The Redemptive and
Spousal Dimensions of Love
General Audience, December 15, 1982
1.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
that—presupposing the sacramentality of marriage in its primordial
significance—he 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
Ephesians—precisely through participation in this saving love of
Christ—marriage 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 creation—according 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 those—men and women—who,
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 body—of its masculinity and
femininity—profoundly 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 also—rather bears fruit in a special way—with 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 Church—a 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.
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 20
December 1982, page 9
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