On their wedding day, spouses promise to love one another according to the mystery of Christ's love in fidelity, permanence and openness to life. Spouses thus live the sacrament of Christian marriage by allowing the love promised on one's wedding day to be represented daily in one's life through word and deed.

But a couple can live the sacrament of marriage even in a culture hostile toward self-sacrifice and seemingly disinterested with fidelity to one's promise if they keep in mind these essential elements.

First, keep God first. Spouses on their wedding day profess their love before God and the Church, and so they should return daily to God in prayer and ask for assistance to be faithful to what they have promised. Participating in the sacramental life of the Church will also allow for their continuous renewal and transformation. In the sacrifice of the Mass, for example, spouses encounter the way God loves and are nourished to offer themselves to their spouse in His image.

In penance, spouses have the opportunity to repent from sin, which can often be a form of infidelity to the marital covenant. The life of grace that flows from these sacraments then becomes a meaningful invitation to greater transformation in Christ, the very image of how spouses have promised to love one another.

Second, seek to make a more generous gift of yourself by addressing those areas of life that impede love. One way a married couple does this is by living the virtues, especially purity, within their lives. Purity finds in the beloved one worthy of the best that "I am," and so one gladly fulfills the command of Jesus to lay down one's life for a friend.

Bringing the mind and heart of Christ into conversations and judgments about the use of media as well as one's habits and patterns of interacting can help ensure that those to whom we have promised our best will not be taken for granted.

Third, keep in mind that although the sacrament is a gift for the couple, it is also meant to open the couple to be.a gift for the Church and the community. Accordingly, does a couple's use of time. talent and treasure reflect the generosity with which God loves humanity? Here it is also essential to seek to be responsible parents. Responsible not only when it comes to determining family size. but also in determining how one stewards that decision.

In the end. a couple living a Sacramental marriage sees m every moment and decision the opportunity to manifest their love for one another in Christ. This is love's labor and it is meant to last a lifetime.

Father Peter Laird