In his encyclical, Evangelium Gaudium, Pope Francis observes: “The family is experiencing a profound cultural crisis, as are all communities and social bonds. In the case of the family, the weakening of these bonds is particularly serious because the family is the fundamental cell of society, where we learn to live with one another despite our differences and to belong to one another; it is also the place where parents pass on the faith to their children. Marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will. But the indispensable contribution of marriage to society transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple.”

Even at the time of Jesus, the challenges of everyday living and the values of the predominant Greco-Roman culture stood as a threat to the traditional understanding of marriage prevalent in the Mosaic Law and Jewish society. That ancient law code, too, had its various excuses by which a man could divorce his wife, most of which would be offensive even to our relatively low modern standards. In his response to a question on the propriety of divorce, Jesus elevates marriage to a deeper sense of the covenant than the Mosaic Law envisioned.

As with many things in his ministry, Jesus takes the ordinary and makes it an occasion for a profound encounter with our heavenly father. Water is blessed to become living water; bread and wine are elevated to become the food for eternal life, and marriage is consecrated as the sacred sign of the covenant between God and humanity. Although the Jewish Law envisioned marriage as a contract, the signing of the ketubah by the groom is principally a legal statement promising his wife her due as envisioned by the law. This does not represent a covenantal contract in a religious sense.

While men and women had been forming permanent bonds from the dawn of humanity, Jesus transforms this ordinary, often informal arrangement, into one that is so consecrated by God that it stand as indissoluble before him.

Jewish Law held to some strict limits and structures of marriage somewhat distinct in the Greco-Roman world, unique among them being the demand of monogamy. The arranged marriage was the most common form of contracting marriage, usually to form or strengthen alliances between families or tribes. Flowing from the account of the creation of Adam and Eve, Jewish tradition promulgated this as a monogamous bond, thereby strengthening the bond itself. Covenantal language began to find its way into the Jewish marriage rites a bit later.

Our marriage liturgy reflects this ancient sense of monogamy as established by God in the Garden of Eden. In the principal form of the Nuptial Blessing the celebrant prays: “… O God, by whom woman is joined to man and the companionship they had in the beginning is endowed with the one blessing not forfeited by original sin nor washed away by the flood…”

This language reflects the Old Testament roots of marriage by connecting marriage to the act of creation. The bond of Adam and Eve precedes the fall, hence exists before original sin and, as therefore the prayer affirms that the marriage covenant was untainted by that sin and remains in force even through the establish of a new covenant with Noah. As the visible and daily expression of the covenant, marriage exists because God intends us to live within a community of commitment so that our temporal bond, even though it is binding and permanent, reflects the relationship first, between God and Israel, and then in our times, between God and the Church.

In our throw-away society where little is permanent and personal satisfaction stands as the true measure of reality, marriage seems anachronistic and archaic. While the urgency to codify a relationship even in the most ordinary civil way is a sign of a commitment to permanence, it is truly the expression of intent and an exchange of that intent before the church that truly seals a covenant and signifies that intentionality to the world. Marriage should be for us a constant reminder of God’s love for us and his desire that we seek union with him through our love for one another.

In an alternate text for the Nuptial blessing, the celebrant prays: “… O God, who to reveal the great design you formed in your love, willed that the love for spouses for each other should foreshadow the covenant you graciously made with your people, so that by fulfillment of the sacramental sign, the mystical marriage of Christ with his church might become manifest in the union of the husband and wife among your faithful …”

Let us all recommit ourselves to this sacramental union, and pray that our marriages will be strengthened in union with Christ.

Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.