Healthy, Happy, Holy Matrimony

Discovering Christian Marriage

With Hollywood as its story-weaving public relations service, our culture fosters a powerful and apparently liberating vision of sexuality and marriage. Even many members of the Church assume that sexuality and marriage are really all about the pleasure and self-expression of consenting adults, in whatever way it may be sought. Attending college in the 1970s, I also thought old-fashioned marriage was ripe for reinvention in the post-Christian “Age of Aquarius.” I could imagine men, and lots of beautiful women, living a communal life, with the whole community responsible for any children.

I then had a conversion experience and a few years later was baptized into the Catholic Church. Catholic teaching on marriage quickly became of more than academic interest as I fell in love with a lovely Catholic girl. Pretty soon we were not just reading about marriage but trying to live it as a Catholic husband and wife. Unfortunately, however, our introduction to nuptial theology suggested that teachings about sexual matters were in flux and were properly subject to individual conscience. We knew there was a teaching against contraception but we thought that, as long what we were doing seemed justified by the circumstances, everything was copacetic.

A year later we read Humanae Vitae and it rocked our world. The logic was clear and authoritative – and it specifically ruled out overriding the teaching by appeal to individual conscience. For me, this was a moment of not just intellectual conversion but of real, practical conversion that puts faith into action. Now we had to trust that God knew best about the most intimate part of our lives. We began to understand that marriage is a way of the cross, a way which requires obedience and sacrifice and which leads to the new life of the resurrection. Marriage, in other words, is a vocation, a particular way of following Christ, with its own challenges and graces.

Natural Family Planning was not easy for us but it opened the way to deeper respect and love and so we persevered. Blessed John Paul II’s “theology of the body” revealed the beauty of God’s plan and helped us to make the necessary sacrifices. We began teaching NFP through the Couple to Couple League in 1985. Through our own experiences, through the experiences of couples we taught and through the study of theology, we discovered various elements of healthy, happy, holy marriage, particularly the five facets presented here. The first three facets apply to all authentic marriages; the last two pertain especially to sacramental marriage.

I. Friendship – the foundation of marriage Aristotle argues that friendship is essential for a good and happy life and he identifies three kinds: the friendship of pleasure, the friendship of advantage and complete friendship or what might be called the friendship of persons. Friendships of pleasure may grow around a shared delight in theater, for example, or some other enjoyable activity. A friendship of advantage might pair a promising young professional with a wise mentor. These friendships have legitimate functions but are not as elevating as complete friendship, which is based on regard for an equal and a desire to do good for that person. Friendships of pleasure or of advantage change with circumstances but complete friendship tends to be permanent – and rare. Authentic marriage is meant to be a friendship of persons in which each spouse seeks to give of his or her self for the good of the other. The friendship of marriage has a unique means of self-gift which not only unites husband and wife but tends to the further gift of making each other into mom and dad.

II. Marriage as a school of virtue Jesus gave two great commandments which convey the purpose of our lives: we are to love God with our whole hearts, minds and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mk 12: 28-34; Mt 22: 34-40). The first command is obviously greater than the second but everyone is called to strive to fulfill both. You could say, however, that in a certain sense the priesthood and religious life start with the first command, love of God, and proceed to the second, while marriage starts with the second command, love of neighbor, which leads to the first. Marriage involves giving oneself completely to one particular person in such a way as to reflect the total self-gift of Jesus for his bride, the Church (Eph 5: 22-33). This marital self-giving is also oriented to a participation in God’s work of creation, specifically the creation of new human persons, called to eternal life.

Marriage is thus a school of love, or, what is the same thing, a school of virtue. Love doesn’t just happen; it requires many skills or well-practiced habits of excellence, which are known as virtues. A spouse who does not practice the skills necessary to control sexual impulses or to moderate alcohol consumption, for example, finds it difficult to act in a loving way. John Paul II teaches that, in order to give ourselves in love to another, we must first gain possession of ourselves. We do this through growth in the virtues, including the overarching virtues of human community: prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. Such growth comes through the hard work of constant practice assisted by the free gift of grace through the sacrifice of Jesus, made available to us especially in the sacraments.

III. Marriage as a covenant We are all caught in a blizzard of contracts relating to the various “things” in our lives. Covenants, however, are rather rare. Covenants have five characteristics:¹

• They regulate not things but relationships between persons
• They involve death to an old way of life
• They are formed by an oath
• They are ratified by some particular action
• They lead to a new, shared life

The Mosaic covenant, for example, regulated the relationship between God and his people; it involved death to old way of life in Egypt; it was formed by an oath at Mt. Sinai; it was ratified by the sprinkling of bull’s blood on the people and on the altar; and it led to a new, shared life between God and Israel (see Exodus 24: 3-8). Authentic marriage is not a contract but a covenant. It exists between persons; involves death to an old, single way of life; is formed by an oath or promise of total self-gift known as the wedding vows; is ratified by the self-gift of marital intercourse; and leads to a new, shared life. A contract is meant to be a 50% / 50% proposition in which each party gets as much as they give. If the other party fails to perform according to contract terms, you are excused from your obligations. This is not so with a covenant, which is a 100% / 100% relationship.

IV. Marriage as a share in the sacrifice of Jesus The merging of two formerly independent lives requires communication and a willingness to sacrifice. Our fallen nature, the intimacy of married life, differences of personality and differences of masculine and feminine responses provide ample opportunity for conflict. Forgiveness is a constant need. Each person becomes a way of the cross to the other and husband and wife must take turns seeking and bestowing forgiveness. The spouses, in a way of speaking, become Christ for each other, constantly forgiving and sacrificing for the other’s highest good.

V. Marriage as a share in the life of the Trinity The ultimate truth of our faith is that God is a community of infinite love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father, before the beginning of time, makes a complete gift of himself, of all that he is except that he is Father. That self-gift is the Son, who receives his very being from the Father and gives himself back in infinite gratitude to the Father. The love between the Father and the Son is so full of divine life that it is itself the third divine person, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes from, witnesses and by its very being proclaims the love between the Father and the Son.

In an analogous way, a husband gives himself completely to his wife, the wife receives his self-gift and gives herself completely to her husband. This mutual self-giving is ordered to life and overflows with a love which seeks the good of others, especially those most in need. Sometimes God so blesses this self-giving that it miraculously results in the conception of a new person, called to eternal life. This new person comes from, witnesses and by his or her very being proclaims forever the love of its mom and dad.

VI. Connections between Natural Family Planning and the facets of Healthy, Happy, Holy Marriage Friendship as the foundation of marriage: All of marriage, including sexuality, is rooted in friendship, which consists in seeking the highest good of one’s friend. Marital friendship normally includes cooperation with God to bestow on each other the great good of parenthood.

Marriage as a school of virtue: NFP helps us learn chastity or how to place sex at the service of love. It also facilitates honest communication, mutual respect, self-mastery and self-gift.

Marriage as a covenant: The marital embrace is a renewal of the marriage covenant and therefore must be a complete gift of self.

Marriage as a sharing in the sacrifice of Jesus: The spouses mediate Jesus to each other through forgiveness and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own preferences for the common good.

Marriage as a sharing in the life of the Trinity: Designed to reflect the communion of Christ and the Church and the shared life of the Trinity, the communion of spouses is directed to the service of life, most characteristically through the miraculous gift of children.

VII. Conclusion We live in a paradoxical time in the Church when the theology of marriage has reached unprecedented heights of beauty – and when the practice of marriage, even among Christians, has been robbed of much of its grace and life. The primary response to this attack must be the example of Christian couples themselves whose marriages and families have been touched by the fire of divine love. Bishops, priests, deacons, family life directors, natural family planning teachers and everyone involved in marriage ministry must be dedicated to calling down this divine fire. God’s challenging but also truly liberating design for marriage has within it immense power for the transformation of culture and for the evangelization of those who have lost their way. Marriage has been created by God to be a light in the darkness and to bear witness to the unshakable love of God for his people.

¹See John S. Grabowski, “Covenant and Sacrament.” In Sex and Virtue: an introduction to sexual ethics, 23 – 48. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003.