Most men and women choose marriage as their road in life. They can and ought to sanctify themselves in their love and . through it, by using their rights as they would use any other holy thing and faithfully fulfilling the duties of their married state out of love. For Christians, marriage is a sacrament, a sensible and effective sign of the grace conferred for the needs of the baptised couple. Their union is sacramental.

One of the principal tasks for Christian schools and Catholic Action to do is to make the splendour and sanctity of marriage intelligible to everybody, to prepare and help people to live the married life of holiness. . . . Nevertheless, obstacles to sanctity, or at any rate hindrances to the easy and prompt exercise of the love of God, abound in this state of life. I am not speaking of the abuses and sins properly so-called to which married people succumb when they are unfaithful to the graces of their sacrament, when they despise the laws of human nature and the commandments of God. These sins turn men completely away from God and of themselves lead to eternal death, unless repentance intervenes. What I am speaking of is a married life that respects the rights of God. Husband and wife—and precisely those most in love with each other—run the risk of taking too much natural pleasure in each other, of monopolising each other and not thinking of God as much as they ought if they are to sanctify themselves and advance together in the love of God.