The church today is asking how it can better fulfill its commitment to married couples and support them on their married journey. A more developed theology of marriage is needed. And Christian couples must offer support to one another on their married journey, coming together, as many couples are already doing, to pray, discuss, and offer mutual help in living out the challenges of married life. In many marriage ceremonies today, members of the Christian community come forward as the couple makes their commitment to one another, to bless and to pray for them and to pledge their love and support. The community needs to live out the full meaning of such rites.
Married life is indeed a superb context for growth in Christian holiness.
Its apparent ordinariness is the kind of milieu in which Jesus found God and served God fully. Couples and their families continue to reveal this God to one another and to the world, living out the full meaning of marriage as sacrament. This is a vocation that calls for selfless love in changing and sometimes frightening circumstances, a love founded on trust in the goodness and faithfulness of God, who has given the partners in a marriage covenant to one another as one of his greatest gifts. See also no. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church , no.