When I got engaged, I was working at the Marriage Tribunal for the Diocese of Arlington, VA. I was also processing my parents’ unhealthy relationship that was on the brink of unraveling. Surrounded by broken marriages in both my personal and professional life, it was an intense time to be preparing for the sacrament of matrimony myself. Add to the mix the fact that I am one of those type A people who need to know what to expect. I like to have everything laid out, every potential issue named and a plan in place for how to handle them. 

Needless to say, my then-fiancé and I had many, many conversations about what it means to get married in the Catholic Church and what kind of challenges we assumed we’d face in our own life together, and I am very grateful for those conversations. We discussed finances, where to live, the philosophy and sexual ethics of St. John Paul II, as well as the meaning of permanence, fidelity, and openness to children. We were blessed to do marriage prep with a young and holy priest, and he guided us through many other pertinent topics as well.

The preparation and conversations my husband and I worked through prior to saying “I do,” were so important. I strongly encourage every couple preparing for marriage to have those deep conversations, take them seriously, and sound out their fiancé on a range of issues – even if you’re not as type A as I am. But at the end of the day, when one gets married in the Catholic Church, one makes a vow. And that vow and the resulting graces of the sacrament are what truly matter and what make all the difference. 

For my husband and I, the challenges we anticipated as an engaged couple  are largely not the ones we’ve faced in marriage, despite my best intentions to cover every likely topic. The difficulties of homeschooling, how to get out for a date when juggling several small children, and managing a single-income budget have not been very relevant to our life. Instead, we’ve had to grapple with almost six and a half years of infertility, a global pandemic, personal health issues and surgery, feelings of not fitting in in our parish community, and the stresses of hosting overnight guests nonstop. And I can tell you, most of those topics were never even considered, let alone discussed, during engagement. While these are just my experiences, Christ offers each couple a different set of crosses to carry together in marriage. And for many couples, especially those of us in this infertility community, the trials will not be ones that were expected.

But, in His goodness, God has instituted a beautiful way of providing for us in the midst of the unexpected and uncertain. Every couple who marries in the Church makes a vow. And the graces that flow from that vow and the resulting sacrament that the couple confers on each other (see CCC, 1625-1630) doesn’t just apply to the crosses they foresee (thank goodness!). The graces of marriage are sufficient to give us the strength to keep our vows, in the face of every single challenge, not just the ones we prepared for on a human level. As Henry Sattler explains on Catholic Culture, “Since actual grace “enlightens the mind and moves the will,” a married couple can expect God to inspire them to know what they should understand and do in a given case and to strengthen their will to carry it out… It means also when they feel inadequate to the task of the moment they can expect new courage to be available to them.” The Lord promises to give us all the actual graces we need for the challenges we face in marriage. Even when we feel inadequate and unprepared, we can confidently rely on the graces of the sacrament – they will be there for us and sustain us and our love.

Recently, my husband shared this gem from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.” (source) This is a great gift – God treasures the love of man and wife, and desires to sustain it and cause it to flourish. He knows that our lives and marriages will not always be easy, and that even when we do intentionally prepare, we can be challenged and face hard things. This is why He gives us the sacrament of marriage, so that the beautiful love we share with our spouse will be safeguarded and preserved amid all the crosses of life, even the cross of infertility. Through the graces of marriage, Jesus walks with us on this difficult, unexpected path. 

Katie Summers and her husband Matthew were married on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2019 and live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Katie enjoys early morning Holy Hours, coffee dates with Matthew, and good conversations.