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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF WEDNESDAY, 1 DECEMBER [1982]
During the general audience of Wednesday, 1 December, in the Paul
VI Hall, Pope John Paul gave the following discourse.
1. We have made an analysis of the Letter to the Ephesians,
especially 5:21-33, in the perspective of the sacramentality of
marriage. Now we shall seek once again to consider the same text in the
light of the words of the Gospel and of St. Paul's Letters to the
Corinthians and the Romans.
Marriageas
a sacrament born of the mystery of the redemption and reborn, in a
certain sense, in the spousal love of Christ and of the Churchis
an efficacious expression of the saving power of God. He accomplishes
his eternal plan even after sin and in spite of the threefold
concupiscence hidden in the heart of every man, male and female. As a
sacramental expression of that saving power, marriage is also an
exhortation to dominate concupiscence (as Christ spoke of it in the
Sermon on the Mount). The unity and indissolubility of marriage are the
fruit of this dominion, as is a deepened sense of the dignity of woman
in the heart of a man (and also the dignity of man in the heart of
woman), both in conjugal life together, and in every other circle of
mutual relations.
2. The truth according to which marriage as a sacrament of redemption is
given to the "man of concupiscence" as a grace and at the same time as
an ethos, has also found particular expression in the teaching of St.
Paul, especially in the seventh chapter of the First Letter to the
Corinthians. The Apostle, comparing marriage with virginity (or with
"celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven") and deciding for the
"superiority" of virginity, the Apostle observes at the same time that
"each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of
another" (1 Cor 7:7). On the basis of the mystery of redemption, a
special "gift," that is, a grace, corresponds to marriage. In the same
text, giving advice to those to whom he is writing, the Apostle
recommends marriage "because of the temptation to immorality" (ib. 7:2).
Later he recommends to the married couple that "the husband should give
to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband" (ib.
7:3). He continues thus: "It is better to marry than to be aflame with
passion" (ib. 7:9).
3. These statements of St. Paul have given rise to the opinion that
marriage constitutes a specific remedy for concupiscence. However, as we
have already observed, St. Paul teaches explicitly that marriage has a
corresponding special "gift," and that in the mystery of redemption
marriage is given to a man and a woman as a grace. In his striking and
at the same time paradoxical words, St. Paul simply expresses the
thought that marriage is assigned to the spouses as an ethos. In the
Pauline words, "It is better to marry than to be aflame with passion,"
the verb ardere signifies a disorder of the passions, deriving
from the concupiscence of the flesh. (Concupiscence is presented in a
similar way in the Old Testament by Sirach; cf. Sir 23:17.) However,
marriage signifies the ethical order, which is consciously introduced in
this context. It can be said that marriage is the meeting place of
eros with ethos and of their mutual compenetration in the
heart of man and of woman, as also in all their mutual relationships.
4. This truthnamely,
that marriage as a sacrament derived from the mystery of redemption is
given to historical man as a grace and at the same time as an ethosdetermines
moreover the character of marriage as one of the sacraments of the
Church. As a sacrament of the Church, marriage has the nature of
indissolubility. As a sacrament of the Church, it is also a word of the
Spirit which exhorts man and woman to model their whole life together by
drawing power from the mystery of the "redemption of the body." In this
way they are called to chastity as to a state of life "according to the
Spirit" which is proper to them (cf. Rom 8:4-5; Gal 5:25). The
redemption of the body also signifies in this case that hope which, in
the dimension of marriage, can be defined as the hope of daily life, the
hope of temporal life. On the basis of such a hope the concupiscence of
the flesh as the source of the tendency toward an egoistic gratification
is dominated. In the sacramental alliance of masculinity and femininity,
the same flesh becomes the specific "substratum" of an enduring and
indissoluble communion of the persons (communio personarum) in a
manner worthy of the persons.
5. Those who, as spouses, according to the eternal divine plan, join
together so as to become in a certain sense one flesh, are also in their
turn called, through the sacrament, to a life according to the Spirit.
This corresponds to the gift received in the sacrament. In virtue of
that gift, by leading a life according to the Spirit, the spouses are
capable of rediscovering the particular gratification which they have
become sharers of. As much as concupiscence darkens the horizon of the
inward vision and deprives the heart of the clarity of desires and
aspirations, so much does "life according to the Spirit" (that is, the
grace of the sacrament of marriage) permit man and woman to find again
the true liberty of the gift, united to the awareness of the spousal
meaning of the body in its masculinity and femininity.
6. The life according to the Spirit is also expressed in the mutual
union (cf. Gn 4:1), whereby the spouses, becoming one flesh, submit
their femininity and masculinity to the blessing of procreation: "Adam
knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and gave birth...saying: 'I have
begotten a man with the help of the Lord"' (Gn 4:1).
The life according to the Spirit is also expressed here in the
consciousness of the gratification, to which there corresponds the
dignity of the spouses themselves as parents. That is to say, it is
expressed in the profound awareness of the sanctity of the life (sacrum)
to which the two give origin, participatingas
progenitorsin
the forces of the mystery of creation. In the light of that hope, which
is connected with the mystery of the redemption of the body (cf. Rom
8:19-23), this new human life, a new man conceived and born of the
conjugal union of his father and mother, opens to "the first fruits of
the Spirit" (Rom 8:23), "to enter into the liberty of the glory of the
children of God" (Rom 8:21). If "the whole creation has been groaning in
travail together until now" (Rom 8:22), a particular hope accompanies
the pains of the mother in labor, that is, the hope of the "revelation
of the sons of God" (Rom 8:22), a hope of which every newborn babe who
comes into the world bears within himself a spark.
7. This hope which is in the world, penetratingas
St. Paul teachesthe
whole of creation, is not at the same time from the world. Still
further, it must struggle in the human heart with that which is from the
world, with that which is in the world. "Because everything that is in
the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride
of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 Jn 2:16). As the
primordial sacrament, and at the same time as the sacrament born in the
mystery of the redemption of the body from the spousal love of Christ
and of the Church, marriage "comes from the Father." It is not from the
world but from the Father. Consequently, marriage also as a sacrament
constitutes the basis of hope for the person, that is, for man and
woman, for parents and children, for the human generations. On the one
hand, "The world passes away and the lust thereof," while on the other,
"He who does the will of God abides forever" (1 Jn 2:17). The origin of
man in the world is united with marriage as a sacrament, and its future
is also inscribed in it. This is not merely in the historical
dimensions, but also in the eschatological.
8. It is to this that Christ's words refer when he speaks of the
resurrection of the body
words reported by the three synoptics (cf. Mt 22:23-32; Mk 12:18-27; Lk
20:34-39). "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but are like angels in heaven," states Matthew, and in like
manner Mark. In Luke we read: "The sons of this age marry and are given
in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age
and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in
marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels
and are sons of God" (Lk 20:34-36). These texts were previously
subjected to a detailed analysis.
9. Christ states that marriagethe
sacrament of the origin of man in the temporal visible worlddoes
not pertain to the eschatological reality of the future world. However,
called to participate in this eschatological future by means of the
resurrection of the body, man is the same man, male and female, whose
origin in the temporal visible world is linked with marriage as the
primordial sacrament of the mystery of creation. Rather, every man,
called to share in the reality of the future resurrection, brings this
vocation into the world by the fact that in the temporal visible world
he has his origin by means of the marriage of his parents. Thus, then,
Christ's words which exclude marriage from the reality of the future
world, reveal indirectly at the same time the significance of this
sacrament for the participation of men, sons and daughters, in the
future resurrection.
10. Marriage, which is the primordial sacramentreborn
in a certain sense in the spousal love of Christ and of the Churchdoes
not pertain to the redemption of the body in the dimension of the
eschatological hope (cf. Rom 8:23). Marriage is given to man as a grace,
as a gift destined by God precisely for the spouses, and at the same
time assigned to them by Christ's words as an ethosthat
sacramental marriage is accomplished and realized in the perspective of
the eschatological hope. It has an essential significance for the
redemption of the body in the dimension of this hope. It comes indeed
from the Father and to him it owes its origin in the world. If this
"world passes," and if with it the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes and the pride of life which come from the world also passes,
marriage as a sacrament immutably ensures that man, male and female, by
dominating concupiscence, does the will of the Father. And he "who does
the will of God remains forever" (1 Jn 2:17).
11. In this sense marriage as a sacrament also bears within itself the
germ of man's eschatological future, that is, the perspective of the
"redemption of the body" in the dimension of the eschatological hope
which corresponds to Christ's words about the resurrection: "In the
resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Mt 22:30).
However, also those who, "being sons of the resurrection...are equal to
angels and are sons of God" (Lk 20:36), owe their origin in the temporal
visible world to the marriage and procreation of man and woman. As the
sacrament of the human beginning, as the sacrament of the temporality of
the historical man, marriage fulfills in this way an irreplaceable
service in regard to his extra-temporal future, in regard to the mystery
of the redemption of the body in the dimension of the eschatological
hope.
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