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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF WEDNESDAY, 15 DECEMBER 1982
During the general audience of Wednesday, 15 December, in the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father gave the following discourse.
The author of the Letter to the Ephesians, as we have already seen, speaks of
a "great mystery," linked to the primordial sacrament through the
continuity of God's saving plan. He also referred to the "beginning,"
as Christ did in his conversation with the Pharisees (cf. Mt 19:8), quoting the
same words: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves
to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Gn 2:24). This "great
mystery" is above all the mystery of the union of Christ with the Church,
which the Apostle presents under the similitude of the unity of the spouses:
"I mean it in reference to Christ and the Church" (Eph 5:32). We find
ourselves in the domain of the great analogy in which marriage as a sacrament is
presupposed on the one hand, and on the other hand, rediscovered. It is
presupposed as the sacrament of the "beginning" of mankind united to
the mystery of the creation. However, it is rediscovered as the fruit of the
spousal love of Christ and of the Church linked with the mystery of the
redemption.
Address to spouses
2. The author of the Letter to the Ephesians, addressing spouses directly,
exhorts them to mold their reciprocal relationship on the model of the spousal
union of Christ and the Church. It can be said that—presupposing
the sacramentality of marriage in its primordial significance—he
orders them to learn anew this sacrament of the spousal unity of Christ and the
Church: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave
himself up for her, that he might sanctify her..." (cf. Eph 5:25-26). This
invitation which the Apostle addressed to Christian spouses is fully motivated
by the fact that through marriage as a sacrament, they participate in Christ's
saving love, which is expressed at the same time as his spousal love for the
Church. In the light of the Letter to the Ephesians—precisely
through participation in this saving love of Christ—marriage
as a sacrament of the human "beginning" is confirmed and at the same
time renewed. It is the sacrament in which man and woman, called to become
"one flesh," participate in God's own creative love. They participate
in it both by the fact that, created in the image of God, they are called by
reason of this image to a particular union (communio personarum), and
because this same union has from the beginning been blessed with the blessing of
fruitfulness (cf. Gn 1:28).
New depths of love
3. All this original and stable structure of marriage as a sacrament of the
mystery of creation—according
to the classic text of the Letter to the Ephesians (Eph 5:21-33)—is
renewed in the mystery of the redemption, when that mystery assumes the aspect
of the spousal love of the Church on the part of Christ. That original and
stable form of marriage is renewed when the spouses receive it as a sacrament of
the Church, drawing from the new depths of God's love for man. This love is
revealed and opened with the mystery of the redemption, "when Christ loved
the Church and gave himself up for her to make her holy..." (Eph 5:25-26).
That original and stable image of marriage as a sacrament is renewed when
Christian spouses, conscious of the authentic profundity of the redemption of
the body, are united "out of reverence for Christ" (Eph 5:21).
Fusing the dimensions
4. The Pauline image of marriage, inscribed in the "great mystery"
of Christ and of the Church, brings together the redemptive dimension and the
spousal dimension of love. In a certain sense it fuses these two dimensions into
one. Christ has become the spouse of the Church. He has married the Church as a
bride, because "He has given himself up for her" (Eph 5:25). Through
marriage as a sacrament (as one of the sacraments of the Church) both these
dimensions of love, the spousal and the redemptive, together with the grace of
the sacrament, permeate the life of the spouses. The spousal significance of the
body in its masculinity and femininity was manifested for the first time in the
mystery of creation against the background of man's original innocence. This
significance is linked in the image of the Letter to the Ephesians with the
redemptive significance, and in this way it is confirmed and in a certain sense,
"newly created."
Understanding the link
5. This is important in regard to marriage and to the Christian vocation of
husbands and wives. The text of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33) is
directly addressed to them and speaks especially to them. However, that linking
of the spousal significance of the body with its redemptive significance is
equally essential and valid for the understanding of man in general, for the
fundamental problem of understanding him and for the self-comprehension of his
being in the world. It is obvious that we cannot exclude from this problem the
question on the meaning of being a body, on the sense of being, as a body, man
and woman. These questions were posed for the first time in relation to the
analysis of the human beginning, in the context of Genesis. In a certain sense,
that very context demanded that they should be posed. It is equally demanded by
the classic text of the Letter to the Ephesians. The great mystery of the union
of Christ to the Church obliges us to link the spousal significance of the body
with its redemptive significance. In this link the spouses find the answer to
the question concerning the meaning of "being a body," and not only
they, although this text of the Apostle's letter is addressed especially to
them.
Explains by analogy
6. The Pauline image of the great mystery of Christ and of the Church also
spoke indirectly of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. In this
celibacy, both dimensions of love, the spousal and redemptive, are reciprocally
united in a way different from that of marriage, according to diverse
proportions. Is not perhaps that spousal love wherewith Christ "loved the
Church"—his
bride—"and
gave himself up for her," at the same time the fullest incarnation of the
ideal of celibacy for the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 19:12)? Is not support found
precisely in this by all those—men
and women—who,
choosing the same ideal, desire to link the spousal dimension of love with the
redemptive dimension according to the model of Christ himself? They wish to
confirm with their life that the spousal significance of the body—of
its masculinity and femininity—profoundly
inscribed in the essential structure of the human person, has been opened in a
new way on the part of Christ and with the example of his life, to the hope
united to the redemption of the body. Thus, the grace of the mystery of the
redemption bears fruit also—rather
bears fruit in a special way—with
the vocation to celibacy for the kingdom of heaven.
7. The text of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33) does not speak of it
explicitly. It is addressed to spouses and constructed according to the image of
marriage, which by analogy explains the union of Christ with the Church—a
union in both redemptive and spousal love together. Is it not perhaps precisely
this love which, as the living and vivifying expression of the mystery of the
redemption, goes beyond the circle of the recipients of the letter circumscribed
by the analogy of marriage? Does it not embrace every man and, in a certain
sense, the whole of creation as indicated by the Pauline text on the redemption
of the body in Romans (cf. Rom 8:23)? The great sacrament in this sense is a new
sacrament of man in Christ and in the Church. It is the sacrament "of man
and of the world," just as the creation of man, male and female, in the
image of God, was the original sacrament of man and of the world. In this new
sacrament of redemption marriage is organically inscribed, just as it was
inscribed in the original sacrament of creation.
Fulfillment of the kingdom
8. Man, who "from the beginning" is male and female, should seek
the meaning of his existence and the meaning of his humanity by reaching out to
the mystery of creation through the reality of redemption. There one finds also
the essential answer to the question on the significance of the human body, and
the significance of the masculinity and femininity of the human person. The
union of Christ with the Church permits us to understand in what way the spousal
significance of the body is completed with the redemptive significance, and this
in the diverse ways of life and in diverse situations. It is not only in
marriage or in continency (that is, virginity and celibacy), but also, for
example, in the many forms of human suffering, indeed, in the very birth and
death of man. By means of the great mystery which the Letter to the Ephesians
treats of, by means of the new covenant of Christ with the Church, marriage is
again inscribed in that "sacrament of man" which embraces the
universe, in the sacrament of man and of the world which, thanks to the forces
of the redemption of the body is modeled on the spousal love of Christ for the
Church, to the measure of the definitive fulfillment of the kingdom of the
Father.
Marriage as a sacrament remains a living and vivifying part of this saving
process.
Taken from: L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO - English Edition -- Reprinted with Permission -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana - The Holy See