Marriage as Sacramental Gift

Marriage as Sacramental Gift Compiled by Donald L. Wallenfang, O.C.D.S., Ph.D. and Megan J. Wallenfang, O.C.D.S.

The Theology of the Body What is the Theology of the Body?  The first major teaching project of Pope John Paul II (1978-2005)  129 short talks delivered between September 1979 to November 1984  A rich, biblical reflection on the meaning of human embodiment, particularly as it concerns sexuality and erotic desire Outline of Part I of the Theology of the Body on Genesis 1-3: “From the beginning it was not so…” (Matthew 19:8) When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan. Great crowds followed him, and he cured them there. Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?” He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘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 flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss [her]?” He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:1-8). “Jesus Christ appealed to ‘the beginning’” (TOB 1:2).

1. (the vocation of) making a There was once a

perfect gift.

gift of oneself

It was given to the point of emptiness,

abandonment, and exhaustion. The gift was a This gift is

complete sacrifice of self.

Jesus.

We too, are called, no matter our vocation, to be this gift. We

ourselves are the gift. The gift hears the cry of the other and answers. No whisper too soft, no cry too loud. This is

love.

“God created humankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:27-28). “Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

“The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him…So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The LORD God then built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman. When he brought her to the man, the man said: ‘This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken.’ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:18, 21-25).

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“I will make a covenant for them on that day…I will betroth you to me forever: I will betroth you to me with justice and with judgment, with loyalty and compassion; I will betroth you to me with fidelity, and you shall know the LORD” (Hosea 2:20, 21-22). “In the light of this word of Christ, Genesis 2:24 states the principle of the unity and indissolubility of marriage as the very content of the word of God expressed in the most ancient revelation” (TOB 1:3). “Chapter 2 of Genesis constitutes in some way the oldest description and record of man’s selfunderstanding and, together with chapter 3, it is the first witness of human conscience” (TOB 3:1). “In the interpretation of the revelation about man, and above all about the body, we must, for understandable reasons, appeal to experience, because bodily man is perceived by us above all in experience…we must reach the conviction that in this case, our human experience is in some way a legitimate means for theological interpretation and that, in a certain sense, it is an indispensable point of reference to which we must appeal in the interpretation of the ‘beginning’” (TOB 4:4). a. Original Solitude “Consciousness of the body seems to be identical in this case with the discovery of the complexity of one’s own structure, which in the end, based on a philosophical anthropology, consists in the relation between soul and body…Man is a subject not only by his self-consciousness and by selfdetermination, but also based on his own body. The structure of this body is such that it permits him to be the author of genuinely human activity. In this activity, the body expresses the person” (TOB 7:1-2). b. Original Unity “The fact that man is a ‘body’ belongs more deeply to the structure of the personal subject than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male and female” (TOB 8:1). “Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion” (TOB 9:3). “When both [man and woman] unite so intimately with each other that they become ‘one flesh,’ their conjugal union presupposes a mature consciousness of the body. Better yet, this union carries within itself a particular awareness of the meaning of that body in the reciprocal self-gift of the persons” (TOB 10:4).

2. a

sacramental

union

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Matthew 19:6). Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon you arm; For Love is strong as Death, longing is fierce as Sheol. 3

Its arrows are arrows of fire, flames of the divine. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor rivers sweep it away. Were one to offer all the wealth of his house for love, He would be utterly despised (Song of Songs 8:6-7). “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So [also] husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:2532).

“Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9).

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Marriage is a sign. A sign of what was, what is, and what is to come – an ultimate sign of God’s marriage to humanity. Married life is at the service of the Church, of humanity. c. Original Innocence “‘Nakedness’ signifies the original good of the divine vision. It signifies the whole simplicity and fullness of this vision, which shows the ‘pure’ value of man as male and female, the ‘pure’ value of the body and of [its] sex” (TOB 13:1). “Creation is a gift, because man appears in it, who, as an ‘image of God,’ is able to understand the very meaning of the gift in the call from nothing to existence” (TOB 13:4). “The gift reveals a particular characteristic of personal existence, or even of the very essence of the person…‘alone,’ the man does not completely realize his essence. He realizes it only by existing ‘with someone’ – and, put even more deeply and completely, by existing ‘for someone’” (TOB 14:2). “This is the body: a witness to creation as a fundamental gift, and therefore a witness to Love as the source from which this same giving springs…created by Love, that is, endowed in their being with masculinity and femininity, both are ‘naked,’ because they are free with the very freedom of the gift” (TOB 15:1). “Only Love creates the good, and in the end it alone can be perceived in all its dimensions and its contours in created things and, above all, in man…Happiness is rooted in love” (TOB 16:1-2).

3. the

crowning fruits

Children are the ultimate fruit of marriage and the number one ministry of the parents. After all, children in marriage are what makes the world go ‘round. It’s what allowed for the Incarnation.

heart of the drama of salvation is the human person enmeshed in marriage and family life. God’s revelation comes The

exactly through the human person in the Incarnation, family life in the Holy Family, and the ultimate fulfillment of the wedding feast of the

Lamb.

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Blessed are all who fear the LORD, and who walk in his ways. What your hands provide you will enjoy; you will be blessed and prosper: Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your home, your children like young olive plants around your table. Just so will the man be who fears the LORD (Psalm 128:1-4).

d. Original Sin “The biblical description [of original sin in Genesis 3:1-5] seems to highlight particularly the key moment in which, in man’s heart, doubt is cast on the Gift” (TOB 26:4). “In reality, what shows itself through ‘nakedness’ is man deprived of participation in the Gift, man alienated from the Love that was the source of the original gift, the source of the fullness of good intended for the creature…Man in some way loses the original certainty of the ‘image of God’ expressed in his body. He also loses in a certain way the sense of his right to participate in the visibility of the world, which he enjoyed in the mystery of creation…He realizes for the first time that his body has ceased drawing on the power of the spirit, which raised him to the level of the image of God” (TOB 27:2, 4; 28:2). e. The Promise of Redemption “This ‘heavenly man’ – the man of the resurrection, whose prototype is the risen Christ – is not so much the antithesis and negation of the ‘man of earth’ (whose prototype is the ‘first Adam’) but above all his fulfillment and confirmation” (TOB 71:3).

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