Marriage

In 2005 Jane and I went to Auschwitz, that terrible concentration camp in Poland where more than a million people lost their lives in the Second World War, 90% of them being put to death for being Jews. While we were there we visited the cell in which the Franciscan Friar Maximillian Kolbe was starved to death. An attempt had been made to escape from the camp and the authorities had responded by picking a group of prisoners for execution. They were to be shut in a cell and starved to death. One man, who was picked, cried out “my poor wife and children!” Kolbe, who as a friar was unmarried, stepped forward and said: ‘this man needs life more than me, let me take his place’. The astonished guards agreed and Kolbe was led off with the group to die. The story goes that they went to their deaths singing hymns. Although they died, in a sense they had won. In that dark place which was designed to remove all traces of humanity from the prisoners, Kolbe had shown all the prisoners that they were of such value that he was prepared to give his life for one of them. Nothing the Nazis could do could invalidate that.

Of course Kolbe acted as he did because he believed that his Christian Faith demanded it. His inspiration was Jesus, who gave his life for his friends, even though most of them had totally let him down. The heart of the Christian Faith is this self-giving death on a cross and the victory of love over death that is represented by the Resurrection.

Nothing we, the human race, did to Jesus could defeat the transforming love of God. That is why the Christian Gospel is such Good News.

Marriage is seen as a sacrament, because it provides the possibility of such transforming and self-giving love to be lived out in the deep commitment between two people who give themselves to each other in total commitment. As the rings are exchanged, each says to the other, not only ‘all that I have I share with you’ but also ‘all that I am I give to you’.

Marriage therefore becomes an arena in which we work out in practical ways the kind of love that God has for his world. As we go about this day, we should remember that each of us is so precious that Jesus was prepared to give his life for us. To be held in such love transforms all human living.