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Put Out Into the Deep
Bishop DiMarzio's weekly column
THE TABLET
March 17, 2007
Marriage as Covenant
Pope John Paul I, of happy memory and the Pope of thirty days, as Patriarch of Venice published a series of catechetical instructions, one of which mentioned marriage. He said: “The way some speak about the Sacrament of Marriage, one would be led to believe that Jesus left us six sacraments and a trap.”
Marriage, obviously, is not a trap, although, unfortunately, some might make it out to be thus. Marriage truly is a sacrament, one willed by God. The Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, which followed the Synod on the Family in 1981, had this to say about marriage and the family: “Willed by God in the very act of creation, marriage and the family are interiorly ordained to fulfillment in Christ and have need of His graces in order to be healed from the wounds of sin and restored to their ‘beginning,’ that is, to full understanding and the full realization of God’s plan.”
Perhaps we need to analyze this important statement. Willed by God in the very act of creation refers to the Book of Genesis where it is clear that “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created Him, male and female He created them” (Gen. 1: 27). This one sentence communicates a tremendous amount of truth to us. We see that the creation of man consists in the creation of the unity of two beings, male and female, and that they were created in the image of God. Sometimes this image of God has been understood as the spiritual image of God, which is true; however, the very fact that the male and female dichotomy is to yield to the unity of man and woman in marriage is another message. As we understand the Trinity, we understand there is unity in the three persons of the Blessed Trinity, and so it is in marriage and family. The complementarity of the spouses is the basis of the Sacrament of Marriage and the families that are formed from marriage.
We cannot forget that marriage is not merely a natural occurrence, but rather it is a supernatural union in need of the grace of Jesus Christ to enable the spouses to be restored to their beginning, which means the full realization of God’s plan in creation. Our modern world has twisted and turned the understanding of the beauty of God’s creation, and down through the centuries even theology at times has not assisted us in realizing and recognizing the beauty of the marriage commitment, which Jesus left us as a sacrament.
The situation of marriage in the world today, as I described it last week, has both its positive and negative aspects. The positive aspects are revealed to us as signs of the salvation of Christ won for the world, and its negative aspects are the sign of refusal that man gives to participate in the love of God. Clearly, the positive aspects form the basis of a strong family and healthy marriages. On the negative side, however, the corruption of the idea of freedom leads to selfishness, which can quickly erode and destroy the marriage commitment. Unfortunately today, we see all too often the recourse to the Church for marriage as an opportunity for a costly celebration, while on the other hand there are those who avoid even civil marriage and prefer cohabitation. The reality is that in the very beginning it was God Who created the male and female, something we cannot ignore.
I will not speak extensively here about the impossibility of so-called “same-sex” marriages; true marriage recognizes that in “same-sex” marriages the complementarity necessary is missing. The male and the female complement each other and at the same time reflect God’s image in their sexual union and in their diverse personalities. Marriage is not just for the mutual consolation of spouses, but also for the procreation of children. These two ends of marriage must constantly be kept in balance, and as the old saying goes, “You can’t have one without the other.” As love and marriage go together, so to does openness to children.
It is important for us to understand marriage as a sacrament, which necessarily entails the better understanding that marriage is not a contract but a covenant. Again unfortunately, many see marriage as a purely contractual agreement to the point that today we see pre-nuptial agreements being struck, which govern the distribution of assets if the marriage fails. The existence of such agreements already foresees the possibility of dissolution.
In the establishment of marriage as a sacrament we recognize the beautiful scene of Jesus at the marriage in Cana of Galilee. It was the occasion on which He performed the first of His miracles. In John’s Gospel, it was the first of the signs that were to precede the proclamation of the Kingdom. The presence of Jesus in the life of that married couple has been interpreted as the first of the sacramental signs that Jesus left us. The sign of the Sacrament of Marriage is the mutual commitment of the spouses. The Church witnesses that consent and it is the spouses themselves who enter into the covenant of marriage.
In the document, Familiaris Consortio, mentioned above, we hear these words: “By virtue of the sacramentality of their marriage, spouses are bound to one another in the most profoundly indissoluble manner. Their belonging to each other is the real representation, by means of the sacramental sign, of the very relationship of Christ with the Church.” It is Jesus in the Gospel Who makes it clear that what God has joined together, no man must tear apart. It is certainly one of the more difficult sayings of Jesus, which has been reinterpreted down through the centuries, but it is clear that Jesus establishes a new sacramental sign for the marriage covenant---one which is unbreakable, one which is meant to last a lifetime. We know, however, that unfortunately not every marriage achieves that sacramental union and sign that it is meant to achieve. The most unfortunate situation today is that the break-up of marriages, divorces and remarriages are part of our society and also part of the reality in the lives of our Catholic people.
The Church as mother, as the document tells us, “is close to the many married couples who find themselves in difficulty over this important point of the moral life.” She knows the situation very well, which is arduous at times, tormented by difficulties of every kind, not only individual, but social difficulties. She knows that many couples encounter difficulties, not only in the concrete fulfillment of the norm but even in understanding its inherent values. So it is that the Church as mother and teacher must come to the aid of its children in difficulty.
The much-misunderstood ecclesial system of annulment can at times be a help to couples who have not achieved a sacramental marriage. Again, an entire article could be devoted to the concept of annulment. It suffices to say here, however, that none of the Church’s children should feel themselves alienated, even if the marriage has ended in divorce and they have not remarried. It is a fact that divorce and remarriage among Catholics is all too common. At times the lack of sacramental marriage cannot be proven, especially for couples who do not make the effort to seek an annulment.
If we look at the situation today, however, we know that preparations for marriage and assistance to those who are married are really important ministries which the Church must support. As the Diocese engages in a long-term planning process, based on parish planning, it is my hope that we will find new and better ways to assist couples preparing for marriage and also support those who are married. There is no more important factor in the progress towards the New Evangelization than this.
As I noted in my second pastoral letter in 2005, John Paul II said: “The way of the Church is the way of the family.” Without strong and vibrant families, the Church is all that much weaker since in effect we are the family of families. We cannot ignore the present situation of the extreme difficulty of married couples, if we are to fulfill our mission as a Church.
On the more positive side, we must recognize that the specific purpose of the sacrament of marriage is for the sanctification of married couples and their families. As the marriage ceremony says, “You have already been sanctified through your Baptism, and now the Church witnesses your joining in the Sacrament of Marriage which builds on the first relationship we have with God by sanctifying the relationship between husband and wife.”
The sacrament intimately connected with marriage is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the very source of Christian marriage and as we hear in Familiaris Consortio, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, in fact, represents Christ’s covenant of love with His Church sealed with His blood on the Cross. In this sacrifice of the New and Eternal Covenant, Christian spouses encounter the source from which their own marriage covenant flows; it is interiorly structured and continuously renewed. As a representation of Christ’s sacrifice of love for the Church, the Eucharist is a fountain of charity. Again, the Church helps us to understand that the marriage covenant is part of the covenant that Christ has with His Church. It is no less than that and because of that the Eucharist is the greatest and single most assistance to married couples in fulfilling their own covenant. Marriage made in the new covenant benefits from the sign of that covenant, the Eucharist itself.
We encourage families to pray together at the Eucharist. I hear and see so frequently, as I travel to our parishes, that our families are not worshipping together. Without a family life centered on the worship in the Eucharist we cannot hope to have strong families and good marriages. We cannot hope for a generation that is going to be imbued with the love of the Eucharist which will eventually bring them to the love for the Sacrament of Marriage.
As we continue our Lenten journey, join with me in praying for our families that the Church can foster strong sacramental marriages that will bring about the New Evangelization among the people of Brooklyn and Queens. Together we “put out into the deep” to heed the call of Jesus that we might make a new covenant established by the shedding of His Blood real and effective in the marriage covenants lived by the families in our Diocese.
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