10th November 2011

Quote

Our Convalidation

Marriage is your vocation…
One of life’s great puzzles is that so few married couples regard their state in life as a vocation. If your brother or sister planned to become a priest or a nun, you would not doubt that he or she had been called to a special way of life by God, Should they change their minds and marry, you would accept as explanation that they had lost their vocation. Yet your vocation as a married man or woman is just as much a call by God as that to the religious life. You are asked to do a different work: to become parents and to make each other happy, the while working for the salvation of all the souls entrusted to your care. And this sacred trust, since God has called you to it, is the best possible vocation for you. Your marriage is not to be belittled as some second-rate way of life.
This is where God wants you to be. Matrimony is the state God from all eternity summoned you to. He arranged the order of events and permitted you so to organize your life that providentially you and your mate would meet, attract each other, marry, and setup your own unique Christian Home.

This way of life to which you were directed by God’s inspiration, therefore, is a holy and exalted state. As the priest shares God’s redemptive power through Holy Orders, you share His
creative power through matrimony. The priest is elated with the sublimity of his vocation because he teaches, rules, sanctifies,and administers the sacraments in the name of Jesus Christ. Why should you not be equally elated because you are His instrument, His tool in the work
of creation? You are the one He calls upon to initiate a precious human being, to teach it, to develop its soul, mind, character, and to guide it along the path toward a good life here and eternal life hereafter. By His own will, He chose to depend on you. Consider that fact carefully - and you will regard your marriage as a truly noble state.

— The Catholic Marriage Manual - Rev. George A. Kelly
All photos taken from my personal collection - hosted on Flickr - Click any Photo for the set / larger version.

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