CHRIST MADE MARRIAGE A SACRAMENT
Through the sacrament of Matrimony Christ gives Christian couples the grace to live in fidelity and to raise their children in the faith
At the General Audience of Wednesday, 6 May, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on the Church as a priestly sacramental community. In the 31st talk of the series he discussed the sacrament of Matrimony and its role in God's saving plan. Here is the Pope's address, which he gave in Italian.
1. According to the Second Vatican Council, the Church is a "priestly community", whose, "sacred and organic nature" is realized through the sacraments, among which a special place must be given to the sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony.
Regarding Holy Orders, we read in the Constitution Lumen gentium: "Those among the faithful who have received Holy Orders are appointed to nourish the Church with the word and grace of God in the name of Christ"; regarding Matrimony we read: "In virtue of the sacrament of Matrimony by which they signify and share (cf. Eph 5:32) the mystery of the unity and faithful love between Christ and the Church, Christian married couples help one another to attain holiness" (Lumen gentium, n. 11).
We will devote today's catechesis exclusively to the sacrament of Matrimony and return to the ministerial priesthood at a later time.
2. In a previous catechesis we recalled that the first miracle Jesus worked took place in Cana during a wedding feast. Although the significance of this miracle, by which "Jesus revealed his glory" (Jn 2:11), goes far beyond the recorded event, nevertheless we can also discover the Lord's appreciation for married love and the institution of marriage, as well as his intention to bring salvation to this fundamental aspect of human life and society. He gives new wine, the symbol of new love. The episode in Cana shows us how marriage is threatened when love is in danger of running out. With this sacrament Jesus Christ reveals his own help in an effective way, in order to save and strengthen the couple's love through the gift of theological charity, and to give them the strength of fidelity. We can also say that the miracle worked by Jesus at the beginning of his public life is a sign of the importance marriage has in God's saving plan and the formation of the Church.
Finally we can say that Mary's initiative in asking and obtaining the miracle foretells her future role in the divine plan for Christian marriage: a benevolent pres ence, an intercession and a help in overcoming the inevitable problems.
3. In light of Cana we now want to call attention to the aspect of marriage which concerns us in this cycle of ecclesiological catecheses. It is a fact that in Christian marriage the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised in a remarkable way, because the married couple themselves are the ministers of the sacrament.
The human act, "by which", as the Council says, "the partners mutually surrender themselves to each other", has been raised to the dignity of a sacrament. The couple administer the sacrament to one another by their mutual consent.
The sacrament shows the value of the man and woman's free consent, as a statement of their personality and an expression of mutual love.
4. The Council also said that through the sacrament Christian married couples "signify and share (cf. Eph 5:32) the mystery of the unity and faithful love between Christ and the Church" (Lumen gentium, n. 11).
"Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is directed and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ and the salvific action of the Church, with the result that the spouses are effectively led to God and are helped and strengthened in their lofty role as fathers and mothers. Spouses, therefore, are fortified and, as it were, consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament" (Gaudium et spes, n. 48).
This last assertion of Gaudium et spes, that spouses are "as is were, consecrated by a special sacrament", is very important. This shows precisely how they exercise their priesthood as those baptized and confirmed.
5. Through this special sharing in the common priesthood of the Church, couples can achieve holiness. Indeed, through the sacrament they receive the strength to fulfil their marital and family duties, and to advance in mutual holiness. "They help one another," the Council says, "to attain holiness in their married life and in the rearing of their children. Hence by reason of their state in life and of their position they have their own gifts in the People of God (cf. 1 Cor 7:7)" (Lumen gentium,n. 11).
6. The sacrament of Matrimony is oriented toward fruitfulness. It is an inclination which is inborn in human nature. "By its very nature", the Council says, "the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory" (Gaudium et spes, n. 48).
The sacrament provides the spiritual strength of faith, love and generosity for fulfilling the duty of procreating and rearing offspring. It is a resource of divine grace which confirms and perfects the right, natural inclination and marks the very psychology of the couple, who have been made conscious of their own mission as those who "cooperate with the love of God the Creator", as the Council says (Gaudium et spes, n. 50).
The realization that they are cooperating in the divine work of creation and the love which inspires it helps married couples better to understand the sacred character of procreation and procreative love, and strengthens the orientation of their love to transmitting life.
7. The Council also calls attention to the educational mission of the spouses. In fact, we read in Gaudium et spes: "As for the spouses, when they are given the dignity and role of fatherhood and motherhood, they will eagerly carry out their duties of education, especially religious education, which primarily devolves on them" (Gaudium et spes, n. 48). But light is shed on this exhortation by Lumen gentium, which says: "In what might be regarded as the domestic Church, the parents, by word and example, are the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children" (Lumen gentium, n. 11). The Council, then, casts an ecclesial light on the mission of married couples-parents, as members of the Church, the priestly and sacramental community.
Clearly, for believers Christian education is the most beautiful gift which parents can give their children, and it is the highest and truest sign of their love. It requires a sincere and consistent faith, and a life led m conformity with the faith.
8. The Council also says that the marital union, "as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable unity between them" (Gaudium et spes, n. 48). Fidelity and unity come from the "special gifts of grace and love" (Gaudium et spes, n. 49) given by the sacrament. They ensure that, in imitation of Christ who loved the Church, "spouses, by their mutual selfgiving, will love each other with enduring fidelity" (Gaudium et spes, n. 48). This too is a strength inherent in the grace of the sacrament.
9. Finally, we read in the Council that "the Christian family springs from marriage, which is an image and a sharing in the partnership of love between Christ and the Church; it will show forth to all men Christ's saving presence in the world and the authentic nature of the Church by the love and generous fruitfulness of the spouses, by their unity and fidelity, and by the loving way in which all members of the family cooperate with each other" (Gaudium et spes, n. 48).
Therefore, not only each Christian considered individually, but the whole family as such, consisting of Christian parents and children, is called to witness to the life, love and unity which the Church possesses as properties deriving from her nature as a sacred community, constituted and living in Christ's love.
L'Osservatore Romano May 13, 1992