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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
thatpresupposing
the sacramentality of marriage in its primordial significancehe
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 Ephesiansprecisely
through participation in this saving love of Christmarriage
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 creationaccording
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 thosemen
and womenwho,
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 bodyof
its masculinity and femininityprofoundly
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 alsorather
bears fruit in a special waywith
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 Churcha
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.
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