Marital Love Reflects
God's Love for His People
General Audience, July 28, 1982
1. Today we begin a new
chapter on the subject of marriage, reading the words of St. Paul to
the Ephesians:
"Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband
is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his
body, and is himself its savior. As the Church is subject to Christ,
so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave
himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her
by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the
Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such
thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands
should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife
loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes
and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members
of his body. 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and
mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.'
This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the
Church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and
let the wife see that she respects her husband" (Eph 5:21-33).
Simple and fundamental
2. We should now subject to deep analysis the quoted text contained
in this fifth chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians, just as we
have previously analyzed the individual words of Christ that seem to
have a key significance for the theology of the body. The analysis
dealt with the words with which Christ recalled the beginning (cf.
Mt 19:4; Mk 10:6), the human heart, in the Sermon on the Mount (cf.
Mt 5:28), and the future resurrection (cf. Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25; Lk
20:35). What is contained in the passage of the Letter to the
Ephesians constitutes almost a crowning of those other concise key
words. The theology of the body has emerged from them along its
evangelical lines, simple and at the same time fundamental. In a
certain sense it is necessary to presuppose that theology in
interpreting the above-mentioned passage of the Letter to the
Ephesians. Therefore if we want to interpret that passage, we must
do so in the light of what Christ told us about the human body. He
spoke not only to remind historical man, and therefore man himself,
who is always contemporary, about concupiscence (in his heart). But
he also spoke to reveal, on the one hand, the prospectives of the
beginning or original innocence or justice, and on the other hand,
the eschatological prospectives of the resurrection of the body,
when "They will neither marry nor be given in marriage" (cf. Lk
20:35). All of this is part of the theological viewpoint of the
"redemption of our body" (Rom 8:23).
Meanings converge
3. Even the words of the author of the Letter to the Ephesians(1)
are centered on the body, both its metaphorical meaning, namely the
Body of Christ which is the Church, and its concrete meaning, namely
the human body in its perennial masculinity and femininity, in its
perennial destiny for union in marriage, as Genesis says: "The man
will leave his father and his mother and will cling to his wife and
the two will be one flesh" (Gn 2:24).
In what way do these two meanings of the body appear together and
converge in the passage of the Letter to the Ephesians? Why do they
appear together and converge there? We must ask these questions,
expecting not so much immediate and direct answers, but possibly
studied and long-term answers for which our previous analyses have
prepared. In fact, that passage from the Letter to the Ephesians
cannot be correctly understood except in the full biblical context,
considering it as the crowning of the themes and truths which,
through the Word of God revealed in Sacred Scripture, ebb and flow
like long waves. They are central themes and essential truths.
Therefore the quoted text from the Letter to the Ephesians is also a
key and classic text.
4. This text is well known in the liturgy, in which it always
appears in relation to the sacrament of marriage. The Church's lex
orandi sees in it an explicit reference to this sacrament, and the
lex orandi presupposes and at the same time always expresses the lex
credendi. Admitting this premise, we must immediately ask ourselves:
in this classic text of the Letter to the Ephesians, how does the
truth about the sacramentality of marriage emerge? In what way is it
expressed and confirmed there? It will become clear that the answers
to these questions cannot be immediate and direct, but gradual and
long-term. This is proved even at a first glance at this text, which
brings us back to Genesis and therefore to "the beginning." In the
description of the relationship between Christ and the Church, this
text takes from the writings of the Old Testament prophets the
well-known analogy of the spousal love between God and his chosen
people. Without examining these relationships it would be difficult
to answer the question about how the sacramentality of marriage is
dealt with in the Letter to the Ephesians. We will also see how the
answer we are seeking must pass through the whole sphere of the
questions previously analyzed, that is, through the theology of the
body.
Body enters into definition of sacrament
5. The sacrament or the sacramentality—in the more general sense of
this term—meets with the body and presupposes the theology of the
body. According to the generally known meaning, the sacrament is a
visible sign. The body also signifies that which is visible. It
signifies the visibility of the world and of man. Therefore, in some
way, even if in the most general way, the body enters the definition
of sacrament, being "a visible sign of an invisible reality," that
is, of the spiritual, transcendent, divine reality. In this sign—and
through this sign—God gives himself to man in his transcendent truth
and in his love. The sacrament is a sign of grace, and it is an
efficacious sign. Not only does the sacrament indicate grace and
express it in a visible way, but it also produces it. The sacrament
effectively contributes to having grace become part of man, and to
realizing and fulfilling in him the work of salvation, the work
begun by God from all eternity and fully revealed in Jesus Christ.
6. I would say that already this first glance at the classic text of
the Letter to the Ephesians points out the direction in which our
further analyses must be developed. It is necessary that these
analyses begin with the preliminary understanding of the text
itself. However, they must subsequently lead us, so to say, beyond
their limits, in order to understand possibly to the very depths how
much richness of the truth revealed by God is contained in the scope
of that wonderful page. Using the well-known expression from Gaudium
et Spes, we can say that the passage we have selected from the
Letter to the Ephesians, "reveals—in a particular way—man to man,
and makes him aware of his lofty vocation" (GS 22), inasmuch as he
shares in the experience of the incarnate person. In fact, creating
man in his image, from the very beginning God created him "male and
female" (Gn 1:27).
During the subsequent analyses we will try—above all in the light of
the quoted text from the Letter to the Ephesians—to more deeply
understand the sacrament (especially marriage as a sacrament), first
in the dimension of the covenant and grace, and afterward in the
dimension of the sacramental sign.
Note
1) The question of Pauline authorship of the Letter to the
Ephesians, acknowledged by some exegetes and denied by others, can
be resolved by means of a median supposition which we accept here as
a working hypothesis: namely, that St. Paul entrusted some concepts
to his secretary, who then developed and refined them.
We have in mind this provisional solution of the question when we
speak of "the author of the Letter to the Ephesians," the "Apostle,"
and "St. Paul."
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 2 August
1982, page 7
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