Marriage is a Sacrament

First I want to say that I am in no way an expert on marriage. Far from that but because I am always trying to grow my family closer to God, grow in our relationships I have recently been trying to truly understand what marriage is, according to the Catholic church and what are roles are.

Marriage is a sacrament. The definition of sacrament according to Catholic Reference: A sensible sign, instituted by Jesus Christ, by which invisible grace and inward sanctification are communicated to the soul. The essential elements of a sacrament of the New Law are institution by Christ the God-man during his visible stay on earth, and a sensibly perceptible rite that actually confers the supernatural grace it symbolizes.

What is needed to make a marriage a sacrament is also defined by the Catholic church.

Catechism of the Catholic Church: 1623 According to Latin tradition, the spouses as ministers of Christ's grace mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church. In the tradition of the Eastern Churches, the priests (bishops or presbyters) are witnesses to the mutual consent given by the spouses,¹²⁴ but for the validity of the sacrament their blessing is also necessary. The thing that is needed and is essential to the marriage covenant is the freedom of both the man and woman to express their consent to the covenant. In other words, no one could be forced into a marriage and the sacrament doesn't happen when words are spoken by a priest or when the marriage is consummated but when each person says his vows and makes his commitment to the covenant. This covenant in which a man and woman establish a partnership that embraces their whole lives.

Earlier this week I listened to a talk by Steve Woods from Family Life Center. This was back during the presidency of George W. Bush, so a little ways back. At this time President Bush was trying to defend marriage between one man and one woman. Now Mr. Woods had a good point. He didn't think the president would succeed and he stated that he predicted that in the next several years or so there would be homosexual marriages.  (Well, that has happened). What struck me, though,  in his talk,  "Strengthening Your Marriage" was something else he said and it was that the problem with marriage is not so much homosexuals wanting in as it is heterosexuals wanting out. He reflected back to when Martin Luther penned, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, denying the seven sacraments. Well, he took marriage away from God and gave it to the state. Marriage was instituted by God from the beginning and how sad that we now have to stop and define what marriage is, that the world is trying to make it be what it is not and where will it end? We don't know but without it being a sacrament or under God it can't be good.

So again, according to God's Holy Word:

Matthew 19: 4  -  Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female? And he said:      5 For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.
6  Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.     

"Husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy.  In the same way, husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies; for a man to love his wife is for him to love himself. A man never hates his own body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats his Church, because it is his body "and we are its living parts" (Ephesians 5:25-30).

There isn't any other way to see marriage, other than a sacrament. Marriage between baptized people is a sacrament, for married love is a sign of Christ's love.