The Catholic Church is known as a Sacramental Church. That is to say that we understand that much of what is going on in the elements of our faith in God is Sacramental. Simply put, a Sacrament is a physical sign of an invisible reality. This is a point of frequent confusion from both cradle Catholics and Protestants alike.

Why do we need to be sacramental?

We must remember that our faith is not merely an earthly development but also a spiritual reality. Jesus, for example, is the Word of God incarnate (made flesh). He brings into the physical realm a reality (God) that hadn’t been seen because He is spirit.  

We know from Jesus, who is the fullness of revelation of God, of the spiritual realities that go far beyond the physical world. Thus, our Catholic Faith uses Sacraments to help us understand spiritual truths that are real, though unseen.

God’s Saving Plan

God utilizes human institutions to define spiritual realities. In fact God, in speaking of the Sacrament of Marriage, it would be more accurate to say that God created this institution for very profound reasons. Reasons worthy of protecting the institution as God created it to be – between a Man and a Woman.

In sending His Son to redeem the world, God’s plan involved a “Nuptial” union between Jesus and all of humanity. He modeled for us, in the Old Testament, the Israelite practice of a “next of kin” to marry a young widow, saving her from a hard life and abandonment. The O.T. story of Ruth is a classic example. Boaz rises up, covers her with his cloak, and redeems her in nuptial union.

In this same way, when we unite ourselves to Jesus in this nuptial union, we become one flesh with Him, and wherever His Body goes, we go. Our hope is in His resurrection because He bodily rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father.

It is on Holy Thursday, the Institution of the Eucharist, that Jesus says His wedding vows to us. It is there in His sacred words that He gives Himself completely to us. He invites us, like a bride on her wedding night, to receive His body, blood, soul and divinity in Communion – “Come in union.”

Through Baptism, we say our wedding vows as we cease to live our lives for ourselves and begin to live them completely for our spouse, Jesus, and His kingdom. The struggle of discipleship, like that of a newly married couple trying to learn how to live a married life, is to learn how to cease living our lives for ourselves and now live them only for our beloved.

In our earthly marriages, we see so many comparisons to the journey into authentic Discipleship. For many of us baptized as infants, it must begin by ratifying the “Yes” our parents said FOR us at our Baptism. When we do that, we begin in earnest a nuptial union of our own heart’s desire.

Let us spend some time pondering the sacrament of marriage  relationship and see what parallels we can apply to our union with God.