“Until death do us part.” Most of us recognize these words from weddings we have attended or just seen on TV. Even our culture, which displays a tragic inability to heed them, still understands the truth they convey: marriage is for life.
As the author of marriage, our Lord established this truth. During His earthly life He explicitly confirmed it (cf. Mt 19:6). He also taught clearly an implication we rarely consider: there is no marriage in heaven. “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Lk 20:34-35).
Happily married couples may see this as bad news. Those less happily married might see it as good news. Either way, it would be wrong to think that those who are married in this world will not be together in heaven. Of course they will be together, because they will be perfectly joined to our Lord and to the communion of saints. Nevertheless, their union will not be a married union because the reasons for marriage will have ceased. Although this teaching may seem at first glance to denigrate marriage, it should in fact increase our appreciation and reverence for that sacred union and its purposes.
Our Lord instituted the sacrament of marriage for two purposes: the sanctification of the spouses and the birth of children. First, spouses have the task of helping one another get to heaven. The word “conjugal” means, “yoked together.” Yes, like a team of oxen. Not a flattering image, but it does effectively illustrate one purpose of marriage: Spouses are a team yoked together for the common task of getting to heaven. Those considering marriage should keep this purpose in mind. The question to be asked about a potential spouse is not “Can this person make me happy?” but “Can this person make me holy?”
Together with the first purpose of marriage God has inextricably bound a second: the birth of children. He has united life and love together in marriage, so that spousal love may bring about new life and new life will always arrive in a relationship of love. The gift of children also brings the task of raising them in the faith. When parents fulfill this mission, they cooperate with God to increase not only the natural family of man, but also the supernatural family of God, the Church.
When we arrive in heaven, the marriage bond ceases — not because marriage is bad, but because its sacred purposes will have been achieved. Salvation will have been attained and God’s family will have grown to its fullness.
Understanding this truth about marriage should increase our reverence also for celibacy and consecrated virginity. The Church has always taught that these two vocations are a higher calling than holy matrimony. No, not every priest or religious is holier than every married person. But the state in life itself — that is, sacrificing the great good of marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven — gives a more perfect witness to the coming of that kingdom where there is no marriage.
St. Paul describes the sacrament of marriage as a sign of the marriage between Christ and the Church (cf. Eph 5:32). Indeed, God has entrusted to married couples the great gift and task of imitating this eternal union. Every bride and groom in this world should reflect the sacrificial love of Christ the Bridegroom and the Church His Bride. How fitting, then, that when we arrive at the wedding feast of the Lamb these images give way to the reality, all marriages yield to the perfect marriage — between Christ and the Church.
Fr. Scalia is parochial vicar of St. Patrick Parish in Fredericksburg, VA.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
