In many ways, we associate the summertime with the wedding season. May and June have long been very popular months for that ceremony. But having heard from various people recently about weddings they have just attended and having been fortunate myself to have celebrated a family wedding recently, I have been reminded that July and August have their share of weddings also.

 

Of course, attention is drawn to the bride and groom. The exchange of matrimonial consent, as well as the exchange of rings, constitutes the high point of the ceremony. But for those who are attending the wedding, the ceremony is not simply a moment for passive observation. To attend a wedding that is in accord with divine and Church law, for us as Catholics, is to be invited to recall once more the gift of God that is matrimony and the creation of the new family that results.Those in attendance who are already married have the opportunity to recall again not just the day of their own promises to their spouse, but the life-long meaning of that exchange of consent given freely and from the heart. For those not yet married, it is a moment to pray and prepare their own hearts and faith for the day that they might take that important step.

 

Marriage is the fulfillment of the Scriptural passage when Jesus said to those around Him, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Mt 19, 4-5).

 

By those words, Jesus is citing the Book of Genesis. But even more, He reminds us that it is the divine plan written into our human nature that men and women are called to imitate God by a sacrificial and an enduring love of which marriage is a particular example. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) reminds us that married love is meant by God to be “an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man.” (CCC 1064).

 

The bride and groom, when properly prepared and instructed in their faith, sense that they are entering into the eternal plan of God. It is carried out in their own lives starting with the simple exchange of promises before the official witnesses. 

 

The icon of God’s love that is the married couple is called to give still further witness to God’s fidelity. Jesus went on to say, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Mt 19, 6). The couple that has exchanged those promises in marriage now bears between them an intrinsically unbreakable bond. That is the love so great that the Father gave His only Son to die for our forgiveness.

The permanence of marriage is a lived sign of God’s enduring and unchanging love for us. 

 

From that marital bond of love and fidelity comes fruitfulness that includes the possibility of children. That too is a way of entering into God’s plan, cooperating with Him in the creation of new life meant to be with God for eternity and doing so in keeping with the moral teaching of the Church.

 

In our society the number of marriages is dwindling. So too is the number of children being born into our society. To attend a summer wedding is to be reminded of the great gift of God’s plan and of the grace bestowed on the couple and on the Church through marriage.

 

Of course, this reality is challenging to live out. Truly good things are not bought cheaply but rather at the cost of effort and sacrifice. But in that challenge, taken on by every newlywed couple, is the beauty of discovery of a depth of one’s self and of one’s spouse. And most of all, it is the discovery of the beauty of God’s grace and His plan built into the human race.