(31) In the same way, from the beginning the Christian community has held that the constitution of Christian marriage is a real sign of Christ’s union with the Church. Marriage was elevated by Christ to a saving event in the new order set up in the economy of the Redemption: i.e., marriage is a sacrament of the New Covenant, [73][73] an essential aspect for understanding the content and importance of the marital community between baptized persons.  The Magisterium of the Church has also pointed out clearly that “the sacrament of Matrimony has this specific element that distinguishes it from all the other sacraments: it is the sacrament of something that was part of the very economy of creation; it is the very conjugal covenant instituted by the Creator ‘in the beginning’”.[74][74]

In the context of a society that is often de-Christianized and removed from the values of the truth about the human person, it is now of interest to emphasize the content of “the matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, [which] is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring”,[75][75] as instituted by God “from the beginning”, [76][76] in the natural order of Creation.  A serene reflection is useful not only for faithful believers, but also for those who are now far from religious practice, who lack faith, or hold beliefs of a different kind: for every human person, men and women, members of a civil community and responsible for the common good.  It is also useful to recall the nature of the family that originates in marriage, its ontological and not only historical and conjunctural character, over and above the changes in time, place and culture, and the dimension of justice that flows from its very essence.