Unit II: Christian Perspectives of Marriage

Lesson B: Theological Dimension of Marriage

Marriage

The intimate, exclusive, indissoluble communion of life and love entered by man and woman at the design of the Creator for the purpose of their own good and the procreation and education of children; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

Intimate

1. Marriage is the closest and most intimate of human friendships. 

2. It involves the sharing of the whole of a person’s life with his/her spouse. 

3. Marriage calls for a mutual self-surrender so intimate and complete that spouses – without losing their individuality – become “one,” not only in body, but in soul.

Exclusive

1. As a mutual gift of two persons to each other, this intimate union excludes such union with anyone else. 

2. It demands the total fidelity of the spouses. 

3. This exclusivity is essential for the good of the couple’s children as well.

Authentic Conjugal Love

Husband and wife are not joined by passing emotion or mere erotic inclination which, selfishly pursued, fades quickly away. They are joined in ? by the firm and irrevocable act of their own will. 

Holy Spirit

For the baptized, this bond is sealed by the ? and becomes absolutely indissoluble. 

Divorce

According to the church, this is impossible, regardless of its civil implications.

Entered by Man and Woman

The complementarity of the sexes is essential to marriage.

At the Design of the Creator

He inscribed the call to marriage in our very being by creating us as male and female. Marriage is governed by his laws, faithfully transmitted by his Bride, the Church. 

God

The author of marriage

Man

They are not free to change the meaning and purpose of marriage

For the Purpose of their Own Good

Conversely, it’s for their own good, for their benefit, enrichment, and ultimately their salvation, that a man and woman join their lives in marriage.

Marriage

It is  the most basic expression of the vocation to love that all men and women have as persons made in God’s image.

Procreation and Education of Children

Children are not added on to marriage and conjugal love, but spring from the very heart of the spouses mutual self-giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. Intentional exclusion of children, then, contradicts the very nature and purpose of marriage.

Covenant

It goes beyond the minimum rights and responsibilities guaranteed by a contract. It calls the spouses to share in the free total, faithful, and fruitful love of God.

Good and Natural Marriage. 

Marriage of two non-baptized persons, or of one baptized person and one non-baptized person, considered by the Church

Grace

Marriage between baptized persons is an efficacious sign of the union between Christ and the Church, and, as such

Episcopal Commision on Ecumenical Affair of the CBCP

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Sacred Scripture

begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of the ‘wedding feast of the Lamb.’

Old Testament

Throughout the ?, God’s love for his people is described as the love of a husband for his bride.

New Testament

In the ?, Christ embodies this love. He comes as the Heavenly Bridegroom to unite himself indissolubly to his Bride, the Church.

Plan of God

Marriage has a history in the

Three Persons of the Trinity

Marriage begins in the eternal essence of God himself, for God’s institution of marriage manifests its Institutor. And God is a society of mutual self-giving love among the?

incarnation and sacrificial death

Christ  revealed  the  deepest  meaning  of marriage  by “marrying”   and   saving   the   human   race   by   his ?

Chauvinism

which denies their natural equality

Unisexism

which  denies their natural differences

Individualism

which denies their natural complementarity

The Sacrament of Matrimony

Gives to its recipients (the spouses) sacramental and actual graces – that is, the real presence of Christ, in fact the very life of Christ in our souls.

Fathers of the Church

Ambiguities in their understanding and teaching on marriage and sexuality

Platonism

spiritual / ideal = real ; matter/flesh/body = a falling away from the purity of existence

Gnosticism

 spirit = good; matter = evil

Stoicism

subordinating all emotions and passions  to rational  ends

Reaction

Exegesis of the First Fall

Sexual Appetite

It was wounded by sin

Proles

• good of “offspring”

1. not merely the procreation of children,

2. but the receiving of them lovingly,

3. the nourishing of  them humanely, and

4. the educating of them religiously

Fides

• fidelity

1. debt that the couple owe to one another

2. means not only exclusivity but also rendering the marital debt( act)  to the spouse

3. mutual service – sustaining each other’s weaknesses

Sacramentum

• sacrament

1. refers to indissolubility

2. marital union as symbolized by the relationship between Christ and the church

Desexualized Love

rendering marriage and the act evil

De-genitalizing Love

Purifying it from its genital dimension

Officium Naturae

Natural Institution - natural among human beings to enter into a lasting relationship for procreation 

Principal End

the procreation and education of offspring

Secondary End

partnership (sharing of task which are necessary in life, and from this point of view, husband and wife owe each other faithfulness, which is one of the goods of marriage)

Consent

a free and internal act of the will of man and woman

Sacrament

denotes a sanctifying remedy against sin, offered to man under sensible signs

Marital Act

as integral to marriage, not to its essence but to its operation 

Fides

rendering the act honest – the paying of debt – in response to the requesting spouse

Love of Friendship in Marriage

most “intense” of loves and could be intensified by sexual act, but the act is the whole of friendship

Gaudium et Spes

Vatican II on the Partnership of Life and Love

Marriage

According to the Church Magisterium, the intimate partnership of married life and love established by the creator, qualified by His laws and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable consent

Marital Act

It is a noble and worthy insofar as it signifies and promotes the mutual self-giving by which spouses enrich each other with joyful and thankful will

Mutual Gift of Self

In collaboration with God in the generation and education of new lives

1. Human

2. Total

3. Faithful

4. Exclusive

5. Fecund (fruitful)

The characteristic marks and demands of conjugal love:

Responsible parenthood

context where conjugal love finds its fulfillment

Unity

an act expresses and perfects married love

Conjugal Act

not only produce something -  but saying something

Divine Institution

willed by God

S

grace to help and strengthen the couple in their road to holiness

Council of Trent

19th Ecumenical Council, 1566

Casti Conubii

A landmark in the development of the theology of marriage

Anglican Bishops

Their reaction is to separate the procreative and unitive ends of marriage by allowing contraception

Fides

not only as mutual exclusion, but also mutual inclusion  (blending of life)

Personal Dimension of Marriage

Hierarchy of ends predominated

Pope John Paul II

His Vision of Marriage and Sexuality: man and woman are called to express the mysterious “language” of the body in all truth proper to it.

Natural Phenomenon

• Human beings are naturally inclined to marriage in a rational movement toward a good that men and women bring about through deliberation and consent.

• Since man is a rational creature, he can identify things that can make him happy and thus, pursue them, seeing them as ends and goods.

• It cascades to marriage, giving it a certain rational order, as a person is naturally inclined to choose certain ends

First and Principal End

Bonum Proles. Begetting and Education of Children

First and Principal End

1. Men and women come together to generate new life and they stay together to provide their children education not only in survival but also in virtue.

2. It is for the benefit of the child’s education that he/she be certain of his parent’s identity and virtue. 

3. To this end a father and mother bind themselves together and provide a home for their child in which over many years he/she can confidently develop daily with his/her parents the practice of virtue.

Second End

Bonum Fides. The Cooperation in Making and Perfecting a Household.

Second End

1. Because a human being is a social and political animal it is natural that human beings form society to pursue and enjoy ever increasing goods. The most fundamental and natural of these societies is the family. 

2. In the family, men and women cooperate intimately where around a common home they share the whole of life producing and enjoying together the necessities of life.

St. Thomas Aquinas

For him, marriage unites these two natural ends into one seamless life of the family where the ends of father, mother, and child are met all at once.

Marriage

It is a remedy for sin and a cause of grace for the spouses.

Bonum Sacramentum

Basis of Aquinas for highlighting the Sacramental Character of Marriage

Romans

what makes a marriage sacramental is the consent between a man and a woman.

Northern Europeans

the sexual intercourse between a man and a woman after the giving of consent makes the marriage.

Gracia

between spouses there should be marriage, but only initiated; between spouses who have engaged in sexual intercourse, there is ratified marriage.

Matrimonial Grace

intended to perfect the couple's love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity

Christ

source of grace

Code of Canon Law

The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of whole life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.

Holy Mass

The celebration of marriage between two Catholic faithful normally takes place during ?, because of the connection of all the sacraments with the Paschal mystery of Christ.

St. Augustine of Hippo

Before becoming a well-known doctor of the Church, he was once a Manichean who believed that the body was created by evil and therefore also evil, though it holds a certain amount of goodness.

Bonum Prolis

The good of “offspring”. Fruitfulness of the union. Procreativity or the openness to having children

De Bono Conjugali

sexual intercourse for begetting is free from blame, and itself is alone worthy of marriage. But that which goes beyond this necessity no longer follows reason, but lust.

Bonum Fidei

the couple remains faithful to each other and offers mutual service to each other. “Fidelity” or “faithfulness”

Fides/Fidelity

• rudimentary faithfulness that all married people owe each other—the duty to abstain from adultery or sexual relations with other persons.

• positive duty of married persons to engage in sex—not for the purpose of procreation, but of sex purely to satisfy desire—in order to help each other avoid adultery.

Fidelity as Mutual Servitude

• spouses agree to support each other in their weakness

• limits possible disorders of desire and harnesses desire to the benefit of the marriage relationship

Concupiscence

• in itself, has the unrestrained weakness of the flesh, but from marriage, it receives the permanent bond of fidelity;

• in itself, leads to unrestrained intercourse, but from marriage, it has the restraint of chaste procreation."

St. Paul

He recognizes the importance of sexual intimacy in marriage when he mentioned the need of the husband and wife to have sexual relations with each other as a means of fulfilling their “marital duty.”

Genesis

 man and woman becoming one body. both men and women in married relationships have ownership over the sexuality and fertility of each other.

Apostle

reminds the couple not to deprive each other of this marital duty if only for a time since it is recognized in the first instance that sex is indeed an integral part of the married relationship

Augustine

His teaching controlled the approach to marriage in the Latin church until the thirteenth century. The Scholastic theologians then made some significant alterations to it.

Thomas Aquinas

He  took over Augustine’s three goods of marriage and transformed them based on his view of humanity: the ends of marriage. What were for the Neo-Platonic Augustine goods of marriage became for the Aristotelian Aquinas ends of marriage, and ends established in a “natural” priority

Proles

does not merely pertain to the continuation of the species but rather bonum prolis: the education of children.

Unitive End

Marriage does not only occur among men for the procreation and nurturing of children but also for the consortium of a shared life for the sake of sharing the labors. 

The Council of Verona

Marriage was first listed as a Sacrament together with Baptism and Eucharist

The Council of Lyons

Listed marriage among the seven sacraments (DS 860), which was approved and listed again by the Council of Florence (1439).

The Council of Florence

A triple good is designated for marriage

Marriage

It is the seventh sacrament which is sign of union between Christian and His Church

offspring

First triple Good - accepted and raised to worship God

fidelity

Second triple Good - each spouse ought to serve the other

indivisibility of marriage

Third triple Good -  signifies the indivisible union of Christ and Church