By Lorraine & Leon Bent –
Catholic Marriage is a fountainhead of showers of blessings over a lifetime. It has four aspects: Sacrament, Covenant, Ministry and Holiness.
Our true mission as Sacramental and Covenantal Lovers is rooted and grounded in Jesus, his own self-giving love revealed in his person, his life, his service, his suffering, death and resurrection. And, through the empowering Holy Spirit, the matrimonial lovers are bound by cords of intimate unity. This bonding helps marital partners experience a lifetime rich in mists and mellow-fruitfulness.
Sacraments are about people in action reflecting God’s love. The Church is incomplete without us being a part of it. The Sacrament of Matrimony signifies God’s presence constantly breaking into our lives in Word and Spirit. Each one of us has a primary need of significant other people one can rely on. The uplifting and superlative meaning Jesus and the Church give to relationship, friendship, fellowship, communion and union, speak of human love as sacred. It is a tangible and visible expression of Trinitarian love in the world. Matrimony opens the door for a vowed, committed pair to constantly experience God in the ordinariness of everyday life.
Matrimony helps couples integrate their blessed love into their spiritual and earthly journey. It makes ‘personal encounter’ and sexuality, hallowed, and prompts the partners to view life with the eyes of faith.
Further, Christian marriage is a Covenant. Malachi: 2: 14 says, “…though she is…your wife by covenant.” Solomon’s wisdom gives us a clear picture of covenanted love: marriage as it was conceived at creation, comprises the close unity of three persons: a man, a woman, and God.
God never enters into a permanent relationship apart from a covenant; He expects those whom He ‘created in His image and likeness,’ to do the same. Psalm 50: 5 says, “Gather My godly ones to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” The Hebrew words “godly one,” is Hasid. A hassid is a person whose life is totally wrapped up in God: someone who exists only for God.
The Psalmist defines the “godly one,” the true hasidim as “those who cut my covenant on the basis of a sacrifice.” The Hebrew speaks of “cutting” a covenant, rather than merely making one. It suggests the action of the knife that puts the sacrifice to death. Without a sacrifice, there can be no covenant. There must, necessarily, be the shedding of blood.
Today, the sacrifice on which the covenant of Christian marriage is based is the death of Jesus Christ, on our behalf. He is the sacrifice through which, by faith, a man and woman can pass into a relationship, as God himself ordained it should be. The covenant of Christian marriage is made at the foot of the Cross!
If a matrimonial couple is able to live Jesus’ last will and testament: “Love one another as I have loved you,” (Jn.13:34; 15:12), this itself, is an attractive sign; the partners become Inspirational evangelizers by this very act of irresistible witnessing. This is the ministry and mission of nuptial partners.
Couple love is a fresh, vital and regenerating force in the Church. It is the partners’ capacity and willingness to change, in response to each other’s needs, at the urging of the Holy Spirit, that stimulates change in the community, the Church and the world. “Couple love is Couple power! It can and does change and heal the world!”
Married holiness lies in husband and wife living in intimate relationship. “…male and female he created them” (Gen. 1: 27). After God created woman he gave her to the man. Adam exclaimed ecstatically: “This, indeed, is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. She is to be called woman, because she was taken from man”: This is why “a husband shall leave his father and mother, cling to his wife and the two shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:23-24) – matrimonial theology succinctly put!
Now, this gold nugget! The Transformation of water into wine mirrors, in John: 2: 9-10, (CCC 796), the marriage between humanity and divinity upon the Cross, and transubstantiation during the Eucharist (Jn.6: 53; 1 Cor.10:16). Further, the wine of the marriage celebration looks to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven (Rev.19:7-9; CCC 1335). The “best wine is always served last” as at Cana, when consecrated partners have summer in their hearts and winter in their hair, in their twilight years! This, indeed, is “True Love,” that translates into eternal bliss! The Mount Tabor experience in marriage!
A little bird tweeted: The odds against this optimism had at one point in time, got lost in the dust and mire of our brokenness, our wounded selves. Be of good cheer! The stars are shining brightly! The moon is smiling again! So is the sun, even as it brightens the nuptial horizon with its brilliant light! God is looking down on us kindly!
And this final flourish! Go, Grow, Glow! Write your own Love Story as Jesus had it done in the Gospels!
Lorraine & Leon Bent have been a part of Worldwide Marriage Encounter for 38 years and have written 5 Books on Marriage alone, including a highly researched volume – a multifaceted synthesis on marriage.