Marriage

“Marriage is something greater than a contract, for it involves also a sacrifice.

The woman sacrifices an irreparable gift, which was the gift of God and was the object of her mother’s anxious care: her fresh young beauty, frequently her health, and that faculty of loving which women have but once.

The man, in his turn, sacrifices the liberty of his youth, those incomparable years  which never return, the power of devoting himself to her whom he loves, which is vigorous only in his early years, and the ambition–inspired by love–to create a happy and glorious future.

All this is possible but once in a man’s life–perhaps never. Therefore Christian marriage is a double oblation, offered in two chalices, one filled with virtue, purity, and innocence; the other with unblemished self-devotion, the immortal consecration of a man to her who is weaker than himself, who was unknown to him yesterday, and with whom today he is content to spend the remainder of his life.

These two cups must be both filled to the brim in order that the union may be holy and that Heaven may bless it.”

THREE TO GET MARRIED (by Fulton J. Sheen, Ph.D., D.D. )