From Ordinary to Extraordinary
(Gen.2:18-24; Heb.2:9-11; Mk.10:2-16)
‘It’s not good for a person to be alone,’ the Bible tells us, and the reason is clear: we were all made for love.
We know this is true because we’ve all been made in God’s image and likeness (Gen.1:26-27), and God is love itself (1Jn.4:16). Indeed, God in his Trinity is never alone.
Love and relationships, therefore, are at the very heart of our human identity, and our deepest purpose is to love and to be loved in return.
The story doesn’t end there, however, because in today’s Gospel Mark reminds us that God also created us male and female, and He established marriage as the sacred bond within which a man and a woman are to express their deepest love.
This love, however, isn’t meant to be temporary or inward-looking. It’s meant to be exclusive and long-lasting, and it’s meant to grow beyond itself, giving birth to new love. For that’s what true love does: it always looks beyond itself, expanding outwards, creating and nurturing new life and new love.
In essence, this is what marriage is all about. Marriage is a life-long commitment of love between a man and a woman, freely entered into, that generates new life and new love.
But what about Christian marriage? How is that different?
The Catechism tells us that Marriage was ‘raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a Sacrament’ (ccc.1601). What does that mean?
When a man and woman are baptised, they become members of the Church, the ‘Bride of Christ’ (Eph.5:22-33). Jesus loved his bride so much that he even died for her, and this sets the standard for every married couple. Ideally, the love between the spouses will be as deep as the love of Jesus for his bride.
Of course, building such a relationship is always a challenge, especially today, and this is where the Sacrament of Matrimony is particularly valuable.
St Augustine described the sacraments as ‘outward signs of an invisible grace.’ They are signs of God’s sacred presence in our midst today, and through them God gives us the graces we need in our journey through life.
In the Sacrament of Matrimony, the grace God imparts is his own supernatural power to live a life of love, compassion and mercy. This means that God is always embedded in the couple’s relationship.
Like the three persons of the Trinity, there are three persons in a Christian Marriage: the husband, the wife and God himself.
That’s why Christian Marriage is called a Sacrament.
And it’s because of God’s sacred presence that Christian Marriage is much more than a contract. It’s a Covenant.
A contract is a legal agreement between two parties, which basically says that I’ll keep up my end of the bargain as long as you keep yours.
A Covenant, however, is a sacred commitment made before God between two equals, and it’s a commitment that they will always be there for each other. It’s a one-way agreement, focussed on the good of the other, and it doesn’t depend on what the other person does.
This is the commitment Jesus made to us when he said ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’ (Heb.13:5).
Mother Teresa often talked about the sacredness of marriage and the importance of the family as the basic foundation of society. She called it the ‘domestic school of love,’ which gives children what they need to become mature and responsible adults.
But we know that married life has its challenges. In Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis describes the family as a ‘challenging mosaic made up of many different realities, with all their joys, hopes and problems.’
Mother Teresa also used to say that it’s easier to love people far away than those close to us. But, she said, home is where our love needs to start. This isn’t always easy to do, and that’s why we always need God and his sacraments.
His graces make all the difference.
My dear parents, Esmé and Gerald, were inseparable – they were married for almost 76 years. Not long before they died, they said that the Church had always been the foundation of their marriage, and that everything they did, they did with God.
Even in their toughest times, God always came through with his graces.
They also shared a secret – that the difference between an ordinary marriage and an extraordinary one is the little extra that you give each day – with the help of God.