Marriage: More Than Just Two People Living Together

The Church teaches us that marriage is more than just two people living together who share common likes or because of convenience. It is a sacramental covenant that bonds two people together in an indissoluble union by which the couple makes God present in their marriage. It is the only sacrament that is not administered by a priest. The priest is present at the wedding to witness the validity ofthe marriage. But the sacrament itself is administered by the husband and wife to each other. The sacrament begins at the moment they commit themselves in marriage with the exchange of vows to freely, faithfully and fruitfully love each other. But the sacrament is perfected when they consummate the marriage in the marital embrace. It is in the sexual union that the couple makes manifest the sacrament and shares in the divine grace that God wishes to give them as man and wife. The vows said with their mouths at the altar are perfected and renewed through their bodies each and every time in the conjugal act. - Kenneth Henderson

Families Are Called To Be Islands Of Christian Life In An Unbelieving World

From the beginning, the core of the Church was often constituted by those who had become believers "together with all their household." When they were converted, they desired that "their whole household" should also be saved. These families who became believers were islands of Christian life in an unbelieving world...In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. It is in the bosom of the family that parents are 'by word and example...the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation.'" - Catechism of the Catholic Church 1655 & 1656

If You Are Afraid to Love, Never Become a Priest

If you are afraid to love, never become a priest, never say Mass. The Mass will draw you down upon your soul a torrent of interior suffering which has only one function: to break you wide open and let everybody in the world into your heart. For when you begin to say Mass, the Spirit of God awakens like a giant inside you and bursts the locks of your private sanctuary. If you say Mass, you condemn your soul to the torrent of a love that is so vast and insatiable that you will never be able to bear it alone. That love is the love of the Heart of Jesus, burning within your own heart and bringing down upon you the huge weight of His compassion for all the sinners of the world. - Thomas Merton