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C. Marriage and Family Life (Theology of the
Family)
"God created man in his own
image and likeness: calling him to existence through love, he
called him at the same time for love. God is love and in himself he
lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in
his own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the
humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and
responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental
and innate vocation of every human being. As an incarnate spirit, . . . .
man is called to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human
body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love. . . . Consequently,
sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another
through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is by no means
something purely biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human
person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an
integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves
totally to one another until death." (See John Paul II, The
Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Familiaris Consortio, no.
11, and Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2361.)
The readers will notice that
portions of the same quote from The Apostolic Exhortation on the
Family, Familiaris Consortio, are used both for the theology of the
body and for the theology of the family. Of course, they have the same
starting position: our creation in the image and likeness of God and they
both pertain to human persons created as masculine and feminine. They are
also interdependent in the sense that the proper understanding of the
theology of the body is essential to an understanding of the theology of
the family. Nevertheless, these are two distinct points of view with the
theology of the body emphasizing man's dignity, especially in regard to
the body, and the theology of the family emphasizing the noble and almost
unbelievable vocation of man and woman to enter into a familial communion
in imitation of the Blessed Trinity. In the nuptial blessing of the
wedding liturgy, the Church recognizes the extraordinary gift of marriage
as the "one blessing that was not forfeited by original sin or washed
away in the flood." (See The Roman Missal: The Sacramentary, promulgated
by Pope Paul VI on April 3, 1969, translated by the International
Commission on English in the Liturgy, [New York: Catholic Book Publishing,
1985], p. 843.)
As images of God, married couples are to "be
fruitful and multiply." (See Gen. 1:28.) Created in God's image and
likeness, we are called to act as God acts. In other words, we are called
to love as God loves. But before we can love as God loves, we need to know
how He loves. Christ shows us how God loves because Christ is God and He
came to reveal how God loves.
The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the clearest
and most dramatic revelation of God's love. It is clear from the account
of the Agony in the Garden that Christ freely chose to die on the cross
for us. It was His own choice. He sweat blood over this choice. (Some
argue that He had to die because the Father willed it. However, it was
Christ's own choice to do the Father's will. "I always do what is
pleasing to Him." [See John 8:29.] Christ's prayer, "Not my will
but yours be done," [See Luke 22:42] was not forced upon Him. He was
not "made" to unite His will with the Father's. It was His own
free choice.) Christ's choice to die on the cross was an informed
decision. He knew that His death would mean our salvation. He made His
choice based on that knowledge. Further, Christ's sacrifice was a
self-gift. He gave Himself on the cross to the Father for us. How could He
have given more? Christ's gift of Himself is permanent. He always remains
the Lamb of God and the effect of His sacrifice extends to eternity.
Finally, His sacrifice on the cross is life-giving. Through this act of
salvation, we are able to share the very life of God: grace. There are
five characteristics of God's love as revealed in Christ's sacrifice. They
are: (1) a choice (2) based on knowledge. This choice is (3) a self-gift
and this self-gift is (4) permanent and (5)life-giving.
If we are to love as God loves, our love must have
the five characteristics of divine love. Our love must be a choice based
on knowledge. This choice must be a decision to give oneself. The gift of
self must be permanent and life-giving.
Since we are created to imitate God by loving as He
loves, when we love and are loved in return it makes us very, very happy.
As one married person once remarked, it is absolutely amazing how
wonderful I feel when I am with the one I love. How can another person
make me so happy? To love as God loves gives us great happiness, but it is
also a testimony to the Trinity. When we imitate God and love as He loves,
we show the world not just how we love, but how God loves. A married
couple who loves as God loves becomes an outward sign of the love of the
Blessed Trinity. As a preface of the wedding liturgy testifies, the
"outpouring of love in the new covenant of grace is symbolized in the
marriage covenant that seals the love of husband and wife and reflects
your divine plan of love." The same sentiment is found in another
preface of the wedding liturgy, "The love of man and woman . . .
becomes the mirror of your everlasting love." (See The Roman
Missal: The Sacramentary, promulgated by Pope Paul VI on April 3,
1969, translated by the International Commission on English in the
Liturgy, [New York: Catholic Book Publishing, 1985], prefaces for
Marriage, nos. II, and III, pp. 519, 521.) When couples enter into
marriage and strive to love in this way, they form a communion of
persons, a union of themselves. This communion mirrors and reflects the
communion of the Trinity. No other human union is as intimate a
reflection of the Trinity as the bond of a man and a woman in marriage.
Excluding the supernatural relationship with God
through grace, the most intimate and intense human relationship of love is
marriage: the partnership of life and love. (See the Second Vatican
Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium
et Spes no. 48.) Even though other human relationships of love are
expressed in and through the human body, the union of husband and wife in
marriage is of a totally different order because marriage depends on the
body in a way that no other human relationship does! The act of married
love is the defining characteristic of marriage. So, in marriage, the
union of two people in the physical act of married love is
their love in a way that no other bodily expression of love can be.
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