Christian Living Education 12: Marriage PDF

CHRISTIAN LIVING EDUCATION 12: MARRIAGE AND FAMILY HANDOUT NO. 4 MARRIAGE: A UNIQUE COMMUNION OF PERSONS OVERVIEW Introduction A. Marriage as a Vocation B. Marriage as a Cov...

CHRISTIAN LIVING EDUCATION 12: MARRIAGE AND FAMILY HANDOUT NO. 4 MARRIAGE: A UNIQUE COMMUNION OF PERSONS OVERVIEW Introduction A. Marriage as a Vocation B. Marriage as a Covenant C. Marriage in God’s Plan D. Marriage as a Sacrament INTRODUCTION Marriage is the vocation of most lay people. Perhaps, most of you are contemplating on getting married with a suitable partner when the right time comes. However, some may have lost their faith in marriage because of the challenges that this vocation is facing nowadays. Indeed, marriage has been subjected to so many forces in the modern society that these forces weaken its bond. Many times, we hear married couple breaking up and children becoming unhappy in their family. However, this lesson is not about pointing out the bad news that is going around marriage today. Instead, we will explore marriage as good news, a vocation, a covenant, a sacrament, a sign of God’s incredible love for humankind. Marriage also known as matrimony is a covenant between a baptized man and a baptized woman who establish between themselves a permanent and exclusive partnership of life and love ordered towards the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. In this lesson, we will explore more on the meaning and beauty of marriage beyond the frills and the externals of a wedding celebration. A. Marriage as a Vocation Marriage is a Christian vocation because the couple’s relationship is more than simply their choice to enter a union which is a social and legal institution. Marriage involves a call from God and a response from two people who promise to build, with the help of divine grace, a lifelong, intimate, and sacramental partnership of love and life. Pope Francis wrote in Amoris Laetitia that “marriage is a vocation, in as much as it is a response to a specific call to experience conjugal love as an imperfect sign of the love between Christ and the Church. Consequently, the decision to marry and to have a family ought to be the fruit of a process of vocational discernment”. The vocation to marriage is a call to a life of holiness and service within the couple’s own relationship and in their family. As a particular way of following the Lord, this vocation also challenges a couple to live their marriage in a way that expresses God’s truth and love in the world. Hence, marriage is primarily calling spouses to help lead each other and their children to attain heaven. The “work” in a marriage is that of sanctification and pursuing holiness. The couple assists in the personal salvation of 1 others. As a husband or wife serves, leads, and loves their spouse and children, they reflect God’s love and draw others to Him. B. Marriage as a Covenant A covenant is a solemn commitment which God initiates. Marriage as a covenant describes how God’s unconditional and steadfast love for his people is the model for the loving union of husband and wife. This unconditional love knows no bounds, freely given and weathers all kinds of hardships. The term used in matrimony for this unconditional love is covenantal love. This covenantal love in marriage can be traced back to the Old Testament when God made a covenant with Abraham, Moses and the Israelites. This covenant is an invitation to enter a relationship in which “I will be your God and you will be my people”. Oftentimes, the Israelites wander away from the love of God. However, God’s love is steadfast and unconditional that he offered them a new and everlasting covenant. This is fulfilled through Jesus Christ in the New Testament. In his life, death and resurrection, God manifests in a definitive way his desire to draw us into a loving relationship with him and with one another. St. Paul taught that marriage is a pre-eminent symbol (or sacrament) of the covenant which Christ has with his people. This is because marriage is a commitment by which spouses pledge to each other all aspects of their lives “until death do us part.”. Just as God is faithful to his commitment of love to his chosen people so the husband and wife are called to be faithful to each other in marriage. Understanding marriage as a covenant which establishes between husband and wife a “partnership of the whole life” in which they “mutually hand over and accept each other” (Code of Canon Law, c. 1055 and c. 1057) can greatly enrich our appreciation of this special union that is: (a) sacred in the plan of God; (b) permanent, faithful and fruitful; and (c) a living symbol of God’s love for his people. In conclusion, marriage is a covenant because it is (a) a foundational human reality built into the very created nature of man and woman; (b) a life- long commitment of total conjugal intimacy and self- giving of the married partners and (c) patterned after God’s unconditional love who called us to a covenant of loving one another and in sharing God’s own divine love. C. Marriage in God’s Plan In the Old Testament The reality of marriage as a covenant and as a natural institution has its basis in the story of Creation. From the beginning, God has intended man and woman to live in a communion of life and love. Pope St. John Paul II explains that when God created man and woman in His image and likeness, He called them into existence out of love and at the same time calls them to love. How did God institute marriage in Genesis? When the Lord, brought the woman to the man, the man said: “This one, at last is the bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; This shall be called ‘woman’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and the two shall become one.” This passage tells us of the naturalness of the communion of man and woman, of the love and relationship that should bind man and woman. It further tells us of the suitability between a male and a female in a union that is blessed by God. The passage that precedes this tells us of God’s search for a suitable partner for man: “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.”(Gen. 2: ) Since God formed woman out of the ribs of a man, she, alone, makes a suitable partner for him. This creation account emphasizes and makes clear that the creation of man is made complete only by the creation of a woman. Thus, this 2 account expresses the personal purpose of marriage which is the unitive purpose or the mutual love, support and unity of each other. The couple is called to become one body in intimate equal partnership of life and love. (CFC 1996) 1. One Body This expresses not only the physical unity of man and woman but the intimate partnership of life and love that the couple shares. In marriage, the husband and wife are united in all their basic human levels- physical, psychological and spiritual, body, mind and spirit. (CFC 1885) There is a complete sharing of life wherein their thoughts, ideals, hopes and destinies become intertwined. In Genesis, “one body” means the unity of two persons in all the aspects and dimensions of life. (CFC 1885) 2. Become Wedding day is just the start of the lifelong process of “becoming one body” and the gradual transformation of the “I” and “You” into “We”(CFC 1886). Equality between man and woman is the basic condition of this process of becoming one of the couple. In the New Testament Marriage in the New Testament has been elevated by Christ as a sacrament. However, it was unclear as to when it was done specifically by Christ. The first instance in which marriage was mentioned in the New Testament was when Jesus attended the Wedding at Cana. His presence at the wedding spoke volume of how Jesus regarded marriage as a significant event in the life of a couple. His first public act is to sanction marriage and to reaffirm its dignity. By his miracle at Cana, He sanctifies the natural love of man for woman, gives it a natural dignity and makes it a vehicle of divine grace. He gives marriage the sacred status that His Father meant it to have when He created man and woman. The next significant Bible passage about marriage was when the Pharisees questioned him about divorce. “Have you not read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and declared: For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one? Thus, they are no longer two but one flesh, let no man separate what God has joined.” (Matthew 19: 3-6). This passage states Jesus’ teaching clearly; He forbids divorce and remarriage and affirms the indissolubility of marital bond. Through these words, Jesus established the three qualities that characterized marriage. 1. Unity - meaning one man is united to one woman and that the married partners act as one whether in times of joy and crises. 2. Fidelity - which means that the married couple reserve their love entirely and exclusively for each other. It is not simply avoiding adultery but the positive, growing in faith in each other: trust and love and believing in the worth of one’s partner and in the marriage itself. (CFC 1912) 3. Indissolubility – meaning the marriage bond is not broken until the death of one person. D. Marriage as a Sacrament The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a sacrament because the couple’s relationship expresses the unbreakable bond of love between Christ and his people. Marriage becomes a sign or symbol which reveals the Lord Jesus and through which his divine life and love are communicated. There are two essential phases of marriage as a sacrament. 1. Sacramental Celebration of Marriage The Sacrament of Marriage begins when a man and a woman stand before God and the community and declare freely and publicly “to be one heart and one soul, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”’ 3 Through these words, the marrying partners enter a binding commitment before God and the Church community. Through this public declaration, vowing their exclusive and permanent love relationship, they make marriage a sacrament- an efficacious sign of Christ’s redemptive love for the marrying partners, for their expected offspring and for the community. 2. Ongoing Married Life Married couples are always reminded that marriage is a process, not a state; a beginning, not an end; a threshold, not a goal. Thus, marriage is a commitment between a man and a woman to love each other and to journey to God together, growing in love and attaining salvation together. In Sacrament of Marriage, God gives them grace the gift of holiness so that they can achieve the commitment they have promised each other. In a sacramental marriage, God’s love becomes present to the spouses in their total union and also flows through them to their family and community. Their life becomes sacramental to the extent that the c ouple cooperates with God’s action in their life and sees themselves as living “in Christ” and Christ living and acting in their relationship, attitudes and actions. In marriage, the grace of this sacrament brings to the spouses the particular help they need to be faithful and to be good parents. It also helps a couple to serve others beyond their immediate family and to show the community that a loving and lasting marriage is both desirable and possible. Pope Paul VI wrote: “By it [the Sacrament of Matrimony] husband and wife are strengthened and…consecrated for the faithful accomplishment of their proper duties, for the carrying out of their proper vocation even to perfection, and the Christian witness which is proper to them before the whole world” (Humanae Vitae, n. 25). Sources: Aguirre, Rodel M. et.al. We Celebrate God’s Love: Foundations of Catholic Morality. (2003). Quezon City, Manila: Vibal Publishing House, Inc. Catechism of the Catholic Church. (1994). Makati, Manila: Ave Maria Press. Catechism for Filipino Catholics. (1997). Makati, Manila: CBCP. Manabat, Josefine et.al. People on the Move: Church and the Sacraments. (1997). FNB Educational. Quezon City Javier Abad and Eugenio Fenoy. Marriage: A Path to Sanctity. (2013). Makati City. Sinagtala Publishers https://www.foryourmarriage.org/marriage-as-covenant 4