Sacraments are instruments, they do what they signify.
Sanctifying grace increases.
Sacramental graces are made available (constantly), though they might not be able to be fruitful because of mortal sin or lack of attentiveness to receiving it fruitfully.

**Through the sacrament of marriage, Jesus' love for the Church is MADE present!
There are helping graces for the natural ends of marriage that have now been supernaturalized: procreation/education of children, and to be helpmates to each other.
The other category of helping graces is to help re-order marriage, family life, and the world towards divine ends. Marriage, therefore, becomes a remedy for sin, it builds up the Church, and is an element of the substance of our divine worship.

We get into some stuff here:

A Sacrament is a sacred sign instituted by Christ to sanctify us and build up the Church.

It is a primordial sacrament from the beginning because it is a communion of persons that represents THE Communion of Persons, and because it foreshadows the love of Christ for His Church

The administrators are the couple themselves that exchange vows.

The sign is the consent of the couple, and the enduring part of the sacrament is the marriage bond.

This is awesome. This is an excellent candidate for wedding readings any day of the week!

Here, Jesus lays out his teaching on marriage by taking us back to Genesis.

He highlights the permanence of marriage.

He clarifies what constitutes adultery, in an external way and in an internal way.

He also talks about Himself as the Bridegroom. That's interesting!

The first two chapters of Genesis are excellent.

But I also take a birds eye view of key figures, the legislative texts, Wisdom literature, and the prophets.

Natural Law: God has an eternal, beautiful wise plan with which He created the universe. He placed this plan in our very being. We have the intellect to recognize it and the freedom to participate in it.

The ends of marriage are (1) the procreation and education of children, (2) the mutual help of the spouses

There are two properties of marriage: (1) exclusivity, and (2) permanence.

There are three goods of marriage: offspring, fidelity, and the sacrament.

Because marriages naturally result in children, which have an impact on the larger society, society has a right and duty to have reasonable policies and legislation protecting marriage and the family.

We start pretty fast!

It's clear that marriage is hurting as an institution: fewer marriages later in life with less children and more divorces... Tough times...

Why? In addition to the selfishness and weakness of the flesh of all times, there is the perceived increase in the expectation of the necessities of life, individualism with its inability to trust and fear of commitment, the objectification of women with pornography, technology that make the fruitfulness of option perceived as optional, and we don't prioritize sacrifice.

It comes from a dualism and a materialism.

And Pope St John Paul II shows up and brings the Theology of the Body in the nic of time!
1) Dignity of the human person
2) We are soul and body
3) There are two ways of being body--male and female
4) The sexual differences reveal the "spousal meaning of the body", that is, we are meant to be gift
5) The spousal meaning of the body is fulfilled with the mutual gift resulting in marriage, a communion of persons, which mirrors the Trinity
6) Sin ruins this plan, specifically lust which causes an alienation between man and woman.
7) But Jesus sets us free and restores what has been broken/wounded.

Rhetoric is the craft/art of Persuasion, persuading someone to adjust an attitude or behavior. It is made up of three elements:

Ethos--the credibility of the speaker
Pathos--the open frame of mind of the audience
Logos--the message that is clear, convincing and relevant