“Marriage is not private," explained Rev. Richard Kramer, Director of Family Life and Pastoral Resource Development for the Archdiocese of Washington. “It’s personal, but it’s not private."
Marriage is not only between two people, but involves God as well, and so “it’s a public act," he told CNA. As a result, “marriage always needs the support of culture, it needs the support of society, it needs the support of friends and families. It needs the support of the Church itself."
While love and marriage exist throughout history around the world, and not just in the Church, their universality points to God’s plan for love and marriage, the priest said.
He pointed out that society is built upon families. Jesus was born into a family, he raised marriage to a sacrament, and his fist miracle was performed at the Wedding at Cana. Christ’s love for the Church is compared to the love between spouses.
Because of this importance of marriage, the Catholic Church seeks specifically to offer support for couples as they live out the sacrament, Fr. Kramer said. At the heart of these efforts is the parish priest.
One of Fr. Kramer’s first lessons for young priests is to “make them understand that their life is not separated from marriage, but that they are integral to it." He explained that Matrimony and Holy Orders, while distinct, are similar in their orientation to self-sacrifice and love for others. Both ultimately have the same goal – getting people to heaven.
Laity too should view their parish priest as a resource and someone who can accompany them through their marriage. “Something that I would like couples to understand is that by the virtue of a priest being pastor of a parish, he has a keen and almost expert insight to family life because he’s integral in every part of the family." Fr. Kramer said, pointing to a pastor’s involvement through catechesis, marriage formation, confession and counseling.
“I think couples do themselves a disservice if they buy the line ‘Father doesn’t know anything about marriage because he’s celibate’," Fr. Kramer warned, pointing back to a priest’s role in a family’s life as well as his position as Father of a parish.
“What I’d hope couples would do is to invite Father more intimately into their marriages, into their homes, to help him see and know that the priest is a man of the family."
A call to love
“Every single human being has a vocation, a call to love," Fr. Kramer said, and for most people, this call is to the Sacrament of Matrimony.
Preparation for marriage begins at birth, in the family, where one first learns about love, he said. But in a culture where so many marriages and families are broken, it can be difficult to understand what it truly means to love someone.
“We see a time when there’s more need to make sure that couples who are preparing for the sacrament have a good formation so that they can live their marriages in the whole of their lives," said Fr. Kramer.
Before marriage in the Catholic Church, couples are typically required to take a marriage preparation course and talk with the parish where they will be married and the priest who is preparing them.
The engagement period is a time for evangelization if the couple has been away from the Church and the sacraments, Fr. Kramer said. Even for couples who are already involved in the Church, marriage preparation and counseling is a good opportunity to deepen one’s knowledge and relationship with Christ and to become more involved in their parish’s life.
Bethany Meola, assistant director in the Secretariat on Laity Marriage, Family Life and Youth at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, pointed to the conference’s online resource “For Your Marriage," which contains contact information for marriage preparation and support programs for dioceses around the country.
The website also contains a wealth of online resources, such as Church teachings on various topics surrounding marriage and family life, relationship and parenting advice, Natural Family Planning resources, wedding planning guides, and book reviews.
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