Marriage as a communion of persons
Marriage Sunday 2025
For the past decade we have had the practice in the Archdiocese of holding a Marriage Sunday Mass to honour couples who are celebrating significant anniversaries. It has been held close to the feast of St Valentine, the third century priest in Rome who, according to tradition, secretly married couples against the wishes of the authorities.
The importance of encouraging young couples to embrace and live the full and rich vision of Christian marriage and family is becoming more and more necessary.
More and more young people are putting off entering marriage, many choosing to co-habit rather than enter the covenant of marriage. There has been a dramatic decline in couples approaching the Church for a sacramental marriage, preferring a civil ceremony at a secular venue.
We now live in an all encompassing technological environment and this is seriously affecting the capacity for proper and life-giving human interaction. Technology is now so influential that there is a serious danger that it can become anti-human. AI is one more advancement which, while offering many new horizons, runs the risk of further dehumanising relationships and society.
Further to this has been the shift in society’s understanding that marriage was designed by God to be between a man and a woman. It was intended by the Creator as the foundation for the generation and nurturing of children. The decision by the government to give the legal status of marriage to same-sex couples has further eroded the true meaning of marriage and family.
As a Church we stand for the inherent worth and dignity of the marriage covenant, blessed as a sacrament. We uphold the importance of protecting and enhancing human dignity and we believe in the central role that marriage and family has in promoting the common good of society.
It is the family that generates true human society and a strong culture of family life is an indispensable condition for individual and social wellbeing.
Entering the marriage covenant is a profoundly human act. It is far more than a co-habiting arrangement. It is far more than a contractual agreement. It is an act of total and exclusive personal self-giving. Contained within the marriage commitment is the wisdom of the Creator. Very simply, human beings were designed for marriage. Marriage is the way in which human love is purified and raised to a noble expression.
Marriage is a communion of persons at the deepest and most intimate level. As God is a trinity of persons bonded in love, marriage is a mirror of the nature of God. This communion between husband and wife leads to a further communion with children. The communion broadens over the generations and within the wider network of familial relationships. It is in this interplay of relationships bound by a special affection and unique love that human life is immeasurably enriched.
Of course, human life – and so marriage and family – is marred by tensions, discord and conflict. Forces of disunity can become great due to selfishness and other vices. However, the bonds of unity go deep and issues can be resolved or at least borne with in patience and genuine compassion and forgiveness.
Being made in the image of God who is a communion of persons human beings are social by nature and called into communion with others. The call to enter into marriage which is one of the givens of human existence.
Reflecting on the revelation of the act of creation, and the teaching of the Book of Genesis that it is not good for the man to be alone, we have the simple yet sublime teaching that a man leaves his father and mother and attaches himself to his wife and the two become one. It is so simple and yet so profound. It contains the wisdom of the Creator.
Thus, the Church is pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-life. Today we celebrate the good that is marriage and declare our faith in its immense value for human life and human society. We salute those couples who today celebrate anniversaries. They are witnesses to the essential good that is marriage and family. They show that marriage is a path to true and enduring happiness.
At this time we need those in leadership in our society to adopt policies that promote and protect marriage and family. We implore legislators to protect human sexuality from ongoing commodification and dehumanisation expressed in the pernicious porn industry. We ask them also to work towards wresting childhood from the grip of social media – let our children be children learning the wonder of play and personal interaction.
We are in a when the damaging effects of advances in technology, including the use of hormone and surgical interventions to alter one’s sex, are causing great harm. As a society we need to rediscover the truth that human beings can find joy and experience the true beauty of the human spirit in embracing the covenant of marriage. We need to cultivate all that is good for the soul, and not succumb to the numbing effects of a life lived on the surface fed only by social media.
Marriage is the way for human life to be elevated to its best and most noble expression. This is to be found in the pursuit of self-giving love. Marriage is the foundation for the begetting and nourishing children that they, in their turn, will find that it is self-giving love that truly animates and makes fruitful the living of human life.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Sunday, 9 February 2025