On their wedding day, Katherine and Jonathan will be married. They will have a marriage license to prove it. But their marriage, in the deepest sense, comes later. Their marriage will be realized after they’ve gone a few rounds. As Pope Francis has said, “sometimes the plates even fly!” Their marriage will be realized after they’ve experienced a loss together—a job, a home through fire, or the loss of a parent, for example. Their marriage will be realized when they have shared a mutually life transforming moment, such as in the birth of a child. Their “marriage” will have arrived then when he comes to the realization, “I am hers.” And she knows, “I am his.” And together they acknowledge, “We belong to one another.” At this point, Jesus says, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”

—Fr. Dan Reim, SJ, is campus chaplain at Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland, OH.