I met her at seminary, five

years ago, in what we Catholics call a holy hour an hour spent in prayer,

adoring, thanking and praising God for all his great and glorious gifts,

not the least of which is our life and our salvation, Jesus Christ.

Being far from home, just three

miles below the Mason-Dixon Line, it was just as comforting to be in the

presence of my God as it was to hear her beautiful Southern lilt warming

up the worship hymns filling the homely chapel where we gathered. She

was young, beautiful and full of the life and joy of the Holy Spirit,

and her voice and mannerisms brought to mind all that I missed and longed

for in my Southern roots.

Soon enough we had become close

friends.

She was from Sumter, S.C.,

a town spared the ravages of the Union armies, rich in the traditions

of stately homes with large porches and tree-lined streets. Her boyfriend

had followed her from there to Mount Saint Mary's College, which shared

campus and facilities with Mount Saint Mary's Seminary, where I was enrolled.

They were a wonderful pair,

longtime sweethearts who knew each other's every thought, and shared a

common faith and vision in life. They were famous on campus not only for

their frequent attendance at holy hours, but also for the talks on chastity

and virginity they would give to high school youth in the area.

But something happened on the

way to heaven, so the song goes, and they went their separate ways, aching

in their hearts, knowing how difficult it would be to discover again so

special, so holy a companion in this sexually disordered world.

Last fall I got a call from

Hilary. "I've met this guy ... and I think he's the one! We're coming

to town and I'd like you to meet him. Can you make some time?"

Could I make some time? I love

this girl like a sister, for I see Christ in her every thought, word and

action. One of God's most innocent creatures, and now, having just completed

her healing from this painful chapter, she's ready to settle on the first

thing that comes along and wants me to validate this?!

The news got worse; he was

a West Point graduate, helicopter pilot, finishing training at Ft. Rucker,

Ala. Being the son of a Navy pilot and knowing what the

training atmosphere at most bases is, I thought with Nathaniel, can anything

good come out of Rucker? Needless to say, a follow-up call by her mother,

full of her concerns that a lifetime of love and nurturing and protection

was about to be undone by some upstart serviceman, had me in full prime

to head this guy off at the pass.

But I had plenty of reason

to pause. First, Hilary is still a level-headed, Christ-centered woman.

After graduating last May, she took a job teaching an abstinence-based

chastity program to inner city high schools in Philadelphia, not the easiest

thing for a petite Southern young lady to do. Secondly, a Godly friend

of mine at seminary, another West Point graduate who was called by God

to the chaplain corps from the mine detonation corps, had introduced them.

Finally, she still respected and desired my opinion before allowing herself

to be fully given over to him.

So we arranged to meet, and

had dinner in the Newnan Applebee's. She was more bubbly and alive than

I had ever remembered; he was quiet and studious, while given to break

out spontaneously in warm, slow smiles. There was a definite peace there,

as we bowed our heads to pray. In a few minutes, he excused himself to

the restroom (it had been a long, three-hour drive), and she took the

opportunity to share a beautiful moment with me.

It had happened a few days

before. They were on a date when they began to discuss and then read the

Bible. As time passed he grew silent, and she looked up to find tears

in his eyes. Asking him what was the matter, he responded with a gentle

kiss on the lips. Stunned, she sat back as he quietly informed her that

she was the first girl he had ever kissed. "Then why did you?"

she asked. "Because you are the one I've been waiting for,"

he replied.

An Army pilot, rough and tough,

athletic virgin to the point he had never even kissed a girl before, and

a girl who was as pure and alive as the first day of spring; this was

truly something glorious to behold. Here was no ordinary couple, distracted

found in extramarital sex and self-gratification. This relationship was

founded upon the rock of truth, the truth of what it means to be human,

and to be in relation

with one another; and was being developed by the principles of love, as

set forth by Jesus Christ. No, it was no ordinary couple, and it would

be no ordinary marriage.

Marriage, in the Catholic Church,

is seen as an institution so close to the heart of God as to have been

elevated to the level of sacrament by Jesus Christ. A sacrament is most

simply defined as a physical sign, or symbol, pointing to or representing

a spiritual reality. Water is used at baptism, not because God has to

have water to wash away our sins and make us his sons and daughters, but

because we need to have a physical sign through which we can grasp and

understand what is happening spiritually, as well as have a verifiable

instant in which we can be sure that this essential moment in our salvation

has indeed occurred.

Marriage is a sacrament, therefore,

precisely because as it seeks to achieve its ideal, it points to and reveals

the union between Christ and his church. What we see in Ephesians 5 concerning

marriage is termed a mystery, a mysterion, something holy, because it

refers to Christ and the church.

This is born out when we take

a simple survey of the Scriptures. Beginning in Genesis we find God creating

Adam and Eve, and instantaneously upon creating them, he marries them,

using the time worn formula: "Therefore a man shall leave his father

and mother and cling to his wife and the two shall become one flesh."

For God and his love are often invisible and hard to comprehend, and so

it was not good that man should be alone but should rather have someone

with whom to be wholly given and to wholly receive in imitation and reflection

of the love of God never to replace or supercede it.

Thus our Lord reminds us that

marriage is simply a sign for this life, for when we get to heaven and

see the source and summit of all love, there will be no need for the sign

or symbol and therefore "no giving and taking in marriage."

But in the meantime he gets a lot of mileage out of the closely related

symbol.

Throughout the Old Testament,

he pursues his people Israel as a suitor would his beloved, wooing her

with gifts and calling her with gentle words. Hence when she goes astray,

he responds like a spurned lover, calling her not only idolatrous, but

unfaithful and

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