Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time: Marriage, the Crown of Creation

Most of us know there are two creation stories at the beginning of our Bible. Each tells it a little differently. They were not intended to be strictly historical or scientific accounts. They don’t so much seek to ask the question of ‘how’ God created, but instead principally ‘that’ God created and ‘why’.

The first creation story occurs over six days, with a seventh day for rest. It’s a detailed explanation that seems to be told—zoomed-out, if you will—as though we can see the entirety of the universe. From out of the chaos and darkness, God, as though from a distance, spoke the elements of creation into existence. It’s a very systematic account of creation, beautifully and harmoniously ordered. The last thing created before He rested was human beings, male and female, made in His image. It says He blessed them and issued His first command: “Be fertile and multiply….” (Gen 1:26-28).

Then the second creation story zooms-in to a specific place. We know it as Eden. In this creation process, God seems to roll up His sleeves and put His hand in the soil, crafting the first being by hand. In this less systematized account, God seems to adapt as He goes, until the man and the woman, of one flesh, at last, complete each other. The Bible begins with creation and marriage is shown to be an integral part of it.

It’s not news to anyone here that fewer couples get married today. Among the various explanations, one reason, I believe, is just simply a loss of faith in our culture, or at least a failure to see how marriage is connected to one’s faith. Because if we give credence to what the Scriptures say, it’s clear that God had something important in mind when He created the union of man and woman. But if the Scriptures aren’t normative for our lives, and if desiring to carry-out God’s will in our lives isn’t either, then we can’t expect one to regard marriage as something more than a social construct, a functional arrangement between two adults.

So, what do we believe God intended for marriage? For it to be a sacrament, meaning that He takes some sort of created matter and changes it or sanctifies it in some way. Just as bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus, or a child that is baptized becomes marked on his/her soul—when a couple pledges themselves in marriage, God is doing something in/to/through them. The way today’s readings say it, is that He forms them into one flesh.

What does that mean exactly? It’s similar to the words of consecration prayed over the bread and wine. As the Holy Spirit descends upon those elements to change them from within into the Jesus’ Body and Blood, so when the couple declare their words of consent to each other, God is reaching down into them. I think of it as though God is pouring Himself over the man and the woman and forging them into one in His love.

It’s a transcendent act, God working in the couple from beyond, and its purpose, conversely, is to move the couple toward transcendence: to move beyond themselves, heavenward, to get each other, as well as whatever children God blesses them with, to heaven. The couple is to be a living sign of God’s love for the world to see.

Whatever I’ve learned about marriage comes primarily from my experience of working with couples: those that thrive, those that merely endure, and those that don’t survive. I see it: too many couples get stuck in the here and now, stuck in the mud, and lose sight of the transcendent nature of holy matrimony. It gets reduced to merely an earthly experience. Perhaps, they cease to remember—if they ever understood it at all—what God had done in them on their wedding day, what God intended and hoped for them, and the meaning of what they had pledged to each other. When they lose sight of that, they come to set different criteria for what makes for happiness, and too often the marriage devolves to where one or both simply give up.

The image of the crucified Jesus says a lot about what marital love should look like, in the sense that it’s about giving everything for the other, with no regard for what is gained for oneself. Enough couples tell me that marriage is hard and takes so much work. But when couples can find a way to live like that, that’s when marriage becomes transcendent, a building block for the Kingdom of God. That’s when it leads to real and enduring happiness—something that we look back on at the end of our lives without regret.

I don’t believe I’m being an alarmist in saying that there’s a crisis of marriage in our culture—and we Catholics are not removed from it. What’s at stake? It’s more than just your personal happiness or peace in your home. It’s something much bigger, something that affects all of society and its well-being. If you’re stuck and merely enduring, get help. Realize that whatever change is needed may not be easy, but it’s necessary. If we want our children to truly find happiness and meaning in their lives, we need to rediscover marriage—how it was an integral part of creation, how it is an integral part of ongoing creation, how it is so deeply associated with our faith—to rediscover it and demonstrate it. To show the world what God’s love looks like.