Theology
of the Sacrament of Marriage
The Sacrament of Matrimony
and family life are the foundations upon which society is based. The Church
states: “The well being of the individual person and of both human and
Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and
family life”.[1] It is
therefore important that something be said on the Church’s consistent teaching
on marriage.
Pope John Paul II firmly
proclaims and teaches that “vocation” does not exclusively refer to those who
pursue a call to the priesthood or religious life: “Christian revelation
recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person in
its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in
its own proper form, an actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his
being ‘created in the image of God.’”.[2]
Therefore, let there be no misunderstanding that the sacrament of marriage is
truly a legitimate calling by God and furthermore, holy. Moreover, it is the
love between a husband and wife that serves as the foundation stone upon which
every other Christian vocation is built. Strong marriages and families are what
comprise a joy-filled Church. In addition, as Archbishop Charles J. Chaput,
OFM, Cap., has stated: “The opposite is true: Families who are lukewarm in the
love for God and indifferent in their worship weaken every other dimension of
Catholic life. That’s why the Church so urgently needs men and women who can
provide the example and guidance our families need.”[3]
The Code of Canon Law
summarizes the essence of marriage:
The matrimonial covenant, by
which a man and a woman establish between themselves a communion of the whole
life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and procreation
and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been
raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.[4]
The starting point in
understanding the above declarations by Pope John Paul II and the Code of Canon
Law is Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us:
Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and
woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of "the
wedding-feast of the Lamb." Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and
its "mystery," its institution and the meaning God has given it, its
origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the history of
salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal "in the
Lord" in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church.[5]
All of Sacred Scripture,
from its beginning to its final verses, can be seen as a wedding feast. The
first covenant God established with man was in the context of marriage. The
last verses of Scripture end with an invitation to the wedding feast: “The
Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’”[6]
This marital covenant illustrates God’s desire and plan to bring us into
communion with Him. All of salvation history shows God’s unfathomable love and
mercy to reconcile us to Himself and to lead us into his covenantal family
through the sacrament of Baptism.
In his 1960s audio series
“Life is Worth Living,” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen brilliantly shows us how God
expresses His relationship with man in terms of nuptials throughout the Old and
New Testaments. In the Old Testament, God continually calls Himself the
“bridegroom” with the Chosen People of Israel His “bride.” This is essential in
understanding Christ’s relationship to mankind when He comes.
“In the due course of time,
God becomes man—the Bridegroom becomes man. Did Our Lord ever call Himself the
Bridegroom? Yes, He did. And He did it in such a very natural way that the
people were not at all astounded whey they heard Him, because they knew the
background of God being related to their people as the Bridegroom. One of the
occasions which Our Blessed Lord spoke of Himself that way was when a question
was hurled at Him as to why He and His disciples did not fast, whereas the
disciples of John the Baptist did fast. The answer of Our Lord was: “Can
you expect the men of the Bridegroom’s company to go fasting when the
Bridegroom is still with them?”[7]
Then He went on to say that the Bridegroom will be taken away. John the Baptist
called Himself the friend of the Bridegroom. In other words, a kind of “best
man.”[8]
At most weddings we go to,
we hear the reading of the marriage feast of Cana, where Christ performs his
first public miracle. Archbishop Sheen says the timing of this was no accident.
“…There’s a beautiful
mystery hidden somewhere in the marriage feast of Cana. Our Lord began His
public life by assisting at that marriage feast, typifying his relationship
with His Church would be exactly the relationship unfolded in the Old
Testament, and when the old Kahal (chosen people) of Israel became the new
Kahal, or the Church, or the New Israel, through Redemption and Pentecost, we
had the continuation of the symbolism. Eve was the continuation of the body of
man, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.[9]
What is the Church? The Church in the New Testament is described as the New Eve
because [of] the continuation of the New Adam, Christ. Everywhere there is the
idea of espousal, body, oneness, and we must get first things first. Remember,
that the union of Our Lord and the Church is not like a human marriage; rather,
a human marriage is like the union of Our Lord and the Church. When, therefore,
the bride and groom stand at the altar and we read to them the marriage
ceremony, we are informing them: “You, the bridegroom, stand for Christ. And
you, the bride, stand for the Church.” That is the mysterious grace that
is conferred upon you. How beautiful marriage becomes!”
In the Book of Genesis we
see that marriage is a union brought about by God. Of all the things created by
God, the only thing which was not good was the solitude of man. God,
therefore, created woman from the side of Adam, who would serve as his
helpmate: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be
alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”[10]
God created man and woman, therefore, for companionship. The differences we
find in man and woman illustrate that the reality of a helpmate does not
mean inferiority, but rather complementarity. Marriage is not just a
contract, but rather a union that
has been made by God and a union that endures until death.
Soon, we will see how the natural order of marriage is elevated to the
supernatural by the coming of Christ, Who makes marriage a sacrament.
“In the beginning,” we see
how the first marriage was seriously ruptured by the introduction of sin and
its transmission throughout every generation until the present. The Book of
Genesis illustrates that the original justice which existed between man and
woman—that they lived in a perfect right relation with each other, with God,
and with creation—has been destroyed by Original Sin. The consequences of the
sin of our first parents are described by God Himself when He says:
The Original Sin of Adam and Eve shattered the integrity and harmony of all relationships. This was to be transmitted to their offspring. The marital relationship between Adam and Eve becomes a struggle, as there now exists a disorder of the domination of man over woman. This misguided mentality has survived to the present day and in many cases is accepted as what God has always intended. The Book of Genesis clearly points to the contrary. The domination of man over woman is an injustice, a disorder, which was never intended by God “in the beginning.” This does not remove the fact that God’s design for man and woman involves a differentiation in function within their relationship. After Original Sin, however, the disordered relationship between husband and wife was in need of redemption.
St. Paul
This relationship becomes elevated, redeemed and finds its true meaning in Jesus Christ and His love for the Church. This is precisely what St. Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Christians of Ephesus:
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.” This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.[12]
This text is also a popular
selection read at wedding liturgies, and it is often misunderstood. As
Archbishop Sheen beautifully explains: “Very often when women read that passage
of Scripture, they do not like it. But, they should read what follows, that man
is the head of a woman in exactly the same way that Christ is the Head of the
Church. Now, how was Our Lord the Head of the Church, the Head of His
Bride? Well, He was the Head by dying and sacrificing Himself and pouring out
His blood! The Headship was based upon self-forgetfulness for the sake of the
Beloved. Now, how is the wife related to the husband? Well, she is related to
the husband in the same way the Church is related to Our Blessed Lord. And if
the husband is to sacrifice himself for the wife, so, too, the wife, like the
Church, is to be related to her husband just as the Church to Our Lord through
love, service, devotion, and striving for perfection.”
An Unbreakable bond
The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides a profound understanding of what Our Lord stated in respect to the permanence of marriage (found especially in Matthew 19:3-9): “…Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’? What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” Interpreting Christ’s reference to “the beginning” (Genesis 2:24), the Church states:
Holy Scripture affirms that
man and woman were created for one another: “It is not good for man to be
alone.” The woman, “flesh of his flesh,” his equal, his nearest in all things,
is given to him by God as a “helpmate”; she thus represents God from whom comes
our help. “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his
wife, and they become one flesh.” The Lord himself shows that this signifies an
unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator
had been “in the beginning”: “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”[13]
The Nature of
Love
To understand marriage is to understand the nature of love. Archbishop
Sheen said marriage is enduring by the very nature of love. That also calls of
spouses to mean what they say when they tell each other, “I love you.”
“There are only two words in the vocabulary of love: you and always. ‘You,’ because love is unique; ‘Always’, because love is enduring. No one ever said, ‘I will love you for two years and six months!’ That is why all the love songs have the ring of eternity about them such as, ‘Till the sands of the desert grow cold…’ Why is there jealousy in the human heart, if jealousy not be the safeguard of monogamy and an enduring marriage?
Archbishop Sheen likens man and woman to two vines, and the love is the soil in which they are united and grow.
“And so, two hearts are united because of the love that is outside both. Then the impotence of the ‘I’ to completely possess the ‘thou’ is overcome by the realization that there is something outside of both, hovering over, turning the ‘I’ and the ‘thou’ into ‘our love.’ And that is why people who are in love always speak of ‘our love,’ and although they may not put their love into these words, this is practically what they’re saying one to another.”
Three to
“stay” Married
From what has been illustrated from Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is clear that from the very beginning marriage has always included three parties: God, man, and woman. You may have heard the phrase, “It takes three to get married.” Why is this critical to ponder and understand? In a society where divorce is found in approximately one out of every two marriages, we are left to wonder what has gone wrong. The answer, however, is hinted at in the above slogan. Yes, it takes three to get married, but it also takes three to stay married. Because of Original Sin, man is in need of grace to bring all things into right relation with God, his neighbor, and creation. This grace is available to those who receive the sacrament of Baptism and remain in the state of grace. Thus, marriage between two baptized spouses is a sacrament; it becomes a means of the needed grace to love as Christ loves his Church.
Although there exists the
consequences of Original Sin, the Church stresses that Jesus Christ, out of his
infinite mercy, has merited for us the grace needed to heal the wounds of sin.
He never refuses this grace to those open to receive it. The Church adds,
“Without his help man and woman cannot achieve the union of their lives for
which God created them ‘in the beginning.’”[14]
Although the consequences of
sin affected the first marriage and, thus, all others, God still intended to
use marriage as a means for sinful man to overcome them. The Church states,
“After the fall, marriage helps to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of
one’s own pleasure, and to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to
self-giving.”[15]
The “Sacrament” of Marriage
As a sacrament, marriage
contains two key elements, according to Archbishop Sheen, which correspond to
the dual nature of all sacraments: the visible and invisible, natural and
supernatural.
“One is very visible
and evident. It is the exchange of consent which is signified not only by the
joining of hands, but also by the words of consent. And this is witnessed by a
priest. There is the invisible grace, also, which is communicated for
their married state of life, and because this grace symbolizes another
marriage—the marriage between Christ and His Church. That is the meaning of
sacramental marriage (and it is found throughout the Epistles of Paul).”
It is by reflecting on how
Christ served the Church that we get to the core of why the marriage of
baptized persons is considered permanent by the Church.
“It is because they
symbolize the unbreakable, eternal union of Our Lord and the Church. When the
Son of God came to earth and took upon Himself a human nature, which flowered
into His Mystical Body, the Church, He did not take it for three years or for
33 years, but for all eternity. So, too, when a husband takes a wife, he takes
that wife as Christ took the Church. He takes that wife until death does him
part! And in order to symbolize that enduring union of the espousals of
Christ and His Church, they are to love one another until death separates
them.”
The Church frowns upon
divorce and practices such as polygamy precisely because of how Christ served
the Church. In taking one bride, the Church, for eternity, so it makes sense
that man and woman honor their marriage commitment for eternity.
“You think Our Lord could
have many brides? Many spouses? That would be spiritually adultery, would it
not?” Archbishop Sheen says. “He does not have 200 varieties of spouses—or
churches! There is one spouse—there is one Church—and that union
continues forever. That, then, is the reason why marriage of husband and wife
is unbreakable in the sacramental order.”
When is my marriage
“official”?
Contrary to popular belief
and Hollywood stories, a wedding is not official when the couple says “I do.”
Rather, it becomes official, or ratified, in the eyes of the Church when the
husband and wife have consummated their union by becoming “one flesh.” During
that moment of communion, with the husband and wife giving themselves completely
to each other in the glory of God, the marriage covenant is sealed and it is
unbreakable.
“How beautiful marriage is
in the Church!” Archbishop Sheen says. “Fidelity is an engagement with the
future, and when that future is eternity, when the soul knows that it cannot be
saved unless it is faithful to the spouse, it remains faithful, even in the
midst of trial. That God’s love is never withdrawn from His Church, so too, the
love of husband and wife are never withdrawn one from another. It is made in the
full consciousness that their love is a proclamation to the world of another
marriage—the marriage which gives joy and happiness—the beautiful union of
Christ and His Bride, the Church!”
We see, therefore, how God’s merciful love and
justice have elevated the state of marriage by the redemption merited by Jesus
Christ for the whole world. Not only does Jesus restore the broken relationship
from Adam and Eve’s sin, but He also raises it to a new level in which He comes
to dwell within us and loves through us by means of the sacrament of Baptism.
God’s justice always gives more than what is due, restoring us to an
even greater state than Original Justice. It is for this reason that the famous
hymn commonly attributed to St. Ambrose, The Exultet, sung at the Easter
Vigil exclaims: “O happy fault, that merited such and so great a Redeemer!” (O
felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!). And in the case
of man, such love and mercy from God is not even deserved. However, the
sacrificial love of Christ for the Father has merited for us the Justice
mankind has lost through sin. Only in Jesus Christ is man justified by his
obedience of faith in Him. Marriage as a sacrament, therefore, is not just an
institution, but a means of grace and sanctification. In other words, every day of a marriage, whether it is incredibly
exciting or incredibly boring, is another step toward true holiness.
There are three essential
goods in marriage: unity, indissolubility, and openness to fertility. The
openness to fertility needs to be examined amidst a world strongly influenced
by a contraceptive mentality. The openness to children is inextricably
intertwined into the love between the spouses. Love is creative as we see in
the book of Genesis. The world was not created out of necessity, but out of
love. God Himself is a loving communion of Persons in which we see the fruit of
the Love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When God created man
in His image, man is given the power to participate in the loving creative
power of God through the conjugal union of man and wife in the marriage
covenant. In offspring, one clearly sees the reality of the two becoming one
flesh. Therefore, anything which contravenes this exchange of life-giving love
is a grave offense against the essential goods of marriage and results in the
conjugal act becoming a means of self-gratification instead of a life-giving
and love-making act.
Regarding children, the
Church teaches “The Christian home is the place where children receive the
first proclamation of the faith. For this reason the family home is rightly
called ‘the domestic church,’ a community of grace and prayer, a school of
human virtues and Christian charity.”[16]
The Church admits that these
three essential goods of marriage are not without difficulties, or tensions.
They are to be expected in
every marriage—NOT because of a defect in the persons, but simply because of
our fallen human nature. Archbishop Sheen elaborates four common tensions:
alone together; the ecstasy of love and the way love actually turns out; loving
too much and being loved too little; and the tension between sex and love:
searching for the infinite in the finite.
“Alone Together”
This tension involves
wanting to be one with another person and at the same time feeling so
alone—almost alone together. This tension is experienced during those times
when, for example, your spouse does not understand a deep pain, or deep joy in
your heart. The very fact that man and woman have distinct personalities, which
would take more than a lifetime to unravel their mystery, will lead to these
moments of misunderstanding and frustration.
Says Archbishop Sheen:
“There will come moments when your self is lost in another and then afterwards,
a terrific sense of being thrown backwards on your own solitary personality.
Why is this? The reason is because there is nothing material, or fleshy, or
carnal in the world that can unite. You just try making two blocks of marble one.
Why can’t the two unite then? Because they are material. The flesh alone
(and here I emphasize alone) cannot unite. Only the soul, the spirit,
can unite. For example, if we learn together the Our Father: My knowledge of
the Our Father does not deprive you from learning it. And if we pray together,
we are much more one that we could be in any material fashion.”
The flesh of the husband and
wife may be a means to unity, but the spirit unites them.
“Your flesh is a means to
your unity because it is bound up with the soul. And to the extent that
love loses its soul, it loses its unity in the sense of oneness. When the
spirit is gone, there’s left only body proximity—with boredom and fatigue. Now
this passion, or crescendo, for intimacy until oneness is achieved cannot be
completely satisfied in the physical order because after the act of
unity, there remains the status of two distinct personalities, each with his
own individual mystery. You see the paradox? Souls of lovers aspire to unity,
but the body alone, though it is the momentary symbol of that unity, is
of and by itself exclusive of unity. The flesh is impervious to that kind of
unity which alone can satisfy the spirit. . . . And the tension increases, too,
as the body will go through the motions of love without the soul. And you will
find that the tension of the body decreases as the soul loves.”
Archbishop Sheen says that
no marriage is free from this tension of trying to be one with another, yet
feeling so alone. God provides us the relief to this tension, he says, with the
begetting of children.
“… The child becomes the new
bond of unity outside of father and mother. Husband and wife will never feel
the emptiness of their relations one with another when their relations are
filled up with a new body and soul (soul directly infused by God the Creator). God
made man right, and man is
unhappy if he tries to frustrate these laws. The children, therefore, are
the answer to the paradox of the aloneness together. They are the link that
binds the lovers together, body and soul.”
Many emphasize that
materialism is one of the primary causes for the demise of so many marriages.
This is almost certain to be the case when work and finances are placed before
the spiritual needs of the couple. “Making money” and being “successful” become
the goals of the marriage instead of sharing a reciprocal life-giving love
rooted in God. Many say that the lack of money in families (and in the world at
large) is the reason for their unhappiness. If that were true, then all the millionaires
should be paradigms of virtue. But, we know this is clearly not how things are.
If a couple places their marital security in financial stability, then they
will find themselves living a hollow life without the love of God and neighbor
in their soul. This would be contrary to the call of the Gospel, where faith,
hope, and charity, combine to become the rule of life. It is
true, man has a responsibility and duty to work and provide for his family, but
when that becomes the meaning and end of marriage, he will only find a life of
anxiety and emptiness. Jesus knew how serious this matter is and chose to teach
about this topic without using a parable, so that all will clearly understand
Him. The following words of Jesus Christ are especially for spouses:
"No one can serve
two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be
devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
“Therefore, I tell you, do
not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor
about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the
body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor
reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you
not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one
cubit to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you,
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But, if God so
clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown
into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we
drink?’ or “What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek all these things; and
your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom
and his righteousness, and these things shall be yours as well.
Therefore do not be anxious
about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own
trouble be sufficient for the day.”[17]
This is why Mother Theresa’s
phrase: “A family that prays together stays together” is a beckon to all
families in the modern world where the materialist and consumerist mentality
dominate western thinking. When a
marriage and family are centered on the Lord, there is nothing which can
separate them from the love of Christ[18],
Who gives them the grace to conquer all obstacles. It is not enough to be
“balanced” between the material and spiritual, for nobody can maintain a
perfect balance forever. Couples have to be anchored in God and trust in
His promise to provide for us. Therefore, those marriages which place God first
in everything will plant the seeds of eternal happiness in this life and bear
its fruit in heaven.
“The ecstasy of love and
the way love actually turns out”
A married couple can also be
torn between the unending ecstasy of love which is dreamed about and the way
love actually turns out in marriage. Archbishop Sheen warns us that this
tension can lead us to be cynical about love. Rather, he says, this tension
derives from asking from the other person for the kind of happiness and
fulfillment that only God can give.
“If one starts with the
assumption that the other person is God, then one is doomed to drink the bitter
dregs of disappointment. We must not, therefore, attribute too much to the
other party. If we do, we are going to feel let down because the other partner
did not give all that he promised to give (which he is incapable of giving—only
God can give it as we said). Sometimes the other feels betrayed, deceived,
disappointed, and cheated. In other words: “I entered this marriage to be
supremely and infinitely happy and you’re not making me happy!” Well, the
reason that kind of discontent comes over the soul is because someone expected
from marriage something that is not there.”
If we place all of our hopes
for happiness on another person, we will end up unhappy. This is why the church
teaches that prayer must be at the center of every marriage and family. If we
remove God from the core of the marriage and family, we will be duped into
traveling along this dead-end road that never leads to happiness.
“No human being in the
world is love. God alone is love. We creatures are just lovable and
only to a limited degree,” Archbishop Sheen says. “When a creature begins to
take the place of the Creator and is made to stand for love, then marriage
turns to hate. One marries expecting a god and a woman to be a kind of an
angel; she turns out to be a fallen angel, and man turns out to have feet of
clay. And when the ecstasy stops, and the band no longer plays, and the
champagne of life loses its sparkle, then there are some who will call the
other partner a cheater and a robber. Then they go to divorce court and they
say, ‘We’re not compatible. We want a divorce because we are incompatible!’
“No two people in all the
world are compatible absolutely. Then they begin looking for a new partner and
they go through the same mistake—expecting another wife or another husband to
give that which only God can give. They enter into a new marriage. They do not
find happiness. Why not? Because they’re only adding zeros! The reason that
marriage failed was because they refused to see married love as the vestibule
to the divine. It’s strange to think that another love can supply what the
first love lacked. Cows can graze on other pastures, but there’s no substitute
for a person to whom one has committed his whole being for life. Remember,
then, that you are not to expect too much. What you want is in heaven—not here
on earth. Your partner is a fraction—God alone is the whole. Do not expect,
therefore, the other partner to give you infinite happiness. There is a heaven,
but it is not here on earth.”
Every relationship, whether in the courting or married status, experiences waves of passion that inevitably ebb. So many couples mistake this "down time" for a lack of love or romance, but these times are natural. Too often we mistake love for only passion, but love is just as strong in the quiet periods. In fact, it is how love is nurtured in those quieter times that will dictate the success of the marriage. Anyone who looks for pure passion 100 percent of the time will end up placing unrealistic expectations on his or spouse and/or even worse, will end up marrying several times but will never be satisfied. The overload of sex by our entertainment industry is one damaging factor in why so many people are hooked in the fruitless search for nonstop passion.
“Loving too much and being
loved too little”
A third tension involves the
struggle of loving too much and being loved too little.
Says Archbishop Sheen: “Love
too much—there is discontent. Love too little—there is emptiness. Now this is
what you are going to feel—but do not be cynical about it. There’s a reason why
you are this way, and the reason is this: You were made for the great Sacred
Heart of love and no one, but GOD, can satisfy you. Your heart is right
in wanting the infinite, but your heart is wrong in trying to make its finite
companion the substitute for the infinite. The solution of this tension is in
seeing that the disappointments which it brings are just so many reminders that
love is God’s love on pilgrimage. Both the being loved too much and
being loved too little can go together when seen in the light of God.
When this longing for infinite love is envisaged as the yearning for God, then
the finiteness of our earthly love reminds us of the words of St. Augustine:
‘Our hearts were made for Thee, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest
in Thee.’”
An example of this tension
is seen in the fact that every couple desires and needs to have “alone time”.
Why is this? If you were both doing everything together, you would drive
each other crazy. It is impossible for you to fulfill every need of your
spouse all the time. The only one who can is the One Who is always with us,
namely God. Even His name tells us He is always with us: Emmanuel. We are never
alone with God, which tells us that this relationship is our top priority in
our lives. We are not all powerful, only God is. There will be times when you
feel drained from supporting your spouse through a hard time, such as the loss
of a job or death of a parent. We are limited in how much we can give, but God
has no limits in His compassion and love. Therefore, married couples must
foster a deep prayer life in their marriage, both as a couple and individually,
that they may find their fulfillment together in God, and their love is
the means to carry them there.
Sheen concludes: “Just keep
in mind this fact: in every marriage, man promises a woman something that only
God can give. And in every marriage every woman promises a man something that
only God can give. And that is the reason of the pull between the too
little and the too much. The too little, because we want God. The too
much, because the human
cannot completely satisfy.”
The fourth tension is the tension between sex and
love. These two terms are constantly intertwined and rightfully so--if meant in
the context of married sex and love. In marriage, the two are complementary.
Outside the marriage, sex does not include true love no matter how much we
rationalize it.
Says Archbishop Sheen: “In
married life the two are to be united. Sex is the highest expression of the
love between a husband and wife. But, when the two are not correctly understood
or when they are divorced, then we find these differences: Sex seeks the
part—love, the totality. Sex is biological and has its very definite zones of
satisfaction—and love, on the contrary, includes all of these, but is directed
to the totality of the person loved—the totality—namely, the
person made of body and soul and created in the image and likeness of God. Love
sees the clock and its purpose—sex concentrates on the main spring and forgets
that it was made to keep time. An organ does not include the personality, but
the personality includes the organ—which is another way of saying: Love
includes sex, but sex does not necessarily include love.”
Archbishop Sheen said that
sex is “moved by a desire to fill a moment between having and not having.” Those
who put too much emphasis on sex for happiness end up living for the next
moment of passion, sometimes with a person other than one’s spouse.
“Now, love frowns on this
notion, for it sees in this nothing but the killing of the object’s love for
the sake of self-satisfaction,” Archbishop Sheen says. “Sex would give birds
flight, but no nest. It would throw the whole world into the experience of
voyagers at sea, but with no port. Instead of purifying an infinite which is
fixed—namely, God—it substitutes the false infinite and never finds
satisfaction.”
Archbishop Sheen believed
that one of the reasons why so many suffer from psychosis and neurosis is
because they’re in a “fruitless and constant search for the infinite in the
finite.” In other words, they expect humans to be God.
“How different is real
love,” he says. “Real love admits the need, the thirst, the passion, the
craving; but it also admits a real adhesion to a value that transcends all
space and all time. In love, poverty becomes integrated to riches. In real
love, the need becomes the fulfillment, and the learning becomes a joy.”
“And to sum it all up: You
will feel a tension, therefore, between the romance and the marriage, between
the chase and the capture. Is there any way of ever combining the two--to have
always the thrill of the romance and always the thrill of the capture? Yes,
there is, but not in this world. The only real answer to this paradox of the
chase and capture is to be found in eternity. When your love leads you back to
God, then you will capture something so infinitely ecstatic that it will
take an eternity of chase to discover its meaning.”
Understanding true love in
that vein will lift one’s marriage to new heights of happiness and excitement.
Adds Archbishop Sheen: “Your
marriage will become like a tuning fork to the song of the angels. It will be
like a river that runs into the sea where the romance and the marriage fuse
into one; or since God is boundless eternal love, it will take that eternal
chase to sound its depths; that in one and the same moment, a limitless
receptivity and a boundless gift. This is what you marry for: for love—and love
leads you to God.”
-------------------
Recommended Reading:
Familiaris Consortio: The Role of the Christian
Family in the Modern World, Pope John Paul II.
“The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine
Plan,” Pope John Paul II, Pauline Books and Media, Boston, 1997.
Catechism of the Catholic Church—2nd
Edition (n.1601-1666)
Christopher West, The Good News About Sex and Marriage. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Publications,
2000.
Recommended
Listening
“Life is Worth Living” (Marriage and Marriage
Sacrament), Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Available in the audio library
at www.ewtn.com.
[1] Gaudium et Spes [GS],
n. 47, §1.
[2] Familiaris Consortio [FC],
n. 11.
[3] Christopher West, The
Good News About Sex and Marriage. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant
Publications,
2000.
[4] Code of Canon Law [CIC],
1983, canon 1055, §1.
[5] Catechism of the Catholic
Church [CCC], Second Edition, n. 1602.
[6] Rev. 22:17.
[7] cf. Mt. 9:15.
[8] cf. Jn. 3:29.
[9] Cf. Gn. 2:23.
[10] Gn. 2:18.
[11] Gn. 3:16-19.
[12] Eph 5:21-3.
[13] CCC, n. 1605.
[14] CCC, n. 1608.
[15] CCC, n. 1609.
[16] CCC, n. 1666.
[17] Mt. 6:24-34.
[18] Cf. Rm. 8:35.