The Year of the Family

The Sacrament of Matrimony is dealt with in the Catechism from paragraphs 1601 to 1666. N.1601 is the definition of the sacrament taken from The Code of Canon Law: “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 the education of offspring: this covenant between persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.”

The definition presents us with the basics and the 65 paragraphs that follow explore that definition from its roots in sacred Scripture to the understanding of the family as ‘the Domestic Church’.