While totally agreeing with Edmund Adamus taking issue with Clifford Longley's view (Letters, 6 June) that "the sacramental character of matrimony often makes little discernable difference", there is however, an underlying aspect inherent in his assertion that is worth considering.
It is about the effectiveness or otherwise of the past levels and quality of education in schools, preparation for marriage or/and marriage courses, and the proclamations from the pulpit. St Aquinas made the point a long time ago that “we cannot give what we haven't got”. Leaving aside for the moment the reality that all things are possible with God, is it not also true that husbands and wives cannot give what they don't know they have got? How many couples are aware that their sacrament, their two-in-one-flesh lived reality, mirrors the relationships in the Trinity? How many are aware that when they become two in one flesh they open themselves to becoming co-creators with God?
How many are called to focus on the wonder and beauty of their calling? It's been said that a wedding is a day, a marriage is a lifetime, let’s hear more affirmation and encouragement, it sounds like those 637 couples at Westminster Cathedral in May valued it greatly.
Brian and Maureen Devine, Leigh on Sea, Essex
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