God is love, and any encounter with real love is an encounter with the Lord. St. Augustine once said that to see charity is to see the Trinity. And so authentic friendship, loving action toward those without material means, and even romantic love are all encounters with the divine.
Throughout the Bible, the Lord shows us that marriage is a privileged image of his love for his people and of the close, personal relationship that he desires us to have with him. The prophets likened faithfulness to our covenant with the Lord to a faithful marriage. Likewise, they likened a lack of faithfulness to the Lord as spiritual adultery.
Jesus elevated marriage to be a sacrament, a sensate encounter with himself. Sacramental marriage signifies the deep and enduring love that Jesus has for his Bride, the Church. St. Paul wrote, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32). The great mystery of sacramental human love enables a married couple to love each other with the supernatural love of God himself.
The liturgical texts of the Wedding Mass speak beautifully to this reality. The Nuptial Blessing states, “that in the wedding covenant you foreshadowed the Sacrament of Christ and his Church” (Order of Christian Marriage, no. 74). It goes on to ask that the husband cherish his wife always “with the love that Christ has for his Church,” and that you as a couple “bear true witness to Christ before all.” Preface C states that the Lord wills human marriage to be “raised to such high dignity that in the union of husband and wife you might bestow a true image of your love.” The same prayer goes on to say, “And so, the Sacrament of holy Matrimony, as the abiding sign of your own love, consecrates the love of man and woman.”
Just as marriage was the Lord’s primary image for his relationship with his people in the Old Testament, so now marriage is the visible manifestation of that love in the world today. Sacramentally married couples are meant to be a living, tangible, relatable image of the love that God has for his people. Because of the grace given in the sacrament of marriage, the love between husband and wife is an encounter with the Lord, both for the couple and for those who encounter their marriage.
This is why a sacramental marriage must be open to life. During a Wedding Mass and right before the exchange of vows, the couple is asked: “Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?” Sacramental marriage is a participation in the life-giving love of God. The Lord is an artist who never stops creating, and marital love is open to the possibility of co-creating other human lives with the Lord. Even if a couple faces the heavy cross of infertility, marital love is open to natural children, adoptive children, and spiritual children. It is a love that pours itself out for the life of others. In this way, it is a unique expression of divine love which says, “This is my body which is given for you” (Luke 22:19).
One of the primary fruits of the Sacrament of Marriage is that the couple receives strength and consecration to fulfill their marital duties. These duties include being a living image of the love of Jesus and his Bride the Church, helping each other to grow in holiness, and welcoming and educating children. Taken together, these duties mean that a couple united in Matrimony has an evangelizing mission in the world. They bring the Lord into every facet of the world around them by showing the love of God through the witness of their lives, their marriage, and their family.
God is love, and so human love is an encounter with God. As Valentine’s Day approaches and the world around us celebrates human love, let’s take some time to pray for the married couples in our lives and to thank them for their witness to the world.