Rel ed marriage

• Signs


  Indicators of something, e.g. flowers blooming in Spring, flashing lights warning of a train, threatening sky warning of a storm
• Types of signs


  • Signs to guide safe travel (e.g. traffic signs)
  • Signs that inform us of upcoming events

  
• Spiritual signs


  The Gospels, parents and friends, the Sacraments, prayer
• As we become more attentive to spiritual signs

  We will learn to trust in God more, understand ourselves better, and come to know the path of life laid out for us by God
• Vocation


  A call from God that everyone must discover
• Vocations


  • Marriage
  • Single life of dedicated service
  • Priesthood
  • Consecrated life as religious
• No matter what vocation we are called to, everyone is called to holiness
• The family is the context in which all vocations are nurtured and often revealed
• Jesus: 'Jesus is inviting you to a deeper relationship with Him'
• Marriage is the primordial (original) sacrament in which grace comes through Christ
• God established marriage and He is the source of its sacredness
• Submission in marriage


  A call to receptivity to the other, which promotes reverence, unity and sanctification
• Self-give and love now are not the end goal of our existence, rather they are the means to fulfilling our purpose for eternal union with God
• God wants an eternal union with us beyond anything experienced on earth – a "marriage" relationship with us in heaven
• The love of Christ is what enables couples to be faithful even when wedding vows seem impossible to keep
• The redemption that Christ brings is the HOPE that we have for living out the vocation to marriage with peace and fidelity the way that God intended it
• When we live out our vocation to love, we become a reflection of God Himself
• Marriage (and family life) is a school of love where we learn to sacrifice for the sake of the other while often denying one's own desires for the greater good of the marriage
• St. Francis De Sales: 'Marriage is a "perpetual exercise of mortification", adding that, "occasions for suffering are more frequent in this state than in any other"'
• The basis for the spousal analogy between Christ's love for the Church and marriage is the love between a husband and wife, and the union of their lives, not just the union of their bodies
• Christ's love for the Church is "the only key to understanding the sacramentality of marriage"
• The Spousal analogy - The scriptural imagery using the understanding of marriage conveys the power and fidelity of God's love for humans and Christ's love for the Church
• Christ gave himself up for the Church, which reveals what marriage should be
• Mutual submission in love between husband and wife

  An amazing opportunity for spouses to image agape love (God's unconditional love) for each other through mutual respect and total self-donation
• Throughout the sacrament of marriage, the body is the means and visible sign of the love between spouses
• Submission


  Placing oneself "under the mission" (sub-mission) of another, surrendering to someone. In marriage, this means deferring to each other in love.
• Marriage was and is God's idea, he created it
• John Paul II called marriage the primordial sacrament (the original sacrament), which transmits effectively in the visible world the invisible mystery hidden in God
• Marriage is the basic building block upon which society is built
• When the infatuation fades and some stress and suffering comes along in marriage

  The married couple are left with the real person they have chosen to marry, and love is tested
• God wants us to choose to love, which brings us deep joy within a life of virtue and holiness
• Successful marriages are not based upon finding the perfect person but upon loving the imperfect person that you have chosen to marry
• It is through total and sincere self-giving that a married couple makes visible the life-giving love of God
• The four F's of love


  Free, Full, Faithful, Fruitful
• Loving as God loves means loving in a way that is free, full, faithful and fruitful
• Vocation - comes from the Latin vocare,

  meaning “to call.” If we all have a

  call (which we all do), when we all

  must figure out what that call

  from God is.
• To what do couples usually vow?

  Loving, honoring, and cherishing each other
• How come there are

  couples who fail to be

  true to their vows and

  choose to live separate

  lives?

  Unsolved couple problems, negative realizations and thoughts
• If God intended

  marriage as a sacrament

  of Christ’s union with

  the Church, what kind of

  marriage should we

  witness here on earth?

  Love for one another
• Marriage (and

  family life) is a

  school of love. according to?

  Pope John Paul