Marriage is one of the sacraments of the Church. Its primary purpose is union with God. This is its content and its end. Therefore, every person prepares for it by returning to God, to His life-giving Word and His holy sacraments. He reconciles with Him if he is far from Him, and practices His love if he becomes one of His chosen ones. This is because God is existence, and He alone is the guarantee and goal of every human encounter.

Is this what people today recognize or act upon? The question may seem superficial, and its questioners naive. What does not need to be emphasized is that most people do not see that God is all life, and that the majority of them assimilate Him, their lives, their mistakes, and so on. They add Him as a costume of the fashions of this mortal worldly civilization. They do not recognize that He is love and longing for Him. They want to create a new world. They aspire and fail, and they do not want to know or recognize that God, alone, is the new world and He is its bringer in this “present deceptive age.” They try to establish a home or a family… but they chew on their world, and their pride and selfishness devour them.

Of course, this is not the case for everyone, for God has kept for Himself many beloved ones, and these alone are capable of making the new destiny, nay, they are its makers. For they come from the truth of its content: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” This is their rule, lest they wander in the desert of this existence and be consumed by its sand.

It is no secret that people, in general, care about their marriages to be seen and approved of by others. People are prisoners of each other's eyes. Therefore, you are not civilized if you do not spend your life, money and time in order for your marriage to be "different". Extravagance in clothing and make-up is a civilized necessity!! And the wedding dress, if it is not extremely expensive, is worthless. And the church decorations that forget that God is the adorner of souls and life are before prayer and repentance, if not more important. Video, photography... No matter what your social status is, if you do not follow the path of those who came before you - most of those who came before you - your marriage may not be completed, and you will become the talk of the town. People criticize you harshly and spread accusations against you. Your family, your fiancée's family and friends, they all have their opinion... Woe to you if you do not submit. If you deviate from the established custom, you will be labeled reactionary, you will be backward and stingy... You are forced to submit to what is prescribed for you. You have no choice but to be free or to have a different (divine) conviction.

This “realistic” picture is our general condition when we end up getting married. We see, with our heads bowed, that God has become secondary. And we ask, while we are in crisis, how do we get out of this abhorrent situation? How can God’s dignity be restored on this earth? How can our sacraments and prayers regain their splendor? Who corrects all this? And do people “trusted with the truth” accept the straight opinion? Do they accept change, or do they look for someone to tell them: Yes, even if these blessings are contrary to God’s will? Who and whom? Many questions. And the answer to them is everyone’s responsibility.

Yes, we in the Church encourage tearing this image apart. And we say to the brave: Tear it apart. Come to God as light, and reconcile with the truth. Do not hurt God who rejoices in your joy. Do not waste yourselves. Do not get lost in a fleeting civilization. And do not hurt the eyes of the poor who, although they are God’s beloved, are dying of hunger, nakedness, and ignorance, while you waste your money. Most of you may not be able to keep up with this sweeping current. You waste your money, and you can make God happy by spending it on your basic needs and on those who need your generosity.

We ask why our marriages generally don’t work out? The answer embarrasses us. We know it. This is because we start our lives with a cheap escape in a tiring and confusing world, and we do not surrender to God. We have started saying, as the so-called civilized world says: “Our marriage succeeded,” or “Our marriage failed,” as if our fate is linked to external matters, and we do not make our fate. This and that excuse satisfy us, because we purify our consciences by blaming others, the world, and the circumstances… What is truly worrying is that most people get married agreeing on several things, and God is not one of them. The painful question remains: Why have marital disputes increased among Christians, and marriage is one, and some of our fathers taught that it is eternal (meaning that love between spouses remains until the last day)? What is the solution? There is no doubt that any human encounter cannot succeed if God is not the goal. Loving God first and last is the solution. Returning to Him is the solution. What is important is not that I am what people want, but what God wants from me. This is a basic question that everyone who seeks God’s pleasure asks himself before any action: What does God want me to do?

I said marriage is a sacrament. And the sacrament is a pasture for God in which He reveals (and we discover) His presence. To realize that, as married people, we leave the church with God and we work every day to preserve Him and to truly see Him in the other whom we pledged to God, in our baptism, that we love Him and are ready to die for Him, if we realize this, we will have understood God’s intention in His sacraments and entered into the movement of eternal love that nothing in the world can overcome.

Quoted from my parish bulletin
Sunday, October 1, 2000, Issue 40