The Marriage Union was made sacred by God Himself and for a lifetime. God's love truly shines forth in a married couple's life when they place Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in the center of their lives. With His help, they seek to live in accordance with the Lord's commandment, "love one another as I have loved you." (John 15:12)
Marriage entails "for better or for worse" an unconditional acceptance of all joys and sufferings in marriage. Love is a decision to daily forgive, not dependent on feelings but on commitment to love until "death do us part." God alone established Marriage; therefore, marriage does work when we follow His way of love. As Christ sacrificed Himself for us, so we too must sacrifice ourselves for our spouse, totally.
Before Marriage, Catholics are commanded to date only Catholics, who love God with their whole heart and soul. Scripture warns: "Bear not the yoke with unbelievers." (2 Cor. 6:14)
Our Lord's teaching that marriage is indissoluble is clear. He said to the Pharisees who questioned Him about the lawfulness of divorce: "Have ye not read that he who made men from the beginning, made them male and female, and He said: for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." (Matt. 19, 34:6)
Christ absolutely forbade divorce with no exceptions: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery." (Mark 10: 11,12) Again, St. Paul reminds us in Sacred Scripture: "But to them that are married, not I but the Lord commandeth, that the wife depart not from her husband. And if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the husband put away his wife." (1 Cor. 7, 10:11)
The words of Christ and St. Paul are most clear. They stigmatize the remarriage of either spouse with a third party as adultery. (Matt. 10:11; Luke 16:18); they declare that if a just cause for separation exists, the parties must remain single or become reconciled: (1 Cor. 7:10); they assert that death alone can dissolve the marriage bond. (Rom. 7:2; 1 Cor. 7:39)
The State is no guide in the matter of divorce as St. John Chrysostom remarked over a thousand years ago. He writes: "Do not cite the civil law, made by outsiders which command a bill be issued and a divorce granted. For it is not according to these laws that the Lord will judge thee on the Last Day, but according to those which He Himself has given."