Living marriage as a sacrament
Most couples understand that marriage, if lived well, can be a source of lifelong happiness. But it can also provide so much more. When a couple consciously and daily lives their marriage as a sacrament, they open themselves up to a happiness both natural and supernatural. Indeed, their marriage can help make them holy and serve as a foretaste and a preparation for the everlasting happiness of heaven.
Here are three practical ways to make that happen.
Most couples understand that marriage, if lived well, can be a source of lifelong happiness. But it can also provide so much more. When a couple consciously and daily lives their marriage as a sacrament, they open themselves up to a happiness both natural and supernatural. Indeed, their marriage can help make them holy and serve as a foretaste and a preparation for the everlasting happiness of heaven.
Here are three practical ways to make that happen.
First, pray for one another and pray with one another.
Both matter. When you pray for your spouse, you momentarily set aside your own needs and participate in God’s loving concern for your spouse. Paradoxically, that makes you holier. When you pray with one another, say at Mass, you join together in the unseen but nonetheless real worship of heaven. The benefits? Multiple studies show that couples who go to church together have far lower divorce rates and far higher rates of marital satisfaction than couples who don’t.
Second, be virtuous and provide examples of virtue to one another.
Sure, this makes basic common sense: virtuous couples are generally happier couples, and virtue inspires more virtue. But there’s even more to it at the sacramental level. As the U.S. Bishops put it in their 2009 document, Love and Life in the Divine Plan: “As a couple grows in virtue, they grow in holiness. In other words, the couple acquires, by prayer and discipline, those interior qualities that open them to God‘s love and allow them to share in his love more deeply.”
Third, patiently put up with one another.
Once again, there’s conventional wisdom to the adage, “Never pass up a good opportunity to keep your mouth shut.” But again, there’s also a deeper sacramental reality: “Bear with each other and forgive one another ... Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Col 3:13) Many a saint was made by patiently and lovingly enduring a difficult spouse. And sometimes their difficult spouses were converted by their prayers and saintly example.
Finally, none of this transformation into holy marital happiness happens automatically.
As with each of the seven sacraments, the divine powers embedded within marriage are only activated according to the measure of our inner dispositions. In other words, if we’re only half-heartedly open to God’s graces, we’ll only half-heartedly receive them. Let’s not be that way.
Steve and Bridget Patton hold master’s degrees in theology and counseling and have served in marriage and family life ministry for three Catholic dioceses.
