into a faith community, but whose culture or relations expect them to be married in the Church. Numerous solutions have been proposed, most having to do with a flexible approach via stages or levels and some type of follow-up catechesis with the recently married.
17. Indissolubility: Pauline & Petrine Privileges
The Catholic Church has always taught that marriage is indissoluble. Still, she has always tolerated certain modifications of this principle through dispensations designed to remove the unintended harshness of the law. The Pauline Privilege permits divorce and second marriage to a person who receives baptism when the non-Christian partner is unwilling to live with the baptised person or to live peacefully without offence to the Creator, unless the baptised partner has, after the reception of baptism, given the other just cause to leave (Canon 1143). The Pauline Privilege applies only when both parties were unbaptised at the time of the marriage. So, the Pauline Privilege dissolves a real but natural marriage. Besides, other dissolutions are permitted in virtue of what is called the Petrine Privilege, which, by custom and not by law, gives permission to the Pope, exercising his authority as the Vicar of Christ and executive agent of divine law, to dissolve a natural marriage between a baptised and non-baptised person in special circumstances and even sometimes in more extensive situations. This is called the Petrine Privilege because it is reserved to the Chair of Peter.
18. Canonical Form
Since the decree Tametsi, 1563, Church law requires that Catholics marry before the bishop, priest or deacon delegated by either one, and two witnesses (canonical form). Since Vatican II, however, exceptions have been granted frequently, given the many instances of interchurch marriages.
19. Interchurch and Interfaith Marriages
An interfaith marriage, formerly called a mixed marriage, is one between a Catholic and a non-Catholic Christian; it requires both a dispensation and a promise by the Catholic party to do all in his or her power to share the Catholic faith with any children of the union. A marriage between a Catholic and a non-Christian, called an interfaith marriage, requires a dispensation from disparity of cult.
20. Annulment
An annulment is an official declaration that a marriage was sacramentally invalid from the beginning. When an official declaration is impossible, in some areas occasionally Catholics in a second marriage are allowed to participate in the Church’s sacramental life, assuming no grave scandal is present.
21. Marriage Tribunal
The marriage tribunal is the special committee of a diocese, sometimes called a “marriage court,” that consists of persons especially trained in dealing with marriage cases that are brought before them. Particularly serious marriage cases can be appealed to the next highest tribunal (usually that of the nearest archdiocese), and the most serious cases can be appealed to the highest marriage tribunal in Rome, known as the Roman Rota.
22. Ecumenical Agreement
There is fundamental agreement between Catholics, Orthodox and Anglicans on the sacramentality of marriage.
23. Definition
Marriage is a community of life and love, founded in a mutual and irrevocable covenant, by which a Christian man and a Christian woman give and accept one another for the purpose of establishing an intimate partnership of their whole life. Marriage is a sacrament when the couple want their life and love to reflect the relationship between Christ and the Church.
24. Vision to Reality
There is a great need to make the vision of a true Christian marriage become reality in the lives of those who are married and those who are preparing to enter marriage. The work is really more the responsibility of the married than of the clergy. This vision of marriage must be taught in the home and exemplified by married couples if it is to grasp the imagination and the hearts of the community. Words and formal teaching are important, but example is still the best teacher. May the Lord give to all married Christians the courage and depth of love necessary to be faithful to their commitment and to be effective sacraments of God’s love for all people.

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