MARRIAGE
Welcome to Good Shepherd for preparation for your marriage. This is truly a wonderful time in your lives. As pastor of Good Shepherd, it is my wish that your marriage preparations run smoothly and be a source of great help to you in as you construct your home and family life. The priest and laity assisting in your preparation will do everything possible to make you feel welcomed and supported in this journey.
The marriage guidelines included here are intended as an informative aide to help bring dignity to the Sacrament of Matrimony. Should you have questions regarding their interpretation, the priest arranging your marriage, will be glad to help you.
Archdiocese of Miami Wedding Preparation Guidelines
A Wedding Date can be set, only once both parties are free to marry in the Catholic Church. Please call the office to schedule a preliminary meeting with one of our priests to begin your marriage preparations.
Catechetical References on the dignity of the Marriage
Matrimonial Covenant Between a Man and a Woman
"The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament" (Catechism 1601).
God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love. Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator's eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: "And God blessed them, and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it'" (Genesis 1:28). "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh" (Catechism 1605).
Through the work of Marriage: (Catechism 1601-1642)
- we become an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man
- we become an efficacious sign of Christ's presence
- we become a sacrament of the covenant of Christ and the Church; authentic married love is caught up into divine love
- we receive from God the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the Reign of God; all difficulties are manageable for those who accept the grace of marriage which is a fruit of Christ's cross.
Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony. Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow Him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another's burdens, to be subject to one another out of reverence to Christ, and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love.