"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotton by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love."
(1John 4:7-8)
Marriage, like the other sacraments, is about God's love and action in our lives. The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human insititution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in differnet cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. The differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. (CCC 1603)
The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament. (CCC 1660)
Marriage like all sacraments takes preparation.