​As a sign of God’s love for us, the gift of marriage has been raised by Christ to become a sacrament – a physical sign of a spiritual reality.  Like God’s love, marriage is a full and unreserved gift, freely given, faithfully lived, and open to the fruitfulness of new life.  Because the bond of marriage is an image of God’s love, a love which is never ending, it is a bond that cannot be broken.

Like all vocations, Christian marriage is not an easy way of life, rather, it is a long path toward sanctification.  This is because all vocations are an invitation to discipleship, to take up our cross and follow Christ. On the cross Christ showed us that love seeks to give even when it hurts. Love demands self-sacrifice.  Married couples who have reached old age together will testify that the moments of delight are never won without some pain and self sacrifice. But in the same way that Jesus Christ showed us that love demonstrated in faithful perseverance and self-sacrifice brought him glory, it is the love won through patiently giving ourselves to our spouse and family that we find life’s greatest reward.

Marriage is a vocation, inasmuch as it is a response to a specific call to experience conjugal love as an imperfect sign of the love between Christ and the Church. Consequently, the decision to marry and to have a family ought to be the fruit of a process of vocational discernment (Amoris Laetitia no. 72). Pope Francis.

​Marriage is a covenant (that is, a sacred, life-long interpersonal promise) made between a man and a woman.  It is directed toward the good of the couple and the procreation and education of their children.