Freedom as a foundation of the Nuptial Meaning of the Body

            The nuptial meaning of the body consists in that attribute and capacity of the body to express love in the differentiation of man as male and female, who in the whole reality and truth of the body and sex experience one another without shame (original nakedness); therefore, they freely choose to gift themselves in love one to the other (reciprocity) without any constraint on account of the body and sex, thereby allowing each the freedom to give themselves as a gift, and in so doing create a communion of persons.[1] At the root of the nuptial meaning of the body is freedom.[2]

            Freedom, understood as a mastery of the self, qualifies the nuptial meaning of the body, for if man and woman are not able to give themselves in freedom, if they are in anyway constrained, then they are incapable of making of themselves a gift for the other.[3] Freedom is a presupposition to the nuptial meaning of the body. Man as male and female are only capable of realizing themselves when they give themselves disinterestedly, that is, without condition, as a gift one to another.[4] Therefore, when Adam beholds Eve and exclaims she is “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” he accepts her “interiorly”, that is, “as willed for her own sake by the Creator as she is constituted in the mystery of the image of God in her femininity.”[5] She in turn receives him in the same manner. This exchange is the realization of the nuptial meaning of the body, reciprocal giftedness between male and female in total freedom which, in turn, creates a communion of persons.  It is only in this giving of self that the person discovers who he or she is, a being created for his own sake, that is to say, a being created to realize the self as Imago Dei.[6]

            The context of this self-realization is the original ethos, a human freedom from any constraint of the body or sex which could threaten the nuptial understanding of the body and its purpose. This can be expressed synthetically as original happiness of man as male and female, a beatifying relationship that is perfectly reciprocal—a perfect acceptance of the other as a person created for his own sake. The nuptial meaning of the body remains the permanent sign of the original innocence of man and woman after the fall. It will remain within him and her as a call to fulfill the image and likeness of God, one that reflects the communio personarum of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without the constraint of body, sex, or sin.   

            This nuptial meaning of the body has its original realization in the primordial sacrament of marriage.[7] It can also be realized outside of the context of marriage. Man and woman can also make a gift of themselves by renouncing marriage for the sake of the kingdom. This renunciation accentuates the nuptiality of the human body, because by making of oneself a gift for the sake of the kingdom, as a celibate priest or a consecrated religious or lay person, the person points directly to the full nuptial meaning of the body that ultimately is an eschatological reality. In heaven man and woman transcend the sacrament of marriage and live as angels before God.[8] As a celibate priest or consecrated religious or lay person this communion with others at the service of the kingdom freely renounces the possibility of marriage in order to give themselves to Christ and His Church, who becomes spouse and bridegroom for the celibate. The gift is nuptial in the fullest sense of the term, that is reflecting the very union Christ has with His Church, a celibate mystical union that transcends the body as feminine or masculine and points towards the heavenly communion of persons called intersubjectivity, where there is neither male nor female.[9] This will be dealt with again later in this chapter.

            In the beginning, man and woman were originally happy experiencing an unabated communion with God and each and other. “Happiness and innocence is the framework of the communion of persons.”[10] Original innocence allows man, male and female, to see one other as being created for their own sake, and in the freedom of their interior subjectivity, they have a vision of the other that is beatifying. They do not see the other as an object that is merely pleasurable and to be made use of or appropriated. Rather the vision is of the other as a good, a gift to be received and to be reciprocated with the gift of the self. The primordial sacrament of creation consists in this reciprocal self-donation.  “Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.”[11] The nuptial meaning of the body is intimately tied to original innocence. Original innocence, writes the Holy Father, “is a particular purity of heart which preserves an interior faithfulness to the gift according to the nuptial meaning of the body.”[12]

Article by Fr. Alejandro Valladres, Archdiocese of Mobile