“Marriage is not a lifelong attraction of two individuals to each other, but a call for two people to witness together to God’s love.

The basis of marriage is not mutual affection, or feelings, or emotions and passions that we associate with love, but a vocation, a being elected to build together a house for God in this world, to be like the two cherubs whose outstretched wings sheltered the Ark of the Covenant and created a space where Yahweh could be present. 

Marriage is a relationship in which a man and a woman protect and nurture the inner sanctum within and between them and witness to that by the way in which they love each other… the intimacy of marriage itself is an intimacy that is based on the common participation in a love greater than the love two people can offer each other.

The real mystery of marriage is not that husband and wife love each other so much that they can find God in each other’s lives, but that God loves them so much that they can discover each other more and more as living reminders of God’s presence.

They are brought together, indeed, as two prayerful hands extended toward God and forming in this way a home for God in this world.”  

–Henri Nouwen