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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF 5 JANUARY 1983
During the general audience of 5 January, the first of the new year, held in the Paul VI Hall, Pope John Paul delivered the following address.
1. "I take you as my wife"; "I take you as my husband"—these
words are at the center of the liturgy of marriage as a sacrament of the Church.
These words spoken by the engaged couple are inserted in the following formula
of consent: "I promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in sorrow,
in sickness and in health, and to love and honor you all the days of my
life." With these words the engaged couple enter the marriage contract and
at the same time receive the sacrament of which both are the ministers. Both of
them, the man and the woman, administer the sacrament. They do it before
witnesses. The priest is a qualified witness, and at the same time he blesses
the marriage and presides over the whole sacramental liturgy. Moreover, all
those participating in the marriage rite are in a certain sense witnesses, and
some of them (usually two) are called specifically to act as witnesses in an
official way. They must testify that the marriage was contracted before God and
confirmed by the Church. In the ordinary course of events sacramental marriage
is a public act by means of which two persons, a man and a woman, become husband
and wife before the ecclesial society, that is, they become the actual subject
of the marriage vocation and life.
2. Marriage is a sacrament which is contracted by means of the word which is a
sacramental sign by reason of its content: "I take you as my wife—as
my husband—and
I promise to be always faithful to you, in joy and sorrow, in sickness and in
health, and to love you and honor you all the days of my life." However,
this sacramental word is, per se, merely the sign of the coming into being of
marriage. The coming into being of marriage is distinguished from its
consummation, to the extent that without this consummation the marriage is not
yet constituted in its full reality. The fact that a marriage is juridically
contracted but not consummated (ratum—non consummatum) corresponds to
the fact that it has not been fully constituted as a marriage. Indeed the very
words "I take you as my wife—my
husband" refer not only to a determinate reality, but they can be fulfilled
only by means of conjugal intercourse. This reality (conjugal intercourse) has
moreover been determined from the very beginning by institution of the Creator:
"Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife,
and they become one flesh" (cf. Gn 2:24).
3. Thus then, from the words whereby the man and the woman express their
willingness to become "one flesh" according to the eternal truth
established in the mystery of creation, we pass to the reality which corresponds
to these words. Both the one and the other element are important in regard to
the structure of the sacramental sign, to which it is fitting to devote the
remainder of the present reflections. Granted that the sacrament is a sign which
expresses and at the same time effects the saving reality of grace and of the
covenant, one must now consider it under the aspect of sign, whereas the
previous reflections were dedicated to the reality of grace and of the covenant.
Marriage, as a sacrament of the Church, is contracted by means of the words of
the ministers, that is, of the newlyweds. These words signify and indicate, in
the order of intention, that which (or rather, who) both have decided to be from
now on, the one for the other and the one with the other. The words of the
newlyweds form a part of the integral structure of the sacramental sign, not
merely for what they signify but also, in a certain sense, with what they
signify and determine. The sacramental sign is constituted in the order of
intention insofar as it is simultaneously constituted in the real order.
4. Consequently, the sacramental sign of marriage is constituted by the words of
the newlyweds inasmuch as the "reality" which they themselves
constitute corresponds to those words. Both of them, as man and woman, being the
ministers of the sacrament in the moment of contracting marriage, constitute at
the same time the full and real visible sign of the sacrament itself. The words
spoken by them would not per se constitute the sacramental sign of marriage
unless there corresponded to them the human subjectivity of the engaged couple
and at the same time the awareness of the body, linked to the masculinity and
femininity of the husband and wife. Here it is necessary to recall to mind the
whole series of our previous analyses in regard to Genesis (cf. Gn 1:2). The
structure of the sacramental sign remains essentially the same as "in the
beginning." In a certain sense, it is determined by the language of the
body. This is inasmuch as the man and the woman, who through marriage should
become one flesh, express in this sign the reciprocal gift of masculinity and
femininity as the basis of the conjugal union of the persons.
5. The sacramental sign of marriage is constituted by the fact that the words
spoken by the newlyweds use again the same language of the body as at the
"beginning," and in any case they give a concrete and unique
expression to it. They give it an intentional expression on the level of
intellect and will, of consciousness and of the heart. The words "I take
you as my wife—as
my husband" imply precisely that perennial, unique and unrepeatable
language of the body. At the same time they situate it in the context of the
communion of the persons: "I promise to be always faithful to you, in joy
and in sadness, in sickness and in health, and to love you and honor you all the
days of my life." In this way the enduring and ever new language of the
body is not only the "substratum." But in a certain sense, it is the
constitutive element of the communion of the persons. The persons—man
and woman—become
for each other a mutual gift. They become that gift in their masculinity and
femininity, discovering the spousal significance of the body and referring it
reciprocally to themselves in an irreversible manner—in
a life-long dimension.
6. Thus the sacrament of marriage as a sign enables us to understand the words
of the newlyweds. These words confer a new aspect on their life in a dimension
strictly personal (and interpersonal: communio personarum), on the basis
of the language of the body. The administration of the sacrament consists in
this: that in the moment of contracting marriage the man and the woman, by means
of suitable words and recalling the perennial language of the body, form a sign,
an unrepeatable sign, which has also a significance for the future: "all
the days of my life," that is to say, until death. This is a visible and
efficacious sign of the covenant with God in Christ, that is, of grace which in
this sign should become a part of them as "their own special gift"
(according to the expression of 1Cor 7:7).
7. Expressing this matter in socio-juridical terms, one can say that between the
newlyweds there is a stipulated, well-defined conjugal pact. It can also be said
that following upon this pact, they have become spouses in a manner socially
recognized, and that in this way the family as the fundamental social cell is
also constituted in germ. This manner of understanding it is obviously in
agreement with the human reality of marriage. Indeed, it is also fundamental in
the religious and religious-moral sense. However, from the point of view of the
theology of the sacrament, the key for the understanding of marriage is always
the reality of the sign whereby marriage is constituted on the basis of the
covenant of man with God in Christ and in the Church. It is constituted in the
supernatural order of the sacred bond requiring grace. In this order marriage is
a visible and efficacious sign. Having its origin in the mystery of creation, it
derives its new origin from the mystery of redemption at the service of the
"union of the sons of God in truth and in love" (Gaudium et Spes
24). The liturgy of the sacrament of marriage gave a form to that sign:
directly, during the sacramental rite, on the basis of the ensemble of
its eloquent expressions; indirectly, throughout the whole of life. As spouses,
the man and woman bear this sign throughout the whole of their lives and they
remain as that sign until death.
Taken from: L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO - English Edition -- Reprinted with Permission -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana - The Holy See