Jesus Christ:Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.
Mark 10:9
I think it’s no coincidence that it’s been years since I’ve been to a wedding at Church and that so many of the weddings I’ve been to during that time have failed.
To many a wedding is just a big party and to be sure a wedding is certainly worthy of the celebrations that insures a large and joyous one if possible.
A Marriage however is more, it’s a legal public acknowledgement that the person next to you is your mate. It says to the government and the world that the children that come from this union have a mother and a father and that the people involved in said union belong to each other.
But a marriage in church, particularly a sacramental Catholic Marriage is much more. It is that acknowledgement made before God something blessed and holy. It’s a contract placed before something greater than any mere human industry and done in a ceremony that while joyous, is also consummate with the dignity and the solemnity of the event and the entity that the promise is being made before.
To be sure a church wedding does not guarantee a marriage will survive. From Henry the VIII who was married Catherine of Aragon with the greatest of religious ceremony, to Ronald Reagan to our current President men and women have revoked these public declarations even when made in church. It wasn’t until the 60’s this become not only more common but accepted and it’s no coincidence that the social ills that come with illigitmacy , single parenthood and absent fathers are now the scourge of society. The Common Thread, the secularization of the society and the removal of God from marriage made this possible.
This comes from treating the marriage contract as a “scrap of paper” to be discarded by men rather than a sacrament made before God to be blessed and kept.
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