72. The sacrament of marriage is not a social convention, an empty ritual or merely the out- ward sign of a commitment. The sacrament is a gift given for the sanctification and salvation of the spouses, since “their mutual belonging is a real representation, through the sacramental sign, of the same relationship between Christ and the Church. The married couple are therefore a permanent reminder for the Church of what took place on the cross; they are for one another and for their children witnesses of the salvation in which they share through the sacrament”.64 Marriage is a vocation, inasmuch as it is a response to a specific call to experience conjugal love as an imperfect sign of the love between Christ and the Church. Consequently, the decision to marry and to have a family ought to be the fruit of a process of vocational discernment.
64 John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (22 November 1981), 13: AAS 74 (1982), 94.
© LIBRERIA EDITRICE VATICANA.
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