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Matrimony
The Catholic Church teaches that the Sacrament
of Matrimony is an indissoluble sacrament. Why? Because marriage is a
covenant, not a contract. And Jesus taught that the Sacrament of Marriage was
indissoluble. In Matthew 19: 3-6 we read, “Some Pharisees approached him, and
tested him, saying, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause
whatever?’ He said in reply, ‘ Have you not read that from the beginning the
Creator made them male and female and said, for this reason a man shall leave
his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one
flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has
joined together, no human being must separate.’ ”
We can even look at the vows. When we say
“…for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse
as long as we both shall live,” this is not a contract, but a convent. We
don’t exchange goods and services or pleasures and pleasantries, we are
exchanging persons! I am yours and now you are mine. God stands between us
to bind us together in this covenant of matrimony. And He stands in between
the two, not just to hold them together, but to be an endless source of grace
and power and forgiving love so that they can work out whatever problems they
face.
God is the one who unites the two in marriage
and makes them one. It isn’t government. It isn’t the Church. It isn’t even
the two individuals themselves. God is the bonding agent in the sacrament.
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