Catholic Herald

Your kids probably won’t tell you that the best gift you ever gave them was a good marriage. But you can bet it will be true.
In 2005, the United States Council of Catholic Bishops began the “For Your Marriage” national pastoral initiative. A new website (ForYourMarriage.org) and radio and TV advertisements offered practical, marriage-strengthening resources for dioceses, parishes, and couples themselves.

Why would such an initiative be necessary? Because research shows that children raised by two married parents with a strong, respectful commitment are physically and emotionally healthier than children of divorced parents or children raised in a high-conflict setting.

Marriage matters because, as Pope John Paul II said in Familiaris Consortio, the “future of humanity passes by way of the family.” A committed union between a man and a woman displays God’s plan for human life and models the life-giving and self-giving love that renew a society.

In a November 2009 pastoral letter called “Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan,” the United States Council of Catholic Bishops reiterated the consistent Catholic teaching that marriage is an exclusive, intimate union that “cannot be dissolved by the will of the spouses.” Authored by God, marriage and conjugal love establish a unique sharing of persons that results in “special gifts of grace and divine love.”

Sheila Garcia, Associate Director for the Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family, and Youth, describes marriage as a vocation: “a way that God calls people to become holy.” This calling, concretized in the Sacrament of Matrimony, results in a marital bond that “is an image of how Christ loves his Church.”

So how can you teach your kids about the importance of the Sacrament of Matrimony? Especially when cultural and political changes appear to deemphasize its social and moral significance?

Tell them it’s like chocolate milk. That’s how Texas parents Adam and Lerin Wheeless explained the sacrament to their then-six-year-old daughter. At her blog, “Beautiful Chaos,” Lerin described Adam’s metaphor: “When you make chocolate milk, you combine two things: chocolate and milk…Could you decide to take the chocolate out of the milk again?”

After their daughter denied such a possibility, Adam continued: “Well, when you get married, God does the same thing. When we stand before the altar in Church and exchange our vows, the two become one, a new creation.”

You can’t un-make a valid, sacramental marriage, just as you can’t un-make chocolate milk. And the most meaningful way to communicate the immense value of that new creation is to strengthen your own.

A healthy, lifelong commitment requires a focus on communication and conflict resolution. Programs such as Worldwide Marriage Encounter, the largest pro-marriage movement in the Catholic Church, teach couples these necessary techniques.

Built entirely around private sharing between a husband and wife, Worldwide Marriage Encounter retreats help participants rediscover the person they fell in love with. Karen Seaborn, currently serving as Worldwide Marriage Encounter United States leadership along with her husband Scott, describes the experience as a conversion. “Many couples truly do fall in love with each other again,” she says. “They learn to listen to each other in a new way.”

Children need to know how special the marriage bond is, and their parents’ witness communicates that more powerfully than any other. Invest in your marriage, and you deepen the bond that sustains your family. You may never hear a “thank you,” but you can be sure your kids will benefit from that gift for the rest of their lives.