At the conclusion of every Mass at our parishes we pray Archbishop’s Schnurr’s Vocation Prayer. When it comes to praying for vocations most of us probably think in terms having enough priests, but marriage is also a state in life that God either is or is not calling an individual to enter, and so, just as with the priesthood or consecrated religious life, those people thinking about marriage should incorporate prayerful discernment before taking that life-changing step.
In my homily for the Feast of the Holy Family last month, I relayed the story of a priest asking an engaged couple why they wanted to get married. The couple’s answer (as we might expect) was rooted in love for one another and wanting to spend their lives together, to which this priest responded, “That is not enough.”
I can well imagine the two fiancés furrowed brows or gaping jaws. But that priest was right. If we pick something for ourselves that is not God’s will for us, we’re probably not going to happy, and things might also prove to be a disaster.
When I prepare couples for marriage, I mention the statistic that one out of every two marriages end in divorce. Most couples in love probably think the odds don’t apply to them, but the reality is staying together is pretty much a coin flip.
There are, of course, things a couple can do to increase the odds in their favor, and this is great news. Having a date night once a week, without the kids, is said to reduce the odds of divorce to one out of twenty. Then there’s the best statistic I am aware of, which is couples who pray together daily diminish their odds of breaking up to one out of two-hundred!
The priesthood is a tremendous blessing, and I am grateful and humbled to be living this state of life, but as you might imagine it is not always easy. Similarly, I can well imagine the many blessings of the vocation to marriage, but it isn’t always going to feel like the honeymoon. While love and companionship are important, there needs to be more, starting with the commitment to unconditional, self-sacrificing love until death. This means if one of the spouses becomes chronically ill and requires constant care for the rest of his or her life, the other spouse is there. Significantly, it also means each spouse taking his and her respective spiritual roles very seriously.
Unlike previous generations, a minority of Christians today practice their faith with any regularity. This matters because of what is at stake: eternal salvation. While the culture has changed, God’s Law has not. Baptism is still required to infuse sanctifying grace and the theological virtues into the soul; the 3rd Commandment is still in force; and Jesus’s words in John 6 about eating His flesh and drinking His blood to have life within us have not expired.
What does this have to do with marriage?
Everything.
Marriage is about helping the other spouse make it to Heaven. It is also about raising and educating children, and when the spouses are Catholic, that means raising them in the practice of the Catholic Faith. Yes, eventually kids grow up and will decide for themselves if they are going to continue to worship God and have recourse to the sacraments Jesus instituted. But the parents, and in particular the father (as the spiritual head of the family) have a critical role to play and example to set.
Our God-given vocation is intended to make us happy in this life, but more importantly it is intended to help us attain eternal life. Whether or not we are living our vocation as God intended will go a long way in determining whether we succeed or fail on both of these fronts.
~ Fr. Craig