How to Have a Catholic Marriage with Doctrine

A Catholic couple greet their priest.

Marriage is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. Its leaders believe God instituted this sacred union with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh." (Genesis 2:24). The church teaches that marriage represents the lifelong joining of a man and a woman by God; once two mutually consenting baptized persons have consummated a marriage, it is a bond no one can ever dissolve. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains how to conduct married life in accord with church doctrine.

Instructions

1. Practice natural family planning. This process involves keeping track of a woman's menstrual cycle and engaging in periodic abstinence in order to plan pregnancies with respect to what the church considers the dignity of the human person.

2. Avoid any sexual activity that does not permit the possibility of procreation. According to the catechism, "Marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity" and "is by its very nature ordered to the communion and good of the couple and to the generation and education of children."

3. Raise your children in the Catholic faith by attending Mass with them weekly and on all Holy Days of Obligation. Ensure that a priest baptizes them, and that they make First Reconciliation and Communion, and become confirmed.

4. Remain faithful to your spouse. Committing adultery, having excessive lustful thoughts about others, viewing pornographic images and pursuing solitary sexual pleasure all stand in grave opposition to the sacrament of marriage. These and other forms of sin threaten the bonds of marriage just as sin undermines the union between God and His people.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep your marriage and those of other couples in your prayers. God does not abandon the bonds that He created between man and woman.

References

• "Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church"; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; 2006
• Genesis 2:24
• Cathechism on Call; Birth Control and the Catholic Church; conway23; December 2008
• Natural Family Planning International, Inc.

Resources

• For Your Marriage; Stages of Growth in Marriage; Paul R. Giblin, Ph.D.