TOBET—Marriage and the Mass

Receiving Holy Communion    

1. Every time we receive the Eucharist, it is a renewal of our baptismal vows.
2. If we receive Jesus worthily, we become more whole, more holy.
3. The words Jesus spoke at the Last Supper were ratified on the Cross through action which we participate in at Mass.
4. In receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, we become more open to spiritual fruitfulness in our lives.
5. Through the Eucharist, we share in a 1-flesh union.
6. At Mass, we enter into the highest Liturgical form of worship—by being one-flesh with the Son, we can offer our lives to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.

1. Every time the couple engages in the marital intercourse, they are renewing their wedding vows.
2. If the couple receives each other worthily, they become more whole, more holy. In fact, the Pope does something amazing with the word virginity. He says the couple becomes more virginal, more integrated, body and soul, just as Adam and Eve were virginal, whole, integrated before the Fall.
3. The words the couple spoke at their wedding are ratified in their sacred bed.
4. In the marital embrace, the couple is open to physical and spiritual fruitfulness in their lives.
5. In consummation, the couple shares in a 1-flesh union.
6. Marital intercourse becomes a form of worship!! The Holy Father puts it this way: In marital union, “man and woman encounter the ‘great mystery’ (sacrament). . . .In this way conjugal life becomes in a certain sense liturgical” (380). The marital embrace is worship.

Much of this is taken from Christopher West’s Marriage and the Eucharist.