Sr. Helena Burns, in her recent article titled “What is it Like Being Married to Jesus?“, explains that not only priests and nuns are “married” to Jesus, but that all of us as Church and as individual Christians share in an intimate relationship with God. So we can say that we are all, in a sense, married to Jesus.

“Marriage is not a default vocation. Marriage gets you holy.”

~ Sr. Helena Burns

Your vocation is your calling, the path God has planned out for you. After all, He knows you better than you know yourself. So if you don’t have the call to be a priest or nun, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve failed in your faith or that you aren’t holy.

Seeing Marriage through a Different Lens

God has designed all human relationships, especially marriage, with the goal of our growing in holiness. Remember God is a trinity of persons in an eternal exchange of love. The human family is modeled after this divine family. God wants us to love like He does and He employs a perfect plan for each one of us.

Marriage is a vocation, and it is unfortunate that so many people enter into it without a full understanding of what they are getting into. It’s not to say that anyone is ever really prepared for it. Trust me I know. But too many people enter into the bonds of marriage thinking it’s about them and what they can get out of their spouse.

The truth is exactly the opposite. The purpose of marriage is for a husband and a wife to spend their lives leading each other deeper into relationship with Jesus Christ, becoming more holy each day, loving and supporting each other, working as a team, as co-workers for the Kingdom. As “one flesh” their union of love is so closely modeled after the Blessed Trinity that the love of God shines through them and they truly become “the light of the world”.

How beautiful does marriage become seen from this point of view! Would that all people see marriage for what it really is and enter into it prepared to daily give the gift of themselves to their spouse.

Question: Is there a couple you know who bears witness to the truth of what marriage is supposed to be? What about them inspires you?