What too many people seem to miss is that marriage is a sacrament.
That means it is a means of grace. It is one of the great seven. It is one of the gifts in which heaven is poured into our lives through the physical.
Because marriage is a sacrament it is sacred. If you trample on marriage you are trampling not just on your spouse or your future spouse or your kids. You are trampling on God’s gift to you through which you might receive the graces necessary for salvation.
Look at it this way. For most people marriage is their ladder to heaven.
If you knock down your ladder and break it apart how do hope to climb to heaven?
This is why the Catholic Church is against anything that breaks or soils marriage because when marriage is broken one of your main ladders to heaven is broken.
That’s why to trample marriage is mortal sin: because it leads to death.
What breaks marriage? promiscuity. prostitution. pornography. masturbation. artificial contraception. adultery. divorce. co habitation. fornication. sexual abuse. rape. domestic violence. domestic abuse. child abuse. abortion. all these things break marriage and more.
Furthermore, because marriage is a sacrament it is designed and administered by the church. There are rules that govern and control the sacrament of marriage just as there are all the sacraments.
You can’t have a valid Eucharist without a validly ordained priest, bread, wine and the proper liturgy.
You can’t have a valid marriage without fulfilling certain requirements which the church establishes.
This is the structure of the Holy Family. It is built from and relies on the solidity and purpose of marriage.
Break marriage and you break the family. Break the family and your break your ladder to heaven for the family is where you learn the difficult lessons of love, and if you can’t learn those lessons here with the people to whom you are closest where do you imagine you will learn them? If you can’t learn to give of yourself in loving service to your wife or your husband and your children where and when do you think you will learn these lessons and if you do not learn these lessons how do you expect to go to heaven for heaven can only be populated with people who have learned these lessons.
This is not arbitrary. It is logical. Heaven is for those who have become like Christ by his grace. To become like Christ is to have learned how to lay down your life for another. If you cannot do that in your marriage and family then when and where might you be able to do it?
So take more time to build the family. Take more time to build the marriage.
Your life may depend on it.
Your life DOES depend on it.
photo: http://ums-honors-geography.wikispaces.com/China+2012
