October 9, 2005

Around the year 200, the pretty severe theologian Tertullian wrote glowingly of marriage to his wife: “How shall we ever be able adequately to describe the happiness of that marriage which the Church arranges, the Sacrifice [of the Eucharist] strengthens, upon which the blessing set a seal, at which the angels are present as witnesses, and to which the Father gives His consent.” In the seventeenth century St. Francis de Sales added a practical note based on long pastoral experience: “The state of marriage is one that requires more virtue and constancy than any other; it is a perpetual exercise of mortification.”

The Christian vision of marriage, sanctified by Christ who performed his first miracle at a wedding, is unique in the world and so it is threatened by the assumptions of much of that same world. A Cardinal Archbishop of a European city expressed to me surprise at the comparative vitality of marriage in our country. In his land, marriage is increasingly rare and the majority of couples seek no blessing in the Church. We are heading along the same track, with nonchalant divorce and attempts to redefine marriage as other as the bond between a man and a woman. The chaos after Hurricane Katrina was in part due to the breakdown of marriage in New Orleans where nearly three-quarters of the children have no father.

This year our parish has the highest number of weddings in our entire history, and many times requests have to be denied. Sometimes this is because of scheduling, but often it is because couples do not meet the requirements of canon law. Even well-intentioned young people are easily confused by the wrong assumptions about marriage they absorb in an unstable culture. One of those misunderstandings is that cohabitation has no moral consequences. In 2001, 16 percent of all Canadian couples and 8.2 percent of all American couples were cohabiting outside marriage. Couples who live together before marriage are almost twice as likely to divorce than those who do not. The rate of spousal abuse is also much higher. Many reasons exist for this, but chief is a disregard for chastity and sacrifice.

More than ever, marriage instruction is important. Our parish Pre-Cana program is well received and fast growing, and is even making use of such technology as the “iPod,” which to me remains not a divine mystery but certainly a human puzzle. It is a grace to see at worship the many couples who were united here at the altar. Some are regular parish members, and some come for reunions, and many bring their children in increasing numbers for Holy Baptism, corroborating St. Augustine: “Marriage is a good in which the married are better in proportion as they fear God more chastely and more faithfully, especially if they also nourish spiritually the children whom they desire carnally.”

Fr. George W. Rutler