Are you married outside the Church? Or do you know someone who is? Then this invitation is for you: bring your marriage home — into the heart of the Catholic Church.
This week on Trending with Timmerie on Relevant Radio, Timmerie shared a powerful reflection that’s been on her heart — one that touches countless Catholics who long for the Eucharist but remain away because their marriage hasn’t been blessed in the Church.
Timmerie recalled a Catholic woman named Sophia, who wanted to have her marriage blessed while visiting Rome. Though Sophia had been married civilly for years and was raising two children in the faith, she realized something was missing: the sacramental grace of marriage. With deep joy, she worked to have her marriage convalidated, not because she wanted a ceremony or a photo, but because she desired God’s grace to flood into her family life.
That grace is real, Timmerie explained. It’s “life-changing, life-saving, soul-saving.” The sacraments aren’t symbolic gestures. They’re the channels of divine life. Just as Jesus transformed water into wine at Cana, so too does He transform a merely human union into something supernatural through the sacrament of matrimony. Grace becomes the “new wine” that sustains and sanctifies the couple through every joy and trial.
Many baptized Catholics find themselves civilly married and later rediscovering their faith, perhaps after a child’s baptism, or through joining a parish or men’s group. Often, it’s the husband who first feels the call to bring the marriage fully into the Church, only to encounter hesitation. The realization that a Catholic marriage is permanent and sacramental, not a social contract, can be intimidating. But that permanence is precisely what gives it strength.
“When you get married in the Church,” Timmerie said, “you are married before the eyes of God, and His grace will flood that marriage.”
That’s why the Church teaches that even if a couple separates civilly, they remain united in God’s eyes until death. Marriage creates an ontological reality — a bond sealed by the spouses themselves, strengthened by grace, and witnessed by the Church.
The invitation, then, is simple and urgent: if you’re Catholic and were married outside the Church, take the step to have your marriage convalidated. Speak with your parish priest, pray through the roadblocks, and trust that God’s mercy can heal every wound.
And if you know someone in that situation, pray for them. Offer a novena, have a Mass said for them, and gently invite them home.
Marriage is hard. But when it’s lived in Christ and sealed by His sacrament, it becomes holy.
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