Marriage is hard work. When spouses complain about each other and one of them feels that he or she is putting all the effort into the marriage, it is because couples forget that marriage is also team work. Today such an experience is the norm. “I know what is right” and “I am sure that I am right”. Our knowledge-based society is marked by such a high degree of self-confidence that team work becomes almost impossible. Why? Not only do I know what is right, I am always right. Those of you who are married for a long time, you know that kind of losing proposition. You can never win and conversations stop even before they are started. The trend in more affluent families is that once the children are old enough, couples whose lives are already highly individualised, will go their separate ways. If they do not divorce, then they live solitarily lives with not much connexion to each other.
What is marriage supposed to be? It is fascinating that there are no marriages in heaven. Christ Himself pointed that out in Mt 22:23ff when He was asked the question of whose wife will a woman be at the Resurrection if she had married all seven brothers who died soon after each wedding. None of the brothers was the answer provided by Jesus for at the Resurrection we are not given to marriage.
And yet, there is an important detail found in the Book of the Apocalypse. There described in Revelation 19: 7. “Let us be glad and joyful and give praise to God, because this is the time for the marriage of the Lamb. His bride is ready, and she has been able to dress herself in dazzling white linen, because her linen is made of the good deeds of the saints”.
Marriage is precisely a Sacrament because here on earth, it is a symbol of the nuptial union between Christ, the Bridegroom and the Church, His Bride. Recently, Harrison Butker, an American Footballer, a 3-time Champion Kicker gave a commencement speech in a Catholic College. He is now getting lambasted for his view. Interestingly, he is only 28 years old. He said something rather relevant to the topic we have for today. If you are interested in the whole speech, go to National Catholic Register and type in Harrison Butker’s speech. What struck me, of all the challenging topics he raised, was an unacknowledged truth. The context of this particular point he had raised was when he spoke of his wife. He said this. “She is a primary educator to our children. She is the one who ensures I never let football or my business become a distraction from that of a husband and father. She is the person that knows me best at my core, and it is through our marriage that, Lord willing, we will both attain salvation”.
Insyallah, through our marriage, we will both attain salvation.
How many people do you think stand in front of the altar and think this of their vocation. I am not referring to a priestly or a religious vocation. Rather, I am referring to the marital vocation, that is, the call to be married. Here, the vocation, the calling is our means of salvation. I enter marriage so that I can be saved. I would be brave to think that standing right before the priest during the exchange of vows, couples would be thinking, “I forgot to send the invitation to that Uncle or Aunty”. Or, “Chiaklat, the flowers we paid for look like dead”, etc. Anything can be a running commentary in your head except this, “She or he is going to be my road to salvation”.
Marriage saves. You look at me… maybe you try to steal a look at your spouse, “You must be kidding me, right?”. Nevertheless, it is true. As a Sacrament, it is pointing towards to the perennial truth of Christ’s relationship with the Church. Christ loves the Church so much that He died. He sacrificed His life so that the Church, the Bride might live.
This is the model for the discipleship of marriage. Most of the time when we hear the reading of St Paul to the Ephesians where wives are told to obey their husbands, many men stop there without realising that husbands are supposed to sacrifice themselves for the wives.
There is a mutuality of self-oblation or self-offering when one obeys and one sacrifices. I used to say this during a wedding homily. “You want your wife to obey you in everything, give her your credit card with no limit”. Couples laughed but demanding obedience has never been a one-way street.
Finally, the vocation of a Christian marriage, where husband and wife give of themselves to the relationship, is a means of salvation. Marriage is not merely a remedy for concupiscence meaning that theologians used to explain that marriage is a cure for those who cannot stand to be alone. It is not just a cure but truly it is a path to salvation. The goal of marriage is heaven and the pilgrimage there is through the family where the relationship between husband and wife flourishes in the soil of authentic and fruitful love. Marriage is not only the instrument of salvation for the couple but also for the whole of society. Husband, love your wife. Wife, love your husband. Upon your love for each other rest the future of the family, the bedrock of society and the foundation of civilisation. There may not be any marriage in heaven and yet the road there is paved with good marriages.
