Christ Our Light Catholic Church - Loudonville, NY

February 8 and February 9
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

From Deacon Dick~ 

Today we celebrate World Marriage Day.  The Fathers of the 2^nd Vatican Council (1962-65) saw marriage primarily as a sharing of life between two human beings who love each other.  Marriage is different from other sacraments…it has a secular, worldly character…BUT it’s this worldly character that points to God and makes God present…In this way sacramental marriage has the power to point beyond itself to the infinite.  The very way of life of married couples is a continuous, living sacrament.

         Through the sacrament of marriage, each person pledges to witness Christ’s love to the other and to the world.  This was put very poignantly in the lines from the movie, Shall We Dance (2004), when the wife says:

Or, put another way:

Why is it that people get married?

Because we need a witness to our lives.

There are a billion people on the planet.

What does any one life really mean?

But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything…

The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things,

All of it… all the time, every day.

You’re saying “Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.

Your life will not go unwitnessed - because I will be your witness.”