Marriage

God created man and woman out of love and commanded them to imitate his love in their relations with each other. Man and woman were created for each other…Woman and man are equal in human dignity, and in marriage both are united in an unbreakable bond. (United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, Ch. 21, p. 279)

Preparation for an important Sacrament

The sacrament of marriage is a visible sign of God’s love for the Church. When a man and a woman are married in the Church, they receive the grace needed for a lifelong bond of unity.


Marriage preparation is the Church’s intentional process of helping an engaged couple discern, understand, and freely enter the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is not simply planning a wedding day, but forming a lifelong covenant rooted in Christ.


Through marriage prep, the Church accompanies a couple as they grow in faith, communication, and mutual self-gift, helping them understand that Christian marriage is:



  • A sacrament instituted by Christ
  • A lifelong, faithful, and exclusive covenant between one man and one woman
  • Open to the gift of life
  • A vocation—a path to holiness through love and sacrifice


To learn about Marriage Prep:

Marriage is a Covenant

The Sacrament of Marriage is a covenantal union in the image of the covenants between God and his people with Abraham and later with Moses at Mt. Sinai. This divine covenant can never be broken. In this way, marriage is a union that bonds spouses together during their entire lifetime.
The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life. (CCC 1661)
The love in a married relationship is exemplified in the total gift of one’s self to another. It’s this self-giving and self-sacrificing love that we see in our other model of marriage, the relationship between Christ and the Church.
Marriage is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is, on their will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually and definitively, in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love. (CCC 1662)
The Church takes the lifelong nature of the Sacrament of Marriage seriously. The Church teaches that a break in this covenant teaches goes against the natural law of God:
The remarriage of persons divorced from a living, lawful spouse contravenes the plan and law of God as taught by Christ. They are not separated from the Church, but they cannot receive Eucharistic communion. They will lead Christian lives especially by educating their children in the faith. (CCC 1665)

Marriage Reflects the Holy Trinity

We believe that God exists in eternal communion. Together, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united in one being with no beginning and no end. Human beings, likewise, were created by God in God’s image for the purpose of communion with another human being.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 2205). The Sacrament of Marriage is “unitive, indissoluble and calls us to be completely open to fertility.” Christian marriage at its finest is a reflection of God’s self-giving love expressed between the love of two people.

To Enrich your Marriage


The mission of Worldwide Marriage Encounter is to proclaim the value of Marriage and Holy Orders in the Church and in the world. The Worldwide Marriage Encounter experience is primarily a space for you to pause, reflect, and reconnect privately.


Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME) is the largest faith-based marriage enrichment organization in the world. Our programs have enriched and transformed the lives of married couples and priests for generations. We offer a peer-to-peer experience, typically over a weekend, where married couples and priests can pause and reflect privately on the meaning of their vocations and are given the tools for nurturing their love. Our mission is to proclaim the value of marriage and holy orders in the Church and in the world. To find out more about WWME, click here.