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The author of
the Letter to the Ephesians, as we have already seen, speaks of a "great
mystery," linked to the primordial sacrament through the continuity of God's
saving plan. He also referred to the "beginning," as Christ did in his
conversation with the Pharisees (cf. Mt 19:8), quoting the same words:
"Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and
they become one flesh" (Gn 2:24). This "great mystery" is above all the mystery
of the union of Christ with the Church, which the Apostle presents under the
similitude of the unity of the spouses: "I mean it in reference to Christ and
the Church" (Eph 5:32). We find ourselves in the domain of the great analogy in
which marriage as a sacrament is presupposed on the one hand, and on the other
hand, rediscovered. It is presupposed as the sacrament of the "beginning" of
mankind united to the mystery of the creation. However, it is rediscovered as
the fruit of the spousal love of Christ and of the Church linked with the
mystery of the redemption.
Address to spouses
2. The author
of the Letter to the Ephesians, addressing spouses directly, exhorts them to
mold their reciprocal relationship on the model of the spousal union of Christ
and the Church. It can be said that—presupposing the sacramentality of marriage
in its primordial significance—he orders them to learn anew this sacrament of
the spousal unity of Christ and the Church: "Husbands, love your wives, as
Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify
her..." (cf. Eph 5:25-26). This invitation which the Apostle addressed to
Christian spouses is fully motivated by the fact that through marriage as a
sacrament, they participate in Christ's saving love, which is expressed at the
same time as his spousal love for the Church. In the light of the Letter to the
Ephesians—precisely through participation in this saving love of Christ—marriage
as a sacrament of the human "beginning" is confirmed and at the same time
renewed. It is the sacrament in which man and woman, called to become "one
flesh," participate in God's own creative love. They participate in it both by
the fact that, created in the image of God, they are called by reason of this
image to a particular union (communio personarum), and because this same
union has from the beginning been blessed with the blessing of fruitfulness (cf.
Gn 1:28).
New depths of love
3. All this
original and stable structure of marriage as a sacrament of the mystery of
creation—according to the classic text of the Letter to the Ephesians (Eph
5:21-33)—is renewed in the mystery of the redemption, when that mystery assumes
the aspect of the spousal love of the Church on the part of Christ. That
original and stable form of marriage is renewed when the spouses receive it as a
sacrament of the Church, drawing from the new depths of God's love for man. This
love is revealed and opened with the mystery of the redemption, "when Christ
loved the Church and gave himself up for her to make her holy..." (Eph 5:25-26).
That original and stable image of marriage as a sacrament is renewed when
Christian spouses, conscious of the authentic profundity of the redemption of
the body, are united "out of reverence for Christ" (Eph 5:21).
Fusing the dimensions
4. The
Pauline image of marriage, inscribed in the "great mystery" of Christ and of the
Church, brings together the redemptive dimension and the spousal dimension of
love. In a certain sense it fuses these two dimensions into one. Christ has
become the spouse of the Church. He has married the Church as a bride, because
"He has given himself up for her" (Eph 5:25). Through marriage as a sacrament
(as one of the sacraments of the Church) both these dimensions of love, the
spousal and the redemptive, together with the grace of the sacrament, permeate
the life of the spouses. The spousal significance of the body in its masculinity
and femininity was manifested for the first time in the mystery of creation
against the background of man's original innocence. This significance is linked
in the image of the Letter to the Ephesians with the redemptive significance,
and in this way it is confirmed and in a certain sense, "newly created."
Understanding the link
5. This is
important in regard to marriage and to the Christian vocation of husbands and
wives. The text of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33) is directly addressed
to them and speaks especially to them. However, that linking of the spousal
significance of the body with its redemptive significance is equally essential
and valid for the understanding of man in general, for the fundamental problem
of understanding him and for the self-comprehension of his being in the world.
It is obvious that we cannot exclude from this problem the question on the
meaning of being a body, on the sense of being, as a body, man and woman. These
questions were posed for the first time in relation to the analysis of the human
beginning, in the context of Genesis. In a certain sense, that very context
demanded that they should be posed. It is equally demanded by the classic text
of the Letter to the Ephesians. The great mystery of the union of Christ to the
Church obliges us to link the spousal significance of the body with its
redemptive significance. In this link the spouses find the answer to the
question concerning the meaning of "being a body," and not only they, although
this text of the Apostle's letter is addressed especially to them.
Explains by analogy
6. The
Pauline image of the great mystery of Christ and of the Church also spoke
indirectly of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. In this celibacy,
both dimensions of love, the spousal and redemptive, are reciprocally united in
a way different from that of marriage, according to diverse proportions. Is not
perhaps that spousal love wherewith Christ "loved the Church"—his bride—"and
gave himself up for her," at the same time the fullest incarnation of the ideal
of celibacy for the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 19:12)? Is not support found
precisely in this by all those—men and women—who, choosing the same ideal,
desire to link the spousal dimension of love with the redemptive dimension
according to the model of Christ himself? They wish to confirm with their life
that the spousal significance of the body—of its masculinity and
femininity—profoundly inscribed in the essential structure of the human person,
has been opened in a new way on the part of Christ and with the example of his
life, to the hope united to the redemption of the body. Thus, the grace of the
mystery of the redemption bears fruit also—rather bears fruit in a special
way—with the vocation to celibacy for the kingdom of heaven.
7. The text of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33) does not speak of it
explicitly. It is addressed to spouses and constructed according to the image of
marriage, which by analogy explains the union of Christ with the Church—a union
in both redemptive and spousal love together. Is it not perhaps precisely this
love which, as the living and vivifying expression of the mystery of the
redemption, goes beyond the circle of the recipients of the letter circumscribed
by the analogy of marriage? Does it not embrace every man and, in a certain
sense, the whole of creation as indicated by the Pauline text on the redemption
of the body in Romans (cf. Rom 8:23)? The great sacrament in this sense is a new
sacrament of man in Christ and in the Church. It is the sacrament "of man and of
the world," just as the creation of man, male and female, in the image of God,
was the original sacrament of man and of the world. In this new sacrament of
redemption marriage is organically inscribed, just as it was inscribed in the
original sacrament of creation.
Fulfillment of the kingdom
8. Man, who
"from the beginning" is male and female, should seek the meaning of his
existence and the meaning of his humanity by reaching out to the mystery of
creation through the reality of redemption. There one finds also the essential
answer to the question on the significance of the human body, and the
significance of the masculinity and femininity of the human person. The union of
Christ with the Church permits us to understand in what way the spousal
significance of the body is completed with the redemptive significance, and this
in the diverse ways of life and in diverse situations. It is not only in
marriage or in continency (that is, virginity and celibacy), but also, for
example, in the many forms of human suffering, indeed, in the very birth and
death of man. By means of the great mystery which the Letter to the Ephesians
treats of, by means of the new covenant of Christ with the Church, marriage is
again inscribed in that "sacrament of man" which embraces the universe, in the
sacrament of man and of the world which, thanks to the forces of the redemption
of the body is modeled on the spousal love of Christ for the Church, to the
measure of the definitive fulfillment of the kingdom of the Father.
Marriage as a sacrament remains a living and vivifying part of this saving
process.
Source: L'Osservatore Romano
104. The Substratum and Content of the Sacramental Sign of Spousal Communion - 1.5.1983