Marriage: What is the point?

I came across an interesting book on www.amazon.com, in one my meanderings. Since I am currently in the process of (perhaps) joining the Catholic Church, the book's title was of particular interest to me; "Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage To Make Us Holy More Than To Make Us Happy?". Let me say from the start that I have not read the book and do not have any plans to do so. The title, by itself, was enough to set me thinking about the purpose of marriage.

It seems to me that one thing that often plagues the modern mind is the inability to ask the right questions. It could be that our political sense has hijacked our common sense. There are some who want to redefine marriage without a thorough investigation of the nature of the social institution of marriage and all of the ramifications of such a redefinition. By the way, concerning this discussion, I would suggest reading the following article from Time Magazine.

What is the point of marriage? If it is simply the "legal" sanction to a partnership? If that is it why limit it to two persons? For that matter, what does a government have to do with the commitment of two persons? The type of questions lead to a whole slew of others that are even more complicated, like what will be the affect of abandoning natural and traditional marriage on our children and the society.

I find it interesting that the author, Gary L. Thomas, does not appear to be Catholic. However, the title of the book immediately calls to mind the Catholic (and Orthodox) view of marriage as a Sacrament, i.e., "The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Para. 1131)

In short, God Almighty instituted marriage, like everything in the natural order to make us saints. It calls to mind a now famous quote. "There is but one sadness," said Leon Bloy, "that of not being a saint." According to the Catholic Church the whole point of our creation was everlasting communion with The Holy Trinity (Sainthood). It is interesting that Satan would tell Adam and Eve that if they eat of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" then they "shall be as God". For man to be like God was, indeed, God's idea from the beginning. Incidentally, notice that Satan did not lie blatantly, but, instead twisted the meaning. It is, then, not so surprising that people who support infanticide label themselves "pro-choice". Deification or Theosis are terms used in the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The concept is the same in the western, Catholic Church.

God, through the Church, did institute the Sacramentos to make us Holy. If we understand that, it is much easier to answer the questions that I posed above. My hope is that by focusing the public debate on these type of questions, our dialog will be more fruitful. Conversely, if we continue to ignore natural realities and twist meanings, according the the Satanic method, the results will be dramatically less beneficial.