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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF 18 AUGUST [1982]
During the general audience of Wednesday, 18 August, Pope John
Paul delivered the following address to the large crowd present in St
Peter's Square.
1. Analyzing the respective components of Ephesians, we established
that the reciprocal relationship between husband and wife is to be
understood by Christians as an image of the relationship between Christ
and the Church.
This relationship is a revelation and a realization in time of the
mystery of salvation, of the election of love, hidden from eternity in
God. In this revelation and realization the mystery of salvation
includes the particular aspect of conjugal love in the relationship of
Christ to the Church. Thus one can express it most adequately by
applying the analogy of the relationship which existswhich
should existbetween
husband and wife in marriage. Such an analogy clarifies the mystery, at
least to a certain degree. Indeed, according to the author of Ephesians,
it seems that this analogy serves as a complement to that of the
Mystical Body (cf. Eph 1:22-23) when we attempt to express the mystery
of the relationship of Christ to the Churchand
going back even further, the mystery of the eternal love of God for man
and for humanity, that mystery which is expressed and is realized in
time through the relationship of Christ to the Church.
Understanding reciprocal love
2. Ifas
has been saidthis
analogy illuminates the mystery, it in its turn is illuminated by
that mystery. The conjugal relationship which unites husband and
wife should help usaccording
to the author of the Letter to the Ephesiansto
understand the love which unites Christ to the Church, that reciprocal
love between Christ and the Church in which the divine eternal plan for
the salvation of man is realized. Yet the content of meaning of the
analogy does not end here. The analogy used in Ephesians, illuminating
the mystery of the relationship between Christ and the Church,
contemporaneously unveils the essential truth about marriage. Marriage
corresponds to the vocation of Christians only when it reflects the love
which Christ the Bridegroom gives to the Church his Bride, and which the
Church (resembling the "subject" wife, that is, completely given)
attempts to return to Christ. This is redeeming love, love as salvation,
the love with which man from eternity has been loved by God in Christ:
"...even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and blameless before him..." (Eph 1:4).
Analogy follows two directions
3. Marriage corresponds to the vocation of Christians as spouses only
if that love is reflected and effected therein. This will become clear
if we attempt to reread the Pauline analogy inversely, that is,
beginning with the relationship of Christ to the Church and turning next
to the relationship of husband and wife in marriage. In the text, an
exhortative tone is used: "As the Church is subject to Christ, so let
wives also be subject in everything to their husbands." On the other
hand: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church...." These
expressions make it clear that a moral obligation is involved. Yet, in
order to recommend such an obligation one must admit that in the essence
of marriage a particle of the same mystery is captured. Otherwise, the
entire analogy would hang suspended in a void. The call which the author
of Ephesians directed to the spouses, that they model their reciprocal
relationship on the relationship of Christ to the Church ("asso"),
would be without a real basis, as if it had no ground beneath its feet.
Such is the logic of the analogy used in the cited text of Ephesians.
4. As we can see, the analogy operates in two directions. On the one
hand, it helps us to understand better the essence of the relationship
between Christ and the Church. On the other, at the same time, it helps
us to see more deeply into the essence of marriage to which Christians
are called. In a certain sense, the analogy shows the way in which this
marriage, in its deepest essence, emerges from the mystery of God's
eternal love for man and for humanity. It emerges from that salvific
mystery which is fulfilled in time through the spousal love of Christ
for the Church. Beginning with the words of Ephesians (5:21-33), we can
move on to develop the thought contained in the great Pauline analogy in
two directions: either in the direction of a deeper understanding of the
Church, or in the direction of a deeper understanding of marriage. In
our considerations, we will pursue the latter first of all, mindful that
the spousal relationship of Christ to the Church is at the basis of an
understanding of marriage in its essence. That relationship will be
analyzed even more precisely in order to establishpresupposing
the analogy with marriagein
what way the latter becomes a visible sign of the divine eternal
mystery, as an image of the Church united with Christ. In this way
Ephesians leads us to the foundations of the sacramentality of marriage.
Mentality of the time
5. Let us undertake, then, a detailed analysis of the text. We read
in Ephesians that "the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the
head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior" (Eph 5:23). The
author has already explained that the submission of the wife to the
husband as head is intended as reciprocal submission "out of reverence
for Christ." We can presume that the author goes back to the concept
rooted in the mentality of the time, to express first of all the truth
concerning the relationship of Christ to the Church, that is, that
Christ is the head of the Church. He is head as "Savior of his Body."
The Church is exactly that Body whichbeing
submissive in everything to Christ as its headreceives
from him all that through which it becomes and is his Body. It receives
the fullness of salvation as the gift of Christ, who "gave himself up
for her" to the last. Christ's "giving himself up" to the Father by
obedience unto death on the cross acquired here a strictly
ecclesiological sense: "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for
her" (Eph 5:25). Through a total giving up of himself because of his
love, he formed the Church as his Body and continually builds her up,
becoming her head. As head he is the Savior of his Body, and, at the
same time, as Savior he is head. As head and Savior of the Church, he is
also Bridegroom of his Bride.
Fruit of Christ's love
6. Inasmuch as the Church is herself, so, as Body, she receives from
Christ her head the entire gift of salvation as the fruit of Christ's
love and of his giving himself up for the Church, the fruit of his
giving himself up to the last. That gift of himself to the Father by
obedience unto death (cf. Phil 2:8) is contemporaneously, according to
Ephesians, a "giving himself up for the Church." In this expression,
redeeming love is transformed, I would say, into spousal love. Giving
himself up for the Church, through the same redeeming act Christ is
united once and for all with her, as bridegroom with the bride, as
husband with his wife. Christ gives himself through all that which is
once and for all contained in his "giving himself up" for the Church. In
this way, the mystery of the redemption of the body conceals within
itself, in a certain sense, the mystery "of the marriage of the Lamb"
(cf. Rv 19:7). Because Christ is the head of the Body, the entire
salvific gift of the redemption penetrates the Church as the Body of
that head, and continually forms the most profound, essential substance
of her life. It is the spousal form, given that in the cited text the
analogy of body-head becomes an analogy of groom-bride, or rather of
husband-wife. This is demonstrated by the subsequent passages of the
text, which will be considered next.
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