The observances of National Marriage Week (Feb. 7-14) and World Marriage Day (Sunday, Feb. 14) are an opportunity to focus on building a culture of life and love that begins with supporting and promoting marriage and the family. The theme for 2021 is "To Have, To Hold, To Honor."
The theme for this year’s celebration of National Marriage Week recalls the vows spouses made to each other on their wedding day. This exchange of consent “is the indispensable element that ‘makes the marriage’” (CCC 1626). Couples are invited to meditate on how they live out their vows in their daily lives. National Marriage Week is an opportunity for married couples to reflect on how they have grown together since their wedding day and to ponder how they can continue to grow in loving and honoring their spouse.
Every marriage is meant to be a little icon of the love of Christ and his bride, the Church. The love shared between a man and a woman in holy matrimony points us to the self-emptying, self-sacrificing love God has for each one of us.
The vows that married couples make to each other illustrate what this love looks like lived out in the day-to-day experience: to have and to hold, exclusively, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to cherish, to honor until death. A person gives themselves totally as a true gift to their spouse.
Pope Francis reminds us that where there is love, there is God. “The image of God is the married couple: the man and the woman; not only the man, not only the woman, but both of them together. This is the image of God: love, God’s covenant with us is represented in that covenant between man and woman. And it is very beautiful,” he said.
Bishop Edward Malesic reminds us to take time during National Marriage Week and World Marriage Day to reflect on the importance of married life.
“Marriage is call from God for a man and a woman to be pledged partners for life and witnesses of God’s love. We need this witness of committed, sacrificial and life-giving love. Let us pray for more married vocations. We also pray for married couples that their marital covenant may always remain strong, that those who are struggling in their relationships might overcome any difficulties and that the lives of those who live out this special vocation will be blessed with deep love and happiness.”
Click here for more information about National Marriage Week and World Marriage Day.