The Sacrament of Marriage

That Christian marriage (i.e. marriage between baptized persons) is really a sacrament of the New Law in the strict sense of the word is for all Catholics an indubitable truth. According to the Council of Trent this dogma has always been taught by the Church, and is thus defined in canon i, Sess. XXIV: "If any one shall say that matrimony is not truly and properly one of the Seven Sacraments of the Evangelical Law, instituted by Christ our Lord, but was invented in the Church by men, and does not confer grace, let him be anathema." The occasion of this solemn declaration was the denial by the so-called Reformers of the sacramental character of marriage. Calvin in his "Institutions", IV, xix, 34, says: "Lastly, there is matrimony, which all admit was instituted by God, though no one before the time of Gregory regarded it as a sacrament. What man in his sober senses could so regard it? God's ordinance is good and holy; so also are agriculture, architecture, shoemaking, hair-cutting legitimate ordinances of God, but they are not sacraments". And Luther speaks in terms equally vigorous. In his German work, published at Wittenberg in 1530 under the title "Von den Ehesachen", he writes (p. 1): "No one indeed can deny that marriage is an external worldly thing, like clothes and food, house and home, subject to worldly authority, as shown by so many imperial laws governing it." In an earlier work (the original edition of "De captivitate Babylonica") he writes: "Not only is the sacramental character of matrimony without foundation in Scripture; but the very traditions, which claim such sacredness for it, are a mere jest"; and two pages further on: "Marriage may therefore be a figure of Christ and the Church; it is, however, no Divinely instituted sacrament, but the invention of men in the Church, arising from ignorance of the subject." The Fathers of the Council of Trent evidently had the latter passage in mind.

But the decision of Trent was not the first given by the Church. The Council of Florence, in the Decree for the Armenians, had already declared: "The seventh sacrament is matrimony, which is a figure of the union of Christ, and the Church, according to the words of the Apostle: This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church.'" And Innocent IV, in the profession of faith prescribed for the Waldensians (18 December, 1208), includes matrimony among the sacraments (Denzinger-Bannwart, "Enchiridion", n. 424). The acceptance of the sacraments administered in the Church had been prescribed in general in the following words: "And we by no means reject the sacraments which are administered in it (the Roman Catholic Church), with the co-operation of the inestimable and invisible power of the Holy Ghost, even though they be administered by a sinful priest, provided the Church recognizes him", the formula then takes up each sacrament in particular, touching especially on those points which the Waldensians had denied: "Therefore we approve of baptism of children . . . confirmation administered by the bishop . . . the sacrifice of the Eucharist. . . . We believe that pardon is granted by God to penitent sinners . . . we hold in honour the anointing of the sick with consecrated oil . . . we do not deny that carnal marriages are to be contracted, according to the words of the Apostle." It is, therefore, historically certain that from the beginning of the thirteenth century the sacramental character of marriage was universally known and recognized as a dogma. Even the few theologians who minimized, or who seemed to minimize, the sacramental character of marriage, set down in the foremost place the proposition that marriage is a sacrament of the New Law in the strict sense of the word, and then sought to conform their further theses on the effect and nature of marriage to this fundamental truth, as will be evident from the quotations given below.

The reason why marriage was not expressly and formally included among the sacraments earlier and the denial of it branded as heresy, is to be found in the historical development of the doctrine regarding the sacraments; but the fact itself may be traced to Apostolic times. With regard to the several religious rites designated as "Sacraments of the New Law", there was always in the Church a profound conviction that they conferred interior Divine grace. But the grouping of them into one and the same category was left for a later period, when the dogmas of faith in general began to be scientifically examined and systematically arranged. Furthermore, that the seven sacraments should be grouped in one category was by no means self-evident. For, though it was accepted that each of these rites conferred interior grace, yet, in contrast to their common invisible effect, the difference in external ceremony and even in the immediate purpose of the production of grace was so great that, for a long time, it hindered a uniform classification. Thus, there is a radical difference between the external form under which baptism, confirmation, and orders, on the one hand are administered, and, on the other hand, those that characterize penance and marriage. For while marriage is in the nature of a contract, and penance in the nature of a judicial process, the three first-mentioned take the form of a religious consecration of the recipients.

Difference Between the Sacrament of Marriage and the Other Sacraments

From all that has been said, it is clear that while marriage, inasmuch as it is an outward sign of grace and also produces interior grace, has the nature common to all the sacraments, still, viewed as an external sign, it is unique and very different from the other sacraments. The external sign is a contract; hence marriage, even as an effective sign or sacrament, has precisely the nature and quality of a contract, its validity depending on the rules for the validity of contracts. And, as we can distinguish between a contract in its origin and a contract in its continuance, so we can distinguish between the sacrament of marriage in fieri and in facto esse. The sacrament in fieri is the above-mentioned mutual declaration of consent; the sacrament in facto esse is the Divine bond which unites the married persons for life. In most of the other sacraments also there is this distinction between sacrament in fieri and in facto esse; but the continuance of the other sacraments is based mostly on the inamissible character which they impress upon the soul of the recipient. Not so with marriage; in the soul of the recipient there is a question of no new physical being or mode of being, but of a legal relationship which can as a rule be broken only by death, although in individual cases it may otherwise be rendered void, provided the marriage has not been consummated. In this respect, therefore, marriage, especially as a sacrament, differs from other contracts, since it is not subject to the free will of the individuals. Of course, the choice of a partner and especially the contracting or non-contracting of marriage are subject to the free will of the individuals; but any revocation or essential altering of the terms is beyond the power of the contracting parties; the essence of the contractual sacrament is Divinely regulated.

Of still greater importance is the contract aspect of the sacrament in fieri. In the other sacraments, the conditional administration is admissible only within narrow limits. There can only be questions of conditions of the present or past, which, according as they are verified or not verified in fact, there and then admit or prevent the valid administration of the sacrament. But generally even these conditions have no influence on the validity; they are made for the sake of greater reverence, so as to avoid even the appearance of regarding the sacramental procedure as useless. The Sacrament of Marriage, on the contrary, follows the nature of a contract in all these matters. It admits conditions not only of the past and present, but also future conditions which delay the production of the sacrament until the conditions are fulfilled. At the moment, these are fulfilled the sacrament and its conferring of grace take place in virtue of the mutual consent previously expressed and still continuing. Only diriment conditions are opposed to the essence of the Sacrament of Marriage, because it consists in an indissoluble contract. Any such conditions, as well as all others that are opposed to the intrinsic nature of marriage, have as a result the invalidity of both the contract and the sacrament.

A further quality of the Sacrament of Marriage, not possessed by the other sacraments, is that it can be effected without the personal presence of the mutual ministers and recipients. A consensual agreement can be made in writing as well as orally, and by proxy as well as in person. Hence these methods are not opposed to the validity of the sacrament. Of course, according to ecclesiastical law, the form prescribed for validity is, as a rule, the personal, mutual declaration of consent before witnesses; but that is a requirement added to the nature of marriage and to Divine law, which the Church can therefore set aside and from which she can dispense in individual cases. Even the contracting of marriage through authorized representatives is not absolutely excluded. In such a case, however, this representative could not be called the minister, much less the recipient of the sacrament, but merely the agent or intermediary. The declaration of consent made by him is valid only in so far as it represents and contains the consent of his principal; it is the latter which effects the contract and sacrament, hence the principal is the minister of the sacrament. It is the principal, and not the agent, who receives the consent of and marries the other party, and who therefore also receives the sacrament. It does not matter whether the principal, at the exact moment when the consent is expressed by his agent, has the use of reason, or consciousness, or is deprived of it (e.g. by sleep); as soon as the mutual consent is given, the sacrament comes into being with the contract, and the conferring of grace takes place at the same time, provided no obstacle is placed in the way of this effect. The actual use of reason is no more required for it than in the baptism of an infant or in extreme unction administered to an unconscious person. It may even happen in the case of marriage that the consent, which was given many years ago, only now takes effect. This occurs in the case of the so-called sanatio in radice. Through this an ecclesiastical impediment, hitherto invalidating the marriage, is removed by ecclesiastical authority, and the mutual consent previously given without knowledge of the impediment is accepted as legitimate, provided it is certain that this consent has habitually continued according to its original intent. At the moment of the ecclesiastical dispensation the original consent becomes the effective cause of the sacrament and the hitherto presumptive, but now real, spouses receive the sacramental effect in the increase of sanctifying grace, provided they place no obstacle in the way.

Above information is from the Catholic Encyclopedia (online).

For information about the Sacrament of Marriage (requirements, scheduling, etc) at Saint Raphael Church, please contact the Parish Office at (805) 967-5641.