The primary purpose of this sacrament is the procreation of children. The union between Christ and His Church has been formed in order to bring into being spiritual sons and daughters by the work of divine grace. Here we discover another very beautiful reason why the two unions are compared together by the inspired writer.
It is the longing of every rightminded married couple to be blessed with offspring and it is the ardent desire of Christ and His Church that many children, indeed the entire world, should receive a new birth in Baptism. When an infant receives Baptism, it shares at once in the life of God; this is explained by Our Lord Himself to Nicodemus: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."
But the loving human parents must nurse assiduously the frail little spark of life that flickers in their child. The child needs milk and rest and clothing and, especially in the beginning, almost uninterrupted attention. So, too, do Christ and His Church expend constant care on the newly baptized infant. In that soul the breath of divine life has been given, but that life must be nourished and fed. And what is its divine food, to strengthen its divine life? Christ actually gives to His Church His own Body and Blood with which to build up the tender life of that soul.
Human parents cannot keep their child at home always. According as it grows up, it must go out into the world and make its own way, finding its vocation and overcoming obstacles. The soul's life too will encounter difficulties as it makes contact with world, flesh, and devil. There is danger lest these adverse influences kill it or weaken it; so Christ and His Church arm it with a new sacrament, the Sacrament of Confirmation, by which it gets the courage it will need in dealing with its enemies.
If their child gets ill, human parents will bring it to the doctor. It may need an operation or special food or a complete change of air or work if it is to regain its strength. The soul can sicken and weaken too; indeed it can lose its divine life altogether by mortal sin. If it lose its natural life, parents can do no more except grieve over their loss. But Christ and His Church have a remedy not only for lesser sins which weaken the divine life, but they can actually raise to life again the soul that has died. This is the function of the wonderful sacrament of divine mercy, the Sacrament of Penance.
No human parents could hope to rival the loving assiduity of Christ and His Church when the hour comes for the soul to leave this world. There is Extreme Unction and the touching ceremony accompanying its administration. Each of the five senses is anointed and God is implored to forgive what ever injuries have been done by each to the divine life of the soul.
Lastly, Christ and His Church come forward with a special sacrament to sanctify the vocation of the child. Human parents will be anxious to see their child well married; Catholic parents will rightly regard it an immense privilege if God calls a boy of theirs to the priesthood. But their anxiety and joy are small compared with that of Christ and His Church.
Thus whatever the human parents do for their child has its counterpart in what is done by Christ and His Church. On both sides there is love and anxiety and provision made for the future. The analogy is very close and the memory of it is calculated to throw still brighter light on the sacredness of the vocation to married life.
Jesus, I see that marriage is a partnership, not only between man and wife, but between You and the human parents. Tasks and privileges are shared, love and anxiety are divided between Christ and His Church on the one hand and human parents on the other. What is man that You are mindful of him? What a privilege it is for human parents to cooperate with You in the molding and shaping of a soul for heaven!