Why should i get married in the Catholic Church

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This is what got me, anamchara, and why it’s my opinion he just doesn’t care:
Questioning said:
I am a Catholic, I just do not see the over all reason for being married within The Church by a priest.

I was baptized and everything else, i just don’t understand why it is important.

Ok, i am starting my life out with God in his house.** Can’t i just do the same if we went to Vegas and started going to church later. Is not our marriage the same?**

Thank you for all your comments this really helps.
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No, he can’t. He simply can’t undo what he did, and it’s not the same.

And it might seem harsh, but I was going for forceful. Sometimes people need forceful. Why lie? Why be gentle? Despite all this “Jesus was meek” Jessus also had some force to Him when necessary.

I really hate to see this guy do something he’ll regret later down the road.

In the movie “My Big, Fat Greek Wedding” the heroine, Fortula, gets so upset by wedding planning, she tries to talk her fiance into running away to Vegas. And he refuses. Why? Because he tells her they are not going off as if they’re ashamed of themselves for marrying.

For a Catholic to run away to Vegas seems to me to be because they are ashamed of what is being done. As a mother and grandmother, I’m pretty sure that’s behind hs mother’s way of thinking, along with the fact that this is a sacrament.

His girlfriend deserves better than a quick trip to Vegas. So does he. They do not need a big fancy wedding and a “snow beast” weddding dress, the sacarment God created.
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
This is what got me, anamchara, and why it’s my opinion he just doesn’t care:

Thank you for clearing that up.
And it might seem harsh, but I was going for forceful. Sometimes people need forceful. Why lie? Why be gentle? Despite all this “Jesus was meek” Jessus also had some force to Him when necessary.
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A Catholic is obliged by the laws of the Church to be married by a priest, in a Catholic ceremony, unless dispensed from these obligations. If wedded otherwise, a Catholic’s marriage is invalid.
 
I’m sure it has already been said, but a Catholic who weds outside the Church can not have the Sacraments. What this means to you now may not be what it means to you later.
 
I am not going to go by the rules and I will just let you know about my experience.

I received my sacraments when I was quite young. When I entered adulthood I stopped going to church and I was not a practicing catholic when I decided to get married. However, because of family wisdom (brainwashing) I got engaged with a catholic woman and we decided to get married in the church. This was our decision without any (name removed by moderator)ut from the families.

The day of our wedding we had the privilege of having our marriage blessed by Pope JPII ( it was a kind act from an old friend that made the request for us). After the wedding we did not go to church again. A few years later we had our son and again because of tradition we had him baptized. Immediately after that I decided that my son would grow up by doing the right thing if not by choice, it would be by the fear of God. Because of my son we realized that we belonged to the church and we were welcomed back.

My marriage goes through difficult times and I believe that we are still married, instead of taking the easy way out, because we are catholics. In moments of stress I prayed to JPII asking him to keep helping us and things improved.

I am just trying to say that even if I did not attend church, being raised as a catholic is what has always defined who I am. Even if I did not go to church being catholic and trying to stick to the traditions is what managed to keep my life in shape.

I know that if I did not get married in the church I would have divorced within a few years, I would have probably left my son with my wife and forgot about them. I know that doing what we know is right (even if we really do not understand) is what keeps us safe from the garbage that goes on in this world.
 
From what you stated initially I wouldn’t get married in a Catholic Church. This will sound sarcastic but it’s not. It will likely save you from having to go through the annulment process should you decide to marry again in the church. From what you stated about “long time fiancee” and (presumably) not feeling the need to set a date or having an active faith tradition, statistically speaking the marriage has a great risk of failing.

The larger issue is to look at the lack of a faith tradition. We are hard wired to yearn reconcilliation with God. Having been brought up in a faithful household, but not feeling an innate pull towards God, I would suggest taking a look at those issues. If you just “did the church thing” as a child it would be helpful to research the Catholic Church as an adult. One’s perception of faith as a child is distinctly different than as an adult. You may find a deep connection which was never uncovered by mandatory attendance and rote memorization.

Peace,

Steve
 
You know I remember not wanting to go to church just to rebel against my father. I thought that he had a power trip and just wanted to tell me what to do. I was 16 and knew everything.

My grandmother (dads mom) was a devout Catholic and when I showed her a picture of my boyfriend she had said that if I should marry that I should do it in the church.

My dad said if I married anywhere else it wasn’t valid. It was like I hadn’t married at all. I would be living in sin.The word fornication rings a bell. Forget receiving Communion (because I would no longer be in communion with the church) and Confession? Forget about it.

I’m really glad I listened to my father and my grandmother. I didn’t completely understand them then, but I trusted them. They loved me and they desired Heaven for me.I understand it now. The greatest way to show someone you love them is to lead them to the path of salvation.

Your mother must really love you.

Won’t you honor her in return?

The funny thing about it is some people listen to the world more then the church that God gave us.

Think about it if you decide to marry in Vegas you need a judge. You still can’t just say to your girlfriend “you’re my wife” and she is. You have to obey the laws of the state. What are the laws of Vegas? You don’t even live in Vegas and you are willing to obey the rules that they have.
And think about it where did our country get its laws?
From the Bible.
Where did we get the Bible?
From the church.

Make any sense?

At baptism your God parents and your parents made a promise to raise you in the Catholic Church. When you walked all by yourself to receive Jesus for the first time you took those vows for yourself. Listen next time that you attend a baptism. We are renewing the oath our parents made for us, on our own.
The grace of the sacrament of Matrimony

1641
"By reason of their state in life and of their order, [Christian spouses] have their own special gifts in the People of God.

" This grace proper to the sacrament of Matrimony is intended to perfect the couple’s love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity.

By this grace they “help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in welcoming and educating their children.”

**1642 **
Christ is the source of this grace.

“Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of
Matrimony.”

Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,"and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love.

In the joys of their love and family life he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb:

For more on what the church teaches click here:
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
usccb.org/catechism/text/pt2sect2chpt3art7.htm#iv
 
There is perhaps another issue working within the question by Questioner.

This is a repeat of a post I made on another thread, but I think it is relevant. So here goes:

Re: Did I swim the Tiber for this???
Some years ago, I encountered a person like this.

It made me feel totally humiliated. I was unable to respond … at all … in any way.

Then I stumbled “accidentally” onto a serialization of Karl Keating’s book “Catholicism and Fundamentalism”. It blew me away.

I started buying books and reading them; studying some and skimming others. This Rock magazine was a big help.

I liked some of the EWTN programs more than others. Some of their taped lecture series are fabulous.

Began to intensively study a few topics of interest: the life of Martin Luther; the origins of the Church’s position on abortion … which led to the original text of the Didache … just followed threads. Some interwove with other threads. Some didn’t.

Fr. Germain Grisez … writing about Moral Dilemmas (volume 3)

Fr. Thomas Green on “Weeds Among the Wheat”.

DeStefano’s book on Heaven.

Dinesh D’Souza. Scott Hahn. Joan Carol Cruz.

The only problem I have now is finding room for all those books!

Daily Mass. Daily Rosary. Frequent Eucharistic Adoration. Prayer partners with dozens of people.

Start off comfortably and just start adding on “as the Spirit moves us”.

Looking back, it’s been an exceptionally interesting period in my development and evolution.

And it hasn’t stopped. It’s still going on.

So, start with Karl Keating’s book, and just go from there.
 
anamchara said:
Thank you for clearing that up.

We are different then. I never resort to forceful especially with people who haven fallen away. That tactic would have never won we me over when I wasn’t following my faith. I think my post was very clear and said the same thing. I see no need for force. That’s just me. We just think differently my friend 🙂

Perhaps the OP will come back at some point and give us good news. I’ll be praying.
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youtube.com/watch?v=qAt55qJCYro

youtube.com/watch?v=GivH6JCyMgg

Marriage is sacred it is holy. We should treat it as such.

youtube.com/watch?v=FY98n30n8WY

Wow what a difference.

Its like fastfood vs homemade.

How can anyone take their marriage so lightly?

And if homemade takes a awhile, let’s look 40 years down the road:

youtube.com/watch?v=MRvjMHzIBe0

How’s that? From starter soup to double-layer chocolate cake with triple-fudge icing. That’s real Catholic marriage (together for life, not wedding- the 1 time event).
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ooohh that is sooooooooooooo true!

Thank you for your post!

I want to do something like that for my husband and me.

We have been married 16 years. We have been together 20 years!

We started dating when he was 14 (he turned 15 two weeks later)😊 and I was 16!

We have 5 children.

We married in the church and received the grace from God to sustain our marriage.

And oh how we have needed that!

Everybody knows fastfood can"t compete with good homecooking!
 
fellowChristian said:
ooohh that is sooooooooooooo true!

Thank you for your post!

I want to do something like that for my husband and me.

We have been married 16 years. We have been together 20 years!

We started dating when he was 14 (he turned 15 two weeks later)😊 and I was 16!

We have 5 children.

We married in the church and received the grace from God to sustain our marriage.

And oh how we have needed that!

Everybody knows fastfood can"t compete with good homecooking!
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Well, that dear couple (and they are a very dear couple, and a good example) has been homecookin’ for 40 years! Their son made the slide show for them.
 
fellowChristian said:
ooohh that is sooooooooooooo true!

Thank you for your post!

I want to do something like that for my husband and me.

We have been married 16 years. We have been together 20 years!

We started dating when he was 14 (he turned 15 two weeks later)😊 and I was 16!

We have 5 children.

We married in the church and received the grace from God to sustain our marriage.

And oh how we have needed that!

Everybody knows fastfood can"t compete with good homecooking!
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We were married in the Protestant Church and our marriage has lasted for 22 yrs and still going strong 😉 we have three daughters. I loved our wedding regardless that we didn’t marry in the Catholic Church. It was still very holy and beautiful as God was the center.
 
anamchara said:
We were married in the Protestant Church and our marriage has lasted for 22 yrs and still going strong 😉 we have three daughters. I loved our wedding regardless that we didn’t marry in the Catholic Church. It was still very holy and beautiful as God was the center.
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But Elvis was not at the center. Sigfried and Roy were not at the center. You did not opt for a drive-thru ceremony. And you did not slink away as if you were doing something wrong (did you?).

Please look at my friend’s 40th anniversary slide show. “Love’s not something we’re in, it’s something that we do.” For a Catholic, that love deserves to be declared publically, with family and friends- esp. the groom’s mother. They do not have to have a huge ceremony and a giant white dress and a 50-piece orchestra. But they do need God, and not Elivs, at the center.
 
Wow, people seem to have jumped right to harsh and skipped benefit of the doubt. When i read the OP i got the impression of someone who just doesn’t do the church thing, is probably fallen away, and wants to know why being married in the physical BUILDING is so important and not having the romantic beach wedding they see so popular from Hollywood, which is a totally valid question in today’s culture. After all, don’t we know God is everywhere not just in the church building?:rolleyes: (Who hasn’t heard this one?)

The satisfying answer to this is not as simple as the very valid “because the Church says so.” Many HAVE posted good points about it being a sacrament, and how that means for life, but to truly appreciate the Church’s rule on getting married in a church, you have to go way into depth on the issue. As short and simplistic as I can make it…

The whole idea of the Church is to get us to be united with God. The only way to do that is to get to heaven, but it is also our job here on earth to be as God-like as we can be, and everything the Church rules are for is to help us achieve the most Godly lives we can. Many of them are in small ways, but eventually add up to the big picture. So, since marriage is a sacrament, and those are usually once in a life time events, and they are HUGE undertaking to be carefully and prayerfully considered to aviod horrible mistakes, the Church puts lots of safeguards in there. They require marrage prep, which i will fully admit at the time I thought was a stupid requirement, and only went through it becaue it was a rule, but afterwards thought, wow, that WAS really somethign designed to help ensure I was not doing somethign stupid and poorly thought out. Love can blind you to the fact that you are TOTALLY thinking of marrying the wrong person. And if you approach it with even a half open mind and have a decent program you can still benefit.

So fast forward to the actual ceremony. If this is something special and you really are serious about this being a major commitment to another person that you will NEVER break, then you would want to do somethign special to show this. Legally (in the secular sense) it can be as special as appearing before a judge for a traffic ticket. sign some papers say a vow, next please. But these legal arrangements are easily broken and don’t have the same meaning. A SACRAMENT is somethign special by its very nature. So the Church again tries to safeguard this specialness by making rules for it that help ensure no one will be getting married willy nilly, or that the event itself is less than reverent. If you want to go to the beach, do it for your honeymoon. But church buildings are specailly consecrated to the purpose. The ceremony is designed to point you toward God and realize the seriousness of the undertaking you are trying. They can be simple ceremonies, or elaborate affairs, but they should always be reverent. Vegas or the beach can’t guarantee that (could be, but might not be) the Church pretty much can. Therefore, that is why the rules exist…to help YOU the people involved, and all your guests and witnesses to realize the importance and benefits of this wonderful jioning of 2 people for life.

Like i said, pretty simplistic, but i think it covers the basics of why just anyplace isn’t good enough, even if God is everywhere.
 
Do you truly love your fiancee? Do you plan to be with her the rest of your life? Do you want to have children? If so, the preparation you will get and the grace God gives you in the sacrament of matrimony will help you to stay together and have a happy life. Marriage is a sacred thing. You are saying to each other that you are totally trusting each other with your bodies and your lives. Las Vegas isn’t a sacred place. Getting married there is kind of like saying you are in the relationship for excitement and fun. If you want to be cherished in good times and bad, opt for a Catholic wedding. Best wishes to you. So many people today just want to live together without committment. You are on the right path. Please keep an open mind about the church.
 
I have been reading the replies to this question. However, I am confused about a couple of points.

If you are Catholic and the person you marry is not Catholic and has not ever been married in the Catholic church, does that Catholic Church consider your marriage invalid?
 
adavis said:
I have been reading the replies to this question. However, I am confused about a couple of points.

If you are Catholic and the person you marry is not Catholic and has not ever been married in the Catholic church, does that Catholic Church consider your marriage invalid?
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A Catholic can marry a Protestant validly. Various rules apply for any marriage. One is that both parties are free to contract marriage (for example, they aren’t married to someone else already). Sometimes there are extra things that are required, like a dispensation. A “dispensation” is like getting special permission. This applies here. A Catholic may also marry someone who is not baptized, and that also requires permission.

Some of what will be asked is how the children will be raised in the faith.
 
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