“Are you prepared, as you follow the path of marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?”
As questions go, it is a heavy one. This question of intention is the second asked of couples by the priest on their wedding day. Engaged couples are first asked during the Rite of Marriage if they are entering marriage “without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly” and finally asked if they “are prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and His Church.”
These are questions worthy of the sacrament of marriage and of the life-long commitment made that day. Still, I pause at the “are you prepared” wording.
Were the apostles prepared for the deaths of martyrdom when they first dropped their fishing nets and followed Jesus? Are priests prepared for the divine power that transforms the bread they hold into the Body of Christ? Are we — as young, shiny, engaged couples standing at our altars — prepared to model the love that Christ had for His Church and lay down our lives for each other? Can anyone ever be prepared for those levels of vulnerability and surrender?
At the start of our vocations, we give consent, and then we live it. And our consent is perfected in the living.
In marriage preparation courses, the Diocese of Rockford challenges engaged couples to use Church teachings to strengthen the spiritual muscles of self-giving and surrender in areas that include love, communications, expectations, finances, spiritual practices, and sexuality. God calls each spouse to be fully vulnerable to each other and to fully surrender for the sake of the other. In this way, the couple dies to each other as Jesus died for His Church.
Tom and I entered our 22nd year of marriage this year. We were prepared first by learning the beautiful teachings of the Church on marriage and family. Ultimately though, we prepared for surrender by surrendering.
Our first act of surrender was adopting God’s perfect design for marital sexuality as a communication that respected each other’s bodies, the marital act, and God’s plan for marriage. Natural Family Planning (NFP) fostered this intimate communication.
In The Joy of Love (Amoris laetitia), Pope Francis wrote, “The love between husband and wife … is an ‘affective union,’ spiritual and sacrificial, which combines the warmth of friendship and erotic passion, and endures long after emotions and passion subside.”
After that in our “path of marriage,” we surrendered for the good of each other and to God’s will in so much. What is marriage or any vocation but a life of sacrificial surrender? Married couples surrender to God’s will in all joys and sorrows. Babies, miscarriages, promotions, new homes, loss of jobs, new jobs, extended family dynamics, sickness, disease, recovering health, infidelity, infertility, bad finances, blessed riches, and perhaps the hardest: death of loved ones.
We are prepared for none of it. Except in a flash of grace, we are! The grace given to us in marriage is a gift from God. Grace helps us love, forgive, and carry burdens like Jesus did. Sacramental grace allows families to grow in holiness and to bear fruit.
After leaving our altars, bride and groom are markedly different. We are transformed into a new creation in Christ. We leave our sacramental encounter with Christ with sanctifying grace that enables us to live out our lifelong intention. We must be open to this grace! God is good!
On August 17, 2025, at Mass celebrated by Bishop Malloy, we honor married couples in our Diocese who are celebrating a significant wedding anniversary of 25 years and more. For more information and to attend, visit: www.rockforddiocese.org/life/marriage-family/silver-gold-wedding-anniversary-mass
