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Marriage
The Sacraments of Service
Through marriage and holy orders, couples and the clergy promise to serve and build up the church community.
Marriage Marriage isn’t just a union between man and wife. The devotion husband and wife have to each other, and to Christ, mirrors Christ’s love and service to the church. Through marriage, a couple promises to help build each other up in faith, serve each other and the church and be faithful to each other until death.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her. Ephesians 5:25So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:27-28
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The Catholic family and fidelity
"The Church is God's family in the world.” -Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 25
In this family there are four units. The largest unit is the universal Church led by the pope. Then there is the diocese with the bishop as its head. Next is the parish with the pastor as its ‘father’. The smallest unit is the domestic church; the Catholic family led by the mother and father who work together to lead each other and their children in striving for holiness. “Christians and all men who hold [the family] in high esteem sincerely rejoice in the various ways by which men today find help in fostering this community of love and perfecting its life, and by which parents are assisted in their lofty calling” (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church, 47). Support for family life is of highest importance for Catholics.
Marriage requires mutual fidelity for life. The permanence of the marital bond gives spouses the freedom of marital life lived without fear of abandonment and helps them to persevere in fidelity to one another and to God.
The key to understanding the indissoluble (permanent) character of marriage is not to see it as a rule imposed from the outside, but instead as an essential promise which flows from the vows and nature of marriage. “To opt for marriage in this way expresses a genuine and firm decision to join paths, come what may. Committing oneself exclusively and definitively to another person always involves a risk and a bold gamble.” (Pope Francis, The Joy of Love, 132) In this sense marriage may be the riskiest thing one can do in the course of one’s life. However, it is worth the risk because, “this ‘yes’ tells them that they can always trust one another, and that they will never be abandoned when difficulties arise or new attractions or selfish interests present themselves.” (Pope Francis, The Joy of Love, 132)
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Difficult situations: the family under attackAs it has been since the beginning when after “the two became one flesh” they were tempted by the serpent; marriage remains Satan’s favorite target. Today the beauty of family life “is not everywhere reflected with equal brilliance, since polygamy, the plague of divorce, so-called free love and other disfigurements have an obscuring effect. In addition, married love is too often profaned by excessive self-love, the worship of pleasure and illicit practices” like contraception, sterilization and abortion (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church, 47).
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God’s plan for the family
Vatican II expresses the beauty of marital love and family life which “are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown“ (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church, 48). St. John Paul II helped write The Pastoral Constitution of the Church (Gaudium et Spes), the Second Vatican Council document which teaches about the truth of the Catholic family as the ‘domestic church’. In his work to implement the council he wrote an Apostolic Exhortation where he said: “The Church is deeply convinced that only by the acceptance of the Gospel are the hopes that man legitimately places in marriage and in the family capable of being fulfilled.” (Familiaris Consortio, 3) God’s plan for the Catholic family is to participate in the work of the Church “becoming a saved community… called upon to communicate Christ's love to their brethren, thus becoming a saving community.” (Familiaris Consortio, 49).
We discover the meaning of life through contact with God’s revelation and we learn what it means to be human in the family because “the family is a kind of school of deeper humanity” (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church, 51). Seen in this light the family is the school and love is the lesson. We normally first learn to love God and one another as we grow up in our family. And even though our families are not perfect, they nevertheless are true schools of love. In fact, “authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ's redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in the sublime office of being a father or a mother” (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church, 48). As a ‘school’, “the family has the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love” (Familiaris Consortio, 17).
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The family: school of prayer and faith
As a school of love the family is also a school of prayer where, “inspired by the example and family prayer of the their parents, children… will more easily set out upon the path of a truly human training, of salvation, and of holiness” (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church, 48). In the letter to the Philippians St. Paul offers a prayer fitting for the family: “it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” (Philippians 1: 9-10) For families beset by difficulties, prayer in the home has the power to change things for the better.
As the now famous saying goes:
"The family that prays together, stays together.”
Because of this truth, “parents have the specific responsibility of educating their children in prayer, introducing them to gradual discovery of the mystery of God and to personal dialogue with Him” (Familiaris Consortio, 60). Parents should also “eagerly carry out their duties of education, especially religious education, which is primarily entrusted to them” (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church, 48). And because, “there is no family that does not know how selfishness, discord, tension and conflict violently attack and at times mortally wound its own communion” familial religious formation must focus on “family communion [which] can only be preserved and perfected through a great spirit of sacrifice. It requires, in fact, a ready and generous openness of each and all to understanding, to forbearance, to pardon, to reconciliation” (Familiaris Consortio, 21).
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If you prefer to fill out a hard copy of the Preliminary Marriage Form - please click the link above and mail the completed form, along with the $200 down payment, to:
Mercedes Acosta, Pastoral Assistant
St. Finn Barr's Church
415 Edna Street
San Francisco, CA. 94112 -
Archdiocese of San Francisco Wedding Policy
In the Archdiocese of San Francisco there is a uniform policy of a six-month preparation program before a couple is married in the Catholic Church. Each parish has its own guidelines for the six-month marriage preparation program. For St. Finn Barr, please see the following:
St. Finn Barr Parish Wedding Policies
To be married at St. Finn Barr, either the bride or groom must be a Roman Catholic. You qualify as an "in parish" couple if you live within the geographic boundaries of the parish or, have been registered and active in the Parish for six months or, have been Baptized or raised in the parish and your parents were active in St. Finn Barr prior to their moving out of the parish.
If you do not meet one of the three qualifications above, then you are considered an "outside of parish" couple.
Documentation
At least six months prior to the date you plan to marry, you should meet with a Priest in the Parish. For your first meeting with him, if either of you were not baptized at St. Finn Barr, that Catholic party to the marriage should bring a Baptismal Certificate which has been issued within six months of the wedding.
Each of the parties to be married must complete a Pre-Marriage Testimony (Form A). Sometime prior to the wedding, a witness for each of the parties must complete a Pre-Marriage Witness Testimony (Form B). When possible, the witness should be a parent.
Each of the parties to be married must complete an instrument for Marriage Preparation called FOCCUS. It is an aid for your marriage preparation. It can help you study, understand, and communicate openly about many things that are important to your relationship. It is not a test or a way to predict the future. It is designed to help you target topics you need and want to discuss as a couple.
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Made For Life
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The Cathedral
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