Today, the Roman Catholic Church believes that marriage is a sacrament, a "sacred sign, instituted by Christ to give grace" (Bernard Cooke). Yet, the social practice of marriage or union between people was not always deemed a sacrament. Discuss the history and development of the belief that marriage is a sacrament. What is the significance of calling marriage a sacrament? Do you feel that marriage is/can be a sacrament? Explain. (3-4 pages) .
Considering the extreme demands of marriage, making the promises of marriage is something that should not be taken lightly. Catholics who marry must have a deep understanding of God's presence in marriage and the sacredness of the marriage covenant. In Christian marriage love between the spouses is such a fundamental block of marriage, that the marriage tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church has ruled that if love is missing from a marriage then that marriage is invalid. In the Palestinian Jewish marriage custom, marriage was regarded obligatory and was a covenant between two families. Earlier marriage between Christians did not involve any ceremony. Starting in the 4th Century when the Christians were free to practice their religion, bishops and priests were invited to wedding feasts and to bless the married couple.
Ambrose was the first Christian churchman to write that no marriage should be dissolved for any reason and insisted that not even men had the right to remarry as long as their wives were alive. One of the converts of Ambrose; Augustine took up the firm stand on the permanence of marriage. On one hand Augustine considered marriage as a beneficial social institution, for the continuation of the human kind, but on the other hand he saw sexual desires as a dangerous and destructive human energy. According to Augustine, those who remained unmarried could successfully that was associated with sex. Augustine was understood Paul's word "mysterion" to be "sacramentum" and thought of marriage as described by Paul to be a visible sign of invisible union between Christ and his spouse, the church.
