Marriage: God’s Design for Life and Love

4 June 2015

Voice of the Family welcomes the release of a new film, Marriage: God’s Design for Life and Love,  produced by St Anthony Communications. The DVD, which features interviews with His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke and Rt Rev Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, explores the depth and beauty of Catholic teaching on marriage. It also addresses threats to marriage including contraception, divorce, adultery and homosexual unions.

The DVD clearly upholds Catholic teaching on the reception of Holy Communion by divorced persons living in invalid second unions. Bishop Mark Davies explains:

“For some couples we know they make a decision to live in continence, to live as brother and sister, within a second union when they are not able to separate because of the obligations to children but in each state of life the Church is calling us towards holiness as a goal… We know that in each and every circumstance of life to receive Holy Communion we must be in a state of grace, in a readiness to enter into that Holy Communion with Christ and with His Church fully and with all of our lives.”

In his contributions Cardinal Burke explores the roots of sacramental marriage in the natural order of creation. He says:

“The account of the creation of the world reaches its high point in the creation of man and woman and in the inspired account given in the book of Genesis. It’s clear that God created man and woman for each other, to form a communion of life and we have always understood that marriage is what we call a natural sacrament, it’s a reflection of divine love because it is faithful, it is enduring and it is procreative.”

He continues:

“Marriage has become one of the seven sacraments, the natural sacrament elevated and perfected by the love of Christ, and so now the married not only enjoy that gift of love by which God created man and woman in the beginning but now Christ by His Passion and Death and Resurrection and Ascension gives grace to the married so that they can live more perfectly and fully their life.”

His Eminence encourages Catholics to give renewed witness to Catholic teaching:

“There is no question that we are living in very difficult, very challenging times, but we can’t permit ourselves to be discouraged because we know that Christ is always at work in the lives of those who have entered marriage with sincerity and is very strongly at work in those families who are striving to live their vocations as fully and perfectly as possible. So I have great hope for the future, but the future must be the way of the family, and we need to devote all our attention to help families be strong. If we have strong families they will raise up strong young men and women to be the leaders, and formers, of our society and culture for the future.”