What Is Marriage?

It is no wonder, then, that Christ made marriage a sacrament.

Just when he did so, during his public life, we do not know. Some think that it may have been at the marriage feast at Cana. Others think it may have been at the time he instructed the Pharisees: “Have you not read that the Creator, from the beginning, made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? Therefore now they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4-7).

However, such speculations as to the exact time at which Jesus made marriage a sacrament are rather fruitless. It is enough for us to know, by the constant and unbroken tradition of the Church, that Jesus did so transform the marriage bond... READ MORE