Grace of Christian marriage is fruit of Christ’s cross

Article 123 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series
Paragraphs 1601-1620


Statistically, it would seem that not many people who respond “I do” to the wedding vow “until death do us part” really mean what they say. Yet, a general survey among faithfully married couples or new widows or widowers would seem to confirm that the glue that kept their marriage together was their faith in Christ and the promise they made before God on their wedding day. This promise is summarized succinctly in the opening paragraph of this section of the Catechism.
Quoting from the Second Vatican Council’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (“Gatium et Spes”), the Catechism states: “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament” (ccc 1601).
In the first book of the Bible, we read the words of the first creation account: “God created mankind in his image ... male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gn 1:27-28).
A few paragraphs later, in chapter 2, we read the second creation account: “The Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him... When [the Lord] brought her to the man, the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body” (Gn 2: 18; 21-24).
The Catechism affirms, echoing the Second Vatican Council, that “God himself is the author of marriage” and “the vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator” (ccc 1603). Therefore, the Catechism concludes, “marriage is not a purely human institution” (ccc 1603).
Whether reading the Book of Genesis in a general or a more focused way, there is no doubt that Sacred Scripture, from the beginning, affirms God blessing the value and dignity of marriage between those he created “male and female” (Gn 1:27).
Then the disorder of “sin” entered the world, the “first consequence” being “the rupture of the original communion between man and woman.” As the Catechism puts it, “the beautiful vocation of man and woman to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth was burdened by the pain of childbirth and the toil of work” (ccc 1607).
After the fall, our first parents find themselves in a situation which, without God’s help, they and their descendants will not achieve the union for which God created them “in the beginning” (ccc 1608). It is this union, or marriage, as the Catechism states, that “helps to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one’s own pleasure, and to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving” (ccc 1609).
Human nature left to itself, however, continues to place humanity in a most precarious position. Therefore, in the Book of Deuteronomy we discern that the law of Moses was intended to protect the wife from arbitrary domination by her husband. This explains why Moses permitted men to divorce their wives. [Jesus speaks to this later in the New Testament when he explains why Moses permitted men to divorce their wives. It was, Jesus says, because of man’s “hardness of heart” (see Matthew 19:8).]
In the later prophets of the Old Testament, we notice that they begin preparing “the Chosen People’s conscience for a deepened understanding of the unity and indissolubility of marriage” (ccc 1611). The Books of Ruth and Tobit, for example, “bear moving witness to an elevated sense of marriage and to the fidelity and tenderness of spouses” (ccc 1611). In fact, we are told, “tradition has always seen in the “Song of Solomon” a unique expression of human love” (ccc 1611). No wonder Jesus’ presence at the wedding feast of Cana is highlighted by the Church as a “confirmation of the goodness of marriage and the proclamation that thenceforth marriage will be an efficacious sign of Christ’s presence” (ccc 1613).
Many in our present culture insist that the indissolubility of the marriage is a demand impossible to fulfill. However, the Catechism echoes the sentiments of the Church of all ages that “Jesus has not placed on spouses a burden impossible to bear”…“It is by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses that spouses will be able to ‘receive’ the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ. This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ’s cross, the source of all Christian life” (ccc 1615).
St. Paul articulates a similar theology of marriage in his Letter to the Ephesians (5:25) when he says: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her,” adding at once: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one” (ccc 1616).
This section of the Catechism concludes: “Since it signifies and communicates grace, marriage between baptized persons is a true sacrament of the New Covenant” (ccc 1617). A few paragraphs later we are told: “Both the sacrament of Matrimony and virginity for the Kingdom of God come from the Lord ... It is he who gives them meaning and grants them the grace which is indispensable for living them out in conformity with his will” (ccc 1620).
Father Hillier serves as Director of the Office of the Pontifical Mission Societies, Censor Librorum and oversees the Office for Persons with Disabilities