All Christians are called to bear witness to the good news of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are empowered for such witness by our covenantal relationship with God.  Our covenantal life with God is expressed in relationships of commitment and faithfulness. It is the Church’s joy to celebrate these relationships as signs of God’s love, to pray for God’s grace to support couples in their life together, and to join with these couples in our shared witness to the gospel in the world.

Holy Matrimony is Christian Marriage, in which two people enter into a lifelong union, make their vows before God and the Church, and receive the grace and blessing of God to help them fulfill their vows.  A couple’s marital relationship is a permanent, primary, covenantal commitment, taking precedence over their other relationships, including that of parent to children. It is, however, a relationship lived in the context of wider social relationship, including relatives, friends and the Church.  Christian marriage is intended to be symbolic of Christ’s love to the world.  The model for Christian marriage is the love of God manifested through Jesus Christ, whose life and death were the perfect example of self-giving.

In like manner, the couple’s relationship is to be based on mutual self-giving. This orientation and behavior are not based upon their vows, their compatibility, nor even love, but based upon their relationship with Jesus Christ. As the couple perseveres in this example, they are indeed a symbol of Christ’s love to relatives, friends and the church.