Loss of Original
Sacrament Restored with Redemption in Marriage-Sacrament
General Audience, October 13, 1982
1. In our previous consideration we
have tried to study in depth—in the light of the Letter to the
Ephesians—the sacramental "beginning" of man and marriage in the
state of original justice (or innocence).
We know, however, that the heritage of grace was driven out of the
human heart when the first covenant with the Creator was broken. The
perspective of procreation, instead of being illumined by the
heritage of original grace, given by God as soon as he infused a
rational soul, became dimmed by the heritage of original sin. We can
say that marriage, as a primordial sacrament, was deprived of that
supernatural efficacy which at the moment of its institution
belonged to the sacrament of creation in its totality. Nonetheless,
even in this state, that is, in the state of man's hereditary
sinfulness, marriage never ceased being the figure of that sacrament
we read about in the Letter to the Ephesians (Eph 5:21-33) and which
the author of that letter does not hesitate to call a "great
mystery." Can we not perhaps deduce that marriage has remained the
platform for the actuation of God's eternal designs, according to
which the sacrament of creation had drawn near to men and had
prepared them for the sacrament of redemption, introducing them to
the dimension of the work of salvation? The analysis of the Letter
to the Ephesians, especially the classic text (5:21-33), seems to
lean toward such a conclusion.
2. When in verse 31 the author refers to the words of the
institution of marriage contained in Genesis (2:24: "For this reason
a man will leave his father and mother and will cling to his wife,
and the two shall become one body"), and then immediately states:
"This is a great mystery; I mean that it refers to Christ and the
Church" (Eph 5:32), he seems to indicate not only the identity of
the mystery hidden in God from all eternity, but also that
continuity of its actuation. This exists between the primordial
sacrament connected with the supernatural gracing of man in creation
itself and the new gracing, which occurred when "Christ loved the
Church and gave himself up for her to make her holy..." (Eph
5:25-26)—gracing can be defined in its entirety as the sacrament of
redemption. In this redemptive gift of himself "for" the Church,
there is also contained—according to Pauline thought—Christ's gift
of himself to the Church, in the image of the nuptial relationship
that unites husband and wife in marriage. In this way, the sacrament
of redemption again takes on, in a certain sense, the figure and
form of the primordial sacrament. To the marriage of the first
husband and wife, as a sign of the supernatural gracing of man in
the sacrament of creation, there corresponds the marriage, or rather
the analogy of the marriage, of Christ with the Church, as the
fundamental great sign of the supernatural gracing of man in the
sacrament of redemption—of the gracing in which the covenant of the
grace of election is renewed in a definitive way, the covenant which
was broken in the beginning by sin.
Supernatural gracing
3. The image contained in the quoted passage from the Letter to the
Ephesians seems to speak above all of the sacrament of redemption as
that definitive fulfillment of the mystery hidden from eternity in
God. Everything that the Letter to the Ephesians had treated in the
first chapter is actuated in this mysterium magnum (great mystery).
As we recall, it says not only "In him [that is, in Christ] God
chose us before the world began, to be holy and blameless in his
sight..." (Eph 1:4), but also "in whom [Christ] we have redemption
through his blood, the remission of sins, so immeasurably generous
is God's favor to us..." (Eph 1:7-8). The new supernatural gracing
of man in the sacrament of redemption is also a new actuation of the
mystery hidden in God from all eternity—new in relation to the
sacrament of creation. At this moment, gracing is in a certain sense
a new creation. However, it differs from the sacrament of creation
insofar as the original gracing, united to man's creation,
constituted that man in the beginning, through grace, in the state
of original innocence and justice. The new gracing of man in the
sacrament of redemption, instead, gives him above all the remission
of sins. Yet even here grace can "abound even more," as St. Paul
expresses elsewhere: "Where sin increased, grace has abounded even
more" (Rom 5:20).
4. The sacrament of redemption—the fruit of Christ's redemptive
love—becomes, on the basis of his spousal love for the Church, a
permanent dimension of the life of the Church herself, a fundamental
and life-giving dimension. It is the mysterium magnum (great
mystery) of Christ and the Church. It is the eternal mystery
actuated by Christ, who "gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:25). It is
the mystery that is continually actuated in the Church, because
Christ "loved the Church" (Eph 5:25), uniting himself with her in an
indissoluble love, just as spouses, husband and wife, unite
themselves in marriage. In this way the Church lives on the
sacrament of redemption. In her turn she completes this sacrament
just as the wife, in virtue of spousal love, completes her husband.
In a certain way this had already been pointed out "in the
beginning" when the first man found in the first woman "a helper fit
for him" (Gn 2:20). Although the analogy in the Letter to the
Ephesians does not state it precisely, we can add also that the
Church united to Christ, as the wife to her husband, draws from the
sacrament of redemption all her fruitfulness and spiritual
motherhood. The words of the letter of St. Peter testify to this in
some way when he writes that we have been "reborn not from a
corruptible, but from an incorruptible seed, through the living and
enduring word of God" (1 Pt 1:23). So the mystery hidden in God from
all eternity—the mystery that in the beginning, in the sacrament of
creation, became a visible reality through the union of the first
man and woman in the perspective of marriage—becomes in the
sacrament of redemption a visible reality of the indissoluble union
of Christ with the Church, which the author of the Letter to the
Ephesians presents as the nuptial union of spouses, husband and
wife.
New actuation of the mystery
5. The sacramentum magnum (the Greek text reads: tò mystérion toûto
méga estín) of the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of the new
actuation of the mystery hidden in God from all eternity. It is the
definitive actuation from the point of view of the earthly history
of salvation. It also speaks of "making the mystery visible": the
visibility of the Invisible. This visibility is not had unless the
mystery ceases to be a mystery. This refers to the marriage
constituted in the beginning, in the state of original innocence, in
the context of the sacrament of creation. It refers also to the
union of Christ with the Church, as the great mystery of the
sacrament of redemption. The visibility of the Invisible does not
mean—if it can be said this way—a total clearing of the mystery. The
mystery, as an object of faith, remains veiled even through what is
precisely expressed and fulfilled. The visibility of the Invisible
therefore belongs to the order of signs, and the sign indicates only
the reality of the mystery, but not the unveiling. The "first
Adam"—man, male and female—created in the state of original
innocence and called in this state to conjugal union (in this sense
we are speaking of the sacrament of creation) was a sign of the
eternal mystery. So the "second Adam," Christ, united with the
Church through the sacrament of redemption by an indissoluble bond,
analogous to the indissoluble covenant of spouses, is a definitive
sign of the same eternal mystery. Therefore, in speaking about the
eternal mystery being actuated, we are speaking also about the fact
that it becomes visible with the visibility of the sign. Therefore
we are speaking also about the sacramentality of the whole heritage
of the sacrament of redemption, in reference to the entire work of
creation and redemption, and more so in reference to marriage
instituted within the context of the sacrament of creation, as also
in reference to the Church as the spouse of Christ, endowed by a
quasi-conjugal covenant with him.
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 18
October 1982, page 10
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