Why Couples Seek (and Find) More Help from Mary Than Any Other Saint

Two years into writing stories about couples who met on CatholicMatch, I noticed that some credited Mary with playing a substantial role in bringing them together and making their marriage a success. So, I wanted to share some specific ways Mary has helped guide couples to marriage.

Mary helped these couples meet and strengthened their relationship.

“After consecrating my life to Mary from those little prayer books it’s my belief that it was the mercy of God through the intercession of Mary that gave us the grace to date and overcome all the obstacles life can throw at you to get married,” said Christopher, who recently married Angela. The New Jersey couple met through CatholicMatch.

On the West Coast, Marie and Michael’s relationship was nurtured through their devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots.

“The reason that this devotions fits so well in our marriage prep and our background is the backstory of the devotion. The devotion started in Germany when a married couple was on the brink of divorce. This devotion is meant to allow Mary untie all the knots in our lives to allow us to be in full union with God. I see this devotion as a builder of our relationship as we continue to prepare for our Holy Union,” Michael said.

(And they aren’t the only CatholicMatch couple who credit the aid of Our Lady Undoer of Knots. Here is the story of another.)

What could explain Mary’s intervention in the lives of these couples and others like them?

Of course, as Catholics, we all turn to the Mother of God for her intercession, assistance, and protection in a wide range of matters, both temporal and eternal.

But there is another reason that Mary is specially disposed to help these couples—and that has to do with her unique connection with the sacrament of marriage in Scripture.

There are four ways this relationship is presented to us in the Bible:

1. She is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit.

First, tradition venerates Mary as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. As Luke reports in his gospel, the angel Gabriel told Mary that she could conceive through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is foreshadowed in Old Testament prophecy.

For example, Isaiah 54:5 declares, “For your husband is your Maker; the LORD of hosts is his name.” (See Catholic Answers for more on this.)

In fact, we could read the entire book of Song of Songs as predicting this if we understand the love it describes as a metaphor for mystical relationship between Mary and the Holy Spirit. (Here is one such interpretation of the book.)

There could be no purer or holier betrothal or espousal than this one. So it is fitting that Mary has this important part to play in leading us to marriage.

2. Mary and Joseph are a model for marriage.

In his book, The World’s First Love, Bishop Fulton Sheen holds up Mary and Joseph as a model for marriage. Their singular purity, he says, stems from the fact that they had no need of physically consummating it—both became parents without the conjugal act.

“[T]here was no need of the symbol of the unity of flesh, since they already possessed the Divinity. Why pursue the shadow when they had the substance? Mary and Joseph needed no consummation in the flesh, for, in the beautiful language of Leo XIII ‘The consummation of their love was in Jesus,’” Sheen writes (The World’s First Love, 94).

In a way, Mary and Joseph had the perfect marriage—so who better to help us on our journey to marriage?

As Sheen concludes,

“From these two spouses, who loved as no couple on earth has ever loved, learn that it takes not two to love, but three: you and you and Jesus” (The World’s First Love, 96).

3. Mary is the new Eve.

Mary’s whole history is rooted in marriage. As the new Eve and the new Adam, Mary and Christ re-enact the story of Adam and Eve, reversing their sin and restoring man’s disordered nature. Eve was meant to be Adam’s helpmate. Ultimately, that meant accompanying him on his journey to union with God. Instead, she did the opposite: drawing him away from God.

As the new Eve, Mary undid this. She certainly brought St. Joseph closer to God by bearing God-Incarnate as his ‘son.’ (Joseph was Jesus’ ‘father’ in a temporal sense.) In this way, Mary is the model for how all marriages should be God-centered and heaven-oriented.

In fact, Mary’s title as Undoer of Knots is connected to her role as the New Eve. The name has its origins in the early Church Father St. Irenaeus, who wrote in Against Heresies,

“The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience; what the virgin Eve bound through her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her faith.”

Mary’s identity as the new Eve also helps explain why the Second Vatican Council pointed to her as a ‘type’ of the Church, which is the Bride of Christ. (See the last section of Lumen Gentium for more.)

4. Like she did at Cana, Mary helps bring overflowing joy and mercy to couples.

We tend to read the story of the wedding at Cana in two main ways: as foreshadowing the transubstantiation of the Eucharist and as revealing Mary’s ongoing role as Co-Redemptrix—by virtue of the fact that her request to Jesus marked the beginning of His ministry in the Gospel of John.

But the simple facts of the account in John 2 also point to another lesson. On the face of it, what happens is this: A festive wedding celebration runs out of wine. Mary asks Jesus to do something about it and He miraculously turns the water into wine. Her intervention thus directly contributes to the joy of one unnamed couple’s wedding.

If Mary is helping couples today find happiness, she is simply continuing one of the earliest acts of mercy she performed as Co-Redemptrix.

Scripture, then, suggests that Mary has a particular part to play in the sacrament of marriage.

And it shows us four specific ways that she does this. First, as a model of purity, she can teach all of us how to pursue and be married chastely. Second, her perfect marriage to Joseph illustrates the importance of putting Christ at the center of marriage. Third, as the new Eve, Mary reminds us that all marriages should be joint pilgrimages to heaven. Fourth and finally, Mary specially intercedes to bring us the joy of married of life.

Truly, Mary is an indispensable guide for all of those seeking marriage!