The Vocation of Marriage

The fundamental vocation of Christian married partners is to love one another as Christ has loved them. In the words of Lacordaire, they must each aim to be the other's "particular Christ." Their love, sealed by the sign of the Cross, looks to Christ on the Cross. Not only do they find here the model of the love they are called to have for one another; they are also made capable, by the crucified Christ himself, of having that love for each other, and of persevering in it through all difficulties and renewing it in spite of all failures. Their vocation is at the same time a wider one. Christ's love reaches out to all, and so the love of husband and wife reaches out to their children and beyond their children to their children's children and to the community. They become channels of Christ's love. The special vocation of married people is to show how the world can be made new by Christ's new commandment: "love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).
—Love is for Life: Pastoral Letter of the Irish Bishops, 1985