The beauty of marriage is shown in the words that the priest speaks to the couple in the marriage ceremony :

“Dear friends in Christ : As you know you are about to enter into a union which is most sacred and most serious, a union which was established by God Himself. By it He gave to man a share in the greatest work of creation, the work of the continuation of the human race. And in this way He sanctified human love and enabled man and woman to help each other live as children of God by sharing a common life under His fatherly care.

“Because God Himself is thus its author, marriage is of its very nature a holy institution, requiring of those who enter into it a complete and unreserved giving of self. But Christ our Lord added to the holiness of marriage an even deeper meaning and higher beauty.

“He referred to the love of marriage to describe His own love for His Church, that is, for the People of God whom he purchased back by His own blood. And so He gave Christians a new vision of what married life ought to be, a life of self-sacrificing love like His own. It is for this reason that His apostle, Saint Paul, clearly states that marriage is now and for all time to be considered a great mystery, intimately bound up with the supernatural union of Christ and the Church, which union is also to be its pattern.”

CHRISTIAN PRIESTS

Every race and people throughout history have chosen from their midst special representatives to make their prayers and offerings to God and to interpret God’s word to men. Such men are called priests.

This vocation of a priest is to live in the service of the altar. He, as Scripture says, “is taken from among men and appointed their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” This does not mean that his work is restricted to a mere ritual confined to the precincts of the church. For the Christian, the altar is the meeting-point of God and man. There, God’s redeeming love is tangibly made known to man; and there man responds in the most fitting way to this love by offering himself with Christ to the Heavenly Father. Hence the sublimity of the office of a priest as he stands daily at the altar.

Besides, the priest is like the father of a family. As a father cares for his family, so too must the priest spend himself entirely in the service of God’s household (the People of God). Like Christ, an example to the members of the Church and a fearless leader of His people. And like Christ, he must also be ready to lay down his life, if need be, in the service of Christ and His Church.

Such a vocation cannot be lived without the very special help of God. And so we see that Christ has blessed the priesthood in a special way, making it a sacrament whereby weak men are appointed priests of God.