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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.
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