107. Language of the Body Strengthens the
Marriage Covenant
By Pope John Paul II
1. The sign
of marriage as a sacrament of the Church is constituted each time according to
that dimension which is proper to it from the "beginning." At the same time it
is constituted on the foundation of the spousal love of Christ and of the Church
as the unique and unrepeatable expression of the covenant between "this" man and
"this" woman. They are the ministers of marriage as a sacrament of their
vocation and their life. In saying that the sign of marriage as a sacrament of
the Church is constituted on the basis of the language of the body, we are
using analogy (the analogy of attribution), which we have sought to clarify
previously. It is obvious that the body as such does not "speak," but man
speaks, rereading that which requires to be expressed precisely on the basis of
the "body," of the masculinity and femininity of the personal subject, indeed,
on the basis of what can be expressed by man only by means of the body.
In this sense man—male or female—does not merely speak with the language of the
body. But in a certain sense he permits the body to speak "for him" and "on his
behalf," I would say, in his name and with his personal authority. In this way
even the concept of the "prophetism of the body" seems to be well founded. The
prophet spoke "for" and "on behalf of"—in the name and with the authority of a
person.
2. The newlywed spouses are aware of it when in contracting marriage they
institute its visible sign. In the perspective of life in common and of the
conjugal vocation, that initial sign, the original sign of marriage as a
sacrament of the Church, will be continually completed by the "prophetism of the
body." The spouses' bodies will speak "for" and "on behalf of" each of
them. They will speak in the name of and with the authority of the person,
of each of the persons, carrying out the conjugal dialogue proper to their
vocation and based on the language of the body, reread in due course opportunely
and continually—and it is necessary that it be reread in truth! The spouses are
called to form their life and their living together as a communion of persons on
the basis of that language. Granted that there corresponds to the language a
complexus of meaning, the spouses—by means of their conduct and comportment,
by means of their actions and gestures ("gestures of tenderness"—cf. Gaudium
et Spes 49)—are called to become the authors of such meanings of the
"language of the body." Consequently, love, fidelity, conjugal uprightness and
that union which remains indissoluble until death are constructed and
continually deepened.
3. The sign of marriage as a sacrament of the Church is formed precisely by
those meanings which the spouses are the authors of. All these meanings are
initiated and in a certain sense "programmed" in a synthetic manner in the
conjugal consent for the purpose of constructing later—in a more analytical way,
day by day—the same sign, identifying oneself with it in the dimension of the
whole of life. There is an organic bond between rereading in truth the
integral significance of the language of the body and the consequent use
of that language in conjugal life. In this last sphere the human being—male and
female—is the author of the meanings of the language of the body. This implies
that this language which he is the author of corresponds to the truth which has
been reread. On the basis of biblical tradition we speak here of the "prophetism
of the body." If the human being—male and female—in marriage (and indirectly
also in all the spheres of mutual life together) confers on his behavior a
significance in conformity with the fundamental truth of the language of the
body, then he also "is in the truth." In the contrary case he is
guilty of a lie and falsifies the language of the body.
4. If we place ourselves on the perspective line of conjugal consent—which, as
we have already said, offers the spouses a particular participation in the
prophetic mission of the Church handed down from Christ himself—we can in this
regard also use the biblical distinction between true and false prophets. By
means of marriage as a sacrament of the Church, man and woman are called
explicitly to bear witness—by using correctly the language of the body—to
spousal and procreative love, a witness worthy of true prophets. The true
significance and the grandeur of conjugal consent in the sacrament of the Church
consists in this.
5. The problematic of the sacramental sign of marriage has a highly
anthropological character. We construct it on the basis of theological
anthropology and in particular on that which, from the beginning of the present
considerations, we have defined as the theology of the body. Therefore, in
continuing these analyses, we should always have before our minds the previous
considerations which refer to the analysis of the key words of Christ. (We call
them key words because they open up for us, like a key, the individual
dimensions of theological anthropology, especially of the theology of the body.)
Constructing on this basis the analysis of the sacramental sign of marriage in
which the man and woman always participate, even after original sin, that is,
man and woman as historical man, we must constantly bear in mind the fact that
that historical man, male and female, is at the same time the man of
concupiscence. As such, every man and every woman enter the history of salvation
and they are involved in it through the sacrament which is the visible sign of
the covenant and of grace.
Therefore, we bear this in mind in the context of the present reflections, on
the sacramental structure of the sign of not only what Christ said on the unity
and indissolubility of marriage by referring to the "beginning," but also (and
still more) what he said in the Sermon on the Mount when he referred to the
"human heart."