The Sacramentality of Marriage - A Deeper Look

I.                TOB intro

a.     TOB means Jesus’ body shows us about God, and learning about God helps us understand why He made our bodies the way He did

b.    This is not JPII’s opinion, but rather his way of explaining the Church’s infallible teachings

II.             Jesus’ death on the cross is the key to understanding Marriage

a.     Read Eph 5

b.    On the cross Jesus establishes a marriage covenant, the New and Everlasting Covenant in His blood.

c.     He does this by giving Himself ffff. This is true, eternal, real love: the essence and defn, the prototype of love.

d.    Marriage is a sacrament of the union between Christ and the Church: a sacrament of the New Covenant

e.     A Sacrament is something that makes what is invisible visible: ie. Baptism or the body. For it to be a sacrament, it must take something that is invisible and make that very thing visible. It must be a sign that really describes the invisible reality.

f.      I.e. JPII calls the body a sacrament of the person, it makes the person visible, in a way that really describes/portrays our invisible spiritual nature. Thus we are spiritually male and female as well as bodily complimentary. (Here we can see why we have an all male priesthood, since the visible sign of Jesus’ body has to be male. We can also see the problem with sex change operations…)

III.          How does Marriage make the New Covenant, the union of Christ with the Church visible?

a.     Is it the rings, the dress, the party, or the presence of the priest? No…

b.    It is the bodies of the couple themselves, making visible in private the vows they made in public.

c.     By having sex in a manner that really makes visible the kind of love Jesus used to establish the new Covenant, the couple’s very bodies become the Sacrament of Marriage, they minister the Sacrament of Marriage to one another. (Note the parallel with the priesthood.)

d.    How can married people do this? By giving themselves ffff.

IV.          Making the Covenant Visible: the visible sign, the natural foundation

a.     What is necessary for this gift to occur? Spousal love-romantic love on both sides of the relationship. This is where natural science can help the couple do their sacrament better. Psychologists understand what makes people fall in love and have romantic feelings toward each other (no matter what age they are). We can take the mystery out of our human nature and much of the uncertainty out of whether or not our marriage is sacramental by learning. (This is the natural foundation that makes the supernatural visible. It is similar to a priest who must first learn to grasp something with his thumb and index finger in order to confect the Eucharist. We take this natural foundation for granted generally because we don’t remember learning to do this easy gesture…)

b.    Male and female bodies: the complimentarity of the sexes allows us to unite completely with another human being through sex (I am not referring to any use of our sexuality commonly called sex, but rather, specifically, to a union of the genitals.) This is the only way to give our fertility to the other person, thus making it a full gift.

i.   the male body: natural sign of the supernatural reality of God who initiates the gift (cf. Eph 5)

ii. the female body: natural sign of humanity and our relationship as the bride of Christ, actively receiving him as Mary did “Let it be for me…”

c.     Self possession as the foundation of the communion of persons: self possession is an integration of all the parts of who you are body, soul, emotions, thoughts, reason, faith, will, etc. into a unified and integrated whole that you are in control or possession of. 

i.  This makes you “in control” and therefore free to give yourself. 

ii. This has both natural (therapy) and spiritual (spiritual counseling/reconciliation) parts.

V.             The Supernatural fruit of the natural foundation: the efficatious graces of marriage

a.     Once you possess yourself, you can give yourself in a way that forms a communion of persons that images the Trinity, the image in which we were made, revealed to us by Jesus on the Cross. (Explain the ad intra Trinity)

i.  This fulfillment of the image in which we were made is our greatest happiness, and prepares us for participating in it in heaven.

ii. The communion of persons is what God intended for marriage from the beginning, and was ruined at the fall (“Your desire shall be for your husband and he will lord it over you.”). It was restored by Jesus and comes to us through the sacramental graces of Christian Matrimony.

iii. This means that we are meant to experience what was in the garden of Eden in our marriages. With the exception of complete innocence, we can go back to the beginning… and to the end of time.

b.    Marriage compliments the celebate vocations

i.  Celebate vocations image the union of Christ and the Church in a direct and anticipatory way. They live the way we will live with Christ in heaven already here on earth.

ii.  Marriage shows celebates and everyone the kind of relationship they and we are to have with Christ our first spouse and our heavenly Bridegroom.

c.     Marriage bears physical and supernatural fruit

i.  Through children who are both physical and spiritual, the graces of marriage have an effect on the whole world

ii. By giving themselves in conformity with the love of Jesus and together with Him in the crucible of his passion and death, they become united with Him, or transfigured, so to speak, into His image. When we are united with God, all things are possible for us. This means great spiritual potency to bear many spiritual fruits, and this union with Jesus is why marriage is a path to holiness.

iii. What married people do in their bedrooms is “our business” because it has the power to lift up the Mystical Body of Christ. The grace available throught the sacrament of matrimony has the power to bear fruit through the MBOC in ways we may never know.

VI.          Conclusion

a.     We can see why it is so important to the Church that the true sacrament of marriage and the gift of true love through sex be kept intact… there are major spiritual implications if the sacamental sign does not match up!

b.    When we live with self possession, give ourselves to our spouse, (be it God alone or God and a man) we find who we truly are. (Vat II quote)

c.     This leads us to our greatest happiness both on earth and in heaven.