Marriage is a "covenant or partnership of life between a man and woman, which is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children. When validly contracted between two baptized people, marriage is a sacrament" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1601).
Unlike the other six sacraments which are all administered by a bishop, priest, or deacon, the sacrament of matrimony is administered by the husband and wife to each other. The priest or deacon is merely the Church's witness who blesses the union created by the exchange of consent.
Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman as spouses in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a glorious vision of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. In other words, the whole of creation and redemption is a marriage between God and His people. As St. Paul teaches the union of husband and wife is an image or icon of the union between Christ and His Church (Eph 5:25-32). St. John tells us that the first miracle worked by the Lord Jesus was at a wedding feast (John 2:1-11), thus revealing the intimate connection between the messianic mission of Christ and the dignity of marriage. Because of this intimate connection, marriage is the one blessing of God not lost by original sin or washed away in the flood. The bond of husband and wife, however, was disfigured by sin (like everything else in nature), and requires the grace of Christ to be purified, healed, and restored to its original dignity.
The Sacrament of Marriage is a covenant, which is more than a contract. Covenant always expresses a relationship between persons. The Old Testament gives us an image of this covenant in the covenants between God and his people: with Abraham and later with Moses at Mt. Sinai. The marriage covenant accordingly refers to the relationship between the husband and wife. A permanent union of persons capable of knowing and loving each other and God.
Because it is a Covenant, the love in a married relationship is exemplified in the total gift of one’s self to another. It’s this self-giving and self-sacrificing love that we see in our other model of marriage, the relationship between Christ and the Church.
Marriage is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is, on their will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually and definitively, in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love. (CCC 1662)
We believe that God exists in eternal communion. Together, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united in one being with no beginning and no end. Human beings, likewise, were created by God in God’s image for the purpose of communion with another human being.
The marriage bond, created only by those who are truly free by God's law to marry, is an irrevocable covenant which binds the spouses to each other for life. Because of this, the sacrament of matrimony conveys the special grace necessary to strengthen them for lifelong fidelity and growth in holiness.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 2205). The Sacrament of Marriage is “unitive, indissoluble and calls us to be completely open to fertility.” Christian marriage at its finest is a reflection of God’s self-giving love expressed between the love of two people.
Christ dwells with the spouses and gives them the grace to take up their crosses daily, to rise again after they fall, to forgive one another, to bear each other's burdens, to be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ, and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love.
The celebration of marriage is also a liturgical act, appropriately held in a public liturgy within a church. Catholics are urged to celebrate their marriage within the Eucharistic Liturgy.
Please read the Catechism, sections 1601-1666, for a fuller treatment of this great gift of grace from God to His children.