I remember sitting beside my husband at Mass last year, listening to a homily that left both of us feeling a little unsettled. 

The deacon said it could be argued that a family – with children – is a sacrament, saying that a sacrament is anything that gives skin to God and through which He becomes tangible in the world. We long for a God who is not only present everywhere, but present in a way we can touch.

As I listened, I felt an ache. We were four years into our infertility journey after surgeries, treatments, and eventually stepping back from active interventions while discerning adoption. Miscarriages would come later.

I remember thinking: If family means parents and children … where does that leave us?

My husband and I were already a family. We became a family the day we entered the sacrament of matrimony. But in that moment, I felt again the subtle temptation  so many couples on the path of infertility encounter: to feel that their family and marriage are somehow still waiting to become fully real. As if children complete family and the sacrament of marriage.

In the Catholic Church, marriage is a sacrament. Children are a blessing.

A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ that gives grace (The Baltimore Catechism, question 136). In matrimony, Christ binds husband and wife into a covenant that participates in His love for the Church. That grace depends on Christ, not children. (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1642)

Children are among the many gifts a marriage can receive, but they are not what make a marriage a sacrament. Over time, I’ve noticed how easily marriage and parenthood are spoken of as if they are the same. Questions assume children will come. Celebrations center around growing families. Even ordinary conversations can reinforce the perception that marriage is only fully itself once children arrive.

For us, the sacrament of matrimony has been present in hospital rooms and bathrooms after miscarriages; recovery after endometriosis surgery; injections, grief, and exhaustion carried together; forgiveness after words spoken from deep pain; healing vacations together; and small moments of laughter spent in togetherness. In living the sacrament of marriage, grace has become visible in faithful love that remained when expectations didn’t materialize as hoped.

I have encountered the grace of the sacraments in other beautiful ways.

Through an anxious-filled pregnancy when I thought I might be miscarrying again during Holy Week, I brought my fear to Christ in the Eucharist of Holy Thursday Mass asking for healing. A quiet peace followed and my symptoms ceased that night. While the pregnancy later ended in loss a few weeks later, the peace I felt has remained a reminder of Christ’s comfort, love, and nearness to me.

In Reconciliation, after two miscarriages, I met priests who listened with gentleness and helped me place grief I could not carry alone into the mercy of God. The mental weight and physical toll I carried felt lighter and bearable so I could continue the healing process.

The sacraments did not take away my sorrow but gave me the grace to endure.

Infertility carries a hidden weight. Grief that is often unseen while life around you continues as normal. In those hidden places, I have often returned to the image of Christ’s Precious Blood, a love made visible in flesh and blood poured out completely without holding back. Because of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, our sufferings are not wasted when united to His. What feels hidden to us is not hidden to God.

If family means parents and children, where does that leave us?

It leaves us where we have always been: in a covenant made holy by Christ; a sacrament alive with grace.

It leaves us in a Church where Christ continues to meet us in the Eucharist, in Reconciliation, the Holy Spirit alive in our hearts and guiding us, through the vocations of others, and in the quiet daily life of our own married love.

Written by an anonymous Springs in the Desert writer.