Marriage- The Beauty of God’s Plan: Part II
Dear people of God, here is the next segment of the paper. Hopefully part one was helpful and edifying, and may this part continue to be so!
The Biblical and Theological Understanding of Marriage (cont.)
Many Old Testament figures were able to live chaste, holy marriages in accordance with God’s will, even considering that they had less grace than their New Testament counterparts. Tobias and Sarah, for example, were a holy couple who faced great danger and still trusted in the Lord, who saved them and made them prosperous. Boaz and Ruth, too, were good people in the sight of the Lord, and they followed his precepts. Certainly Mary, the mother of God, had devout, righteous parents as well. What one should take away from this is that, while probably more difficult, it has never been impossible to live marriage as God intended it. Our Lord would not give us a task too great for us to accomplish, as captured in Scripture when it says, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
What of the New Testament view of marriage? This has been partially discussed already, but there is an even deeper understanding to be gained by turning to biblical exegesis of key texts. In part two of John Paul II’s book Man and Woman He Created Them, labeled “The Sacrament,” he begins by writing about Ephesians 5:21-33. For the sake of reference, we will include this passage in this document:
“21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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. 28 Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ 32 This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; 33 however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
This is the crowning passage in all of Scripture regarding marriage, and most especially because it reveals a great mystery and gives us a deeper understanding of the true and perfect meaning of marriage. We can see that “all monogamous marriage today is a symbol of the union of Christ and the Church,”[2] as can be seen in verses 23-24 and 32. We can also see that the husband and wife are meant to be “reciprocally subject in the fear of Christ.”[3] This means that the husband gives himself to his wife because of his reverence for God and his sacraments, and the wife does the same. Each of the two is meant to understand that their marriage is an image of Christ’s marriage to the Church and, because of this great truth, they should be compelled to love one another “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25).
“…all monogamous marriage today is a symbol of the union of Christ and the Church”
A stunning and wonderful connection can be made between this passage in Ephesians and the accounts of the Last Supper. When one ponders the fullness of Christ’s gift to his church in light of Saint Paul’s analogy regarding marriage, it becomes easy to see that human marriage mirrors Christ’s actions in yet another way. Just as man was made to give himself totally, as a free and reciprocal gift, to his wife, so, too, was woman made to surrender herself to her husband and receive from him the complete gift of himself. In the Eucharist, Christ gives himself, in a truly complete and unique way, to his bride, the Church. He offers his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity to his bride as a selfless gift, and he does so for her sake. Seen in light of God’s plan for our salvation, when two become one flesh, we can now see how the marital embrace foreshadows the perfect unity of God and his people in heaven.
So much more could be said about the biblical and theological understanding of marriage. Countless books by numerous authors address marriage from each standpoint, and some of the greatest combine the two aspects, as does Man and Woman He Created Them. We must now move on, however, to examine the Catholic Church’s writings on the sacrament of marriage and how it is to be lived.
The Magisterium’s Words on Living the Sacrament of Marriage
Let us now address the guiding wisdom with which the Church leads her people through her encyclicals, beginning with Casti Connubii, or On Christian Marriage. One of the most definitive statements made in this encyclical is that “amongst the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place.”[4] Speaking on the other aspect of marriage, the unitive, Pius XI says “conjugal faith, or honor, demands… the complete unity of matrimony which the Creator Himself laid down in the beginning when He wished it to be not otherwise than between one man and one woman.”[5] Of course, this statement is in line with the teachings of the Church found in the Catechism, which say “By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man’s exalted vocation to parenthood” (CCC 2369). We will now briefly address the Church’s wisdom regarding the procreative and unitive aspects of marriage, after which we will turn to a discussion of the family.
Regarding the procreative aspect of marriage, the Holy Father had several things to say to the lay faithful. The main text for understanding his ideas says that the married are not only supposed to produce children and educate them in a general sense, nor “to educate any kind of worshippers of the true God, but children who are to become members of the Church of Christ.”[6] The obligations of parents include proper education of their children in the faith along with providing shelter, clothing, and nourishment, all according to the parents’ means.
On the topic of unity within marriage, Pius XI also had a beautiful statement that truly reveals the importance of this unity. He wrote,
“[The] mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof.”[7]
“…if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.”
Still commenting on the unity of the spouses and the family as a whole, he wrote about the subjection of husband and wife to one another. In section 27 of Casti Connubii, Pius XI takes up much of what John Paul II discusses in Man and Woman He Created Them, speaking of the equality but difference of spouses within marriage. As guidance and teaching for the proper living of a Christian marriage, we are told that women are to be subject to their husbands as the Church is subject to Christ, but she is also not to be given too much freedom, to the detriment of the family. In addition, as already addressed, the man is to love his wife as Christ loves the Church and to act as head of the family, always seeking the good of his family, even over his own good. Finally, as a sort of summary, Pius XI tells us, his flock, that “if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.”[8]
[2] Dom Wulstan Mork, O.S.B., Transformed By Grace: Scripture, Sacraments & the Sonship of Christ (Cincinnati: Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 2004), p. 227
[3] John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006), p. 472
[4] Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 11
[5] Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 20
[6] Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 13
[7] Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 24
[8] Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 27