Why Marry in the Church?

We have a friend, a priest, who has a crucial first question he asks every couple that sits down with him to begin marriage preparation: "Why do you want to be married in the Church?"

Many are surprised when he tells them that their first answer, the one that comes most readily, "because we are in love," might be true, but its incomplete.

People who want to marry because they fell in love don't need to marry in the Church. People in love marry in courthouses by Justices of the Peace. They marry on beaches, and in garden ceremonies presided over by close friends.

The question, he reminds them, isn't "why do you want to get married?" It's "Why do you want to be married in the Church?"

The point he is making is this: Getting married in the Church is not just an expression of love and commitment to your spouse. It's also an expression of love and commitment to God. It's a commitment to link your relationship to your spouse to your relationship with God. In the Church, marriage becomes a spiritual discipline.

We've learned recently of other priests who lead with the same question. Even Bishop Barron has said he asks couples this question to provoke them to really think about what their marriage means.

At The Gates of Marriage

The priest asking the question is acting as a gatekeeper.

The question points to a passage in this Sunday's Gospel. "I am the gate," Jesus says. "Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture" (John 10:9).

A gate is a threshold, a deliberate passage from one kind of life into another. To enter through a particular gate is to choose a particular path, with particular companions, leading to a particular destination.

Sacramental marriage is one such gate, and walking through it means something different from walking through any other.

Marriage as Vocation, Not Just Romance

"The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament" says The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1601).

The key word is covenant. A covenant is different than a contract.

Contracts are legally binding agreements built on mutual distrust and conditional obligations. They operate on an "if-then" logic: if one party fails to perform, the other party is released from their obligations or can seek penalties. A contract is an exchange of goods between two parties who remain separate.

Covenants are solemn promises based on faith, trust, and unconditional commitment. In a covenant, each party commits to fulfill their obligations regardless of whether the other party keeps theirs. Breaking a covenant is always considered a betrayal of trust and is morally wrong, even if penalties are paid. Covenants are permanent agreements with no termination clauses because they are designed to last forever.

A marriage covenant is a giving of selves that creates something new. This is why the Church speaks of marriage as a vocation, a calling.

Married love is a participation in the love of God himself Pope John Paul II wrote in his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio. Pope Francis, in Amoris Laetitia, described marriage as "a precious sign, for when a man and a woman celebrate the sacrament of matrimony, God is, as it were, mirrored in them" (AL 121).

To marry in the Church, then, is not chiefly to host a beautiful ceremony. It is to accept a mission. Your spouse becomes the person through whom God shapes your holiness, and you become that person for your spouse. The romance does not disappear, but it is taken up into something larger.

What the Research Tells Us

There are decades of relationship science that support the Church's vision of marriage.

In a long-term study of newlywed couples, researchers Scott Stanley, Galena Rhoades, and Howard Markman found that commitment, understood as a deliberate dedication to a shared future led to greater marital quality and stability than marriages held together by romantic feelings alone. Couples who view their marriage as a shared identity and a long-term project, rather than a continuous test of their feelings, report greater satisfaction and lower rates of divorce.

In other words, the science confirms what the Church has taught for centuries. A marriage built on the question "do I still feel in love today?" is fragile. A marriage built on "we have given ourselves to each other and to a purpose beyond ourselves" is durable.

A Practice for Your Marriage: The Vocation Conversation

Here is one activity worth trying. Set aside an hour this week, free of phones and children, and ask each other three questions:

1. What do you believe God is calling us to become together that neither of us could become alone?

2. Where in our daily life do I help you grow toward that, and where do I get in the way?

3. What is one concrete thing we can do in the next month to live more fully into our vocation as a married couple?

Write your answers down. Revisit them in three months. Couples who engage in this kind of structured, purposeful conversation report stronger feelings of partnership and shared meaning, and the practice gives the abstract idea of vocation a place to live in ordinary time.

Coming In and Going Out

Jesus promises that those who enter through the gate will "come in and go out and find pasture." The sacrament of marriage is not a cage. It is a gate to a wider field. When you and your spouse reflect together on why you chose this particular gate, you will find that the pasture is real, and that it is large enough for a lifetime.