Of all the Sacraments, marriage is undoubtedly the most richly celebrated. Gala attire, jewels, bouquets, guests, lavish banquets, sumptuous receptions… everything is arranged with the care that this unique event – which will change the lives of the bride and groom forever – demands. But how few consider its supernatural sublimity!
Marriage does indeed deserve the pomp and festivity with which it is usually surrounded. Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira even stated that the prevalence of such solemnity alone constituted a significant brake on the advance of the Revolution. However, the reason for this should not be human, sentimental or, even less so, worldly. Rather, such splendour finds its meaning in the lofty dignity of this Sacrament, in its symbolism and in its primordial role in the construction of a healthy and Christian society.
Sacred union from the beginning
“It is not good that the man should be alone,” God said as He beheld His masterpiece, Adam; “I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gn 2:18). This is how the history of human relationships began, marked from the very first moment by divine affection and by a great elevation that is manifested in every detail.
One of these details lies in the Hebrew word ezer, used to designate “a helper who is suitable for you.” This is a nuance that has been lost in the various translations of Sacred Scripture: of the one hundred times the word help appears in the Old Testament, ezer is only used in reference to God as man’s helper – sixteen times – and to Eve. This suggests that her position in relation to Adam was not that of a servant, nor was her role to be exclusively that of motherhood, but that she was in fact a helper in the way that God is. Woman therefore constitutes a spiritual complement to man.
The matrimonial bond bears a sacred character, having God as its author and being a symbol of the Word Incarnate and His mystical union with the Church
Genesis then tells us that after creating Eve and presenting her to Adam, the Lord blessed them, saying: “a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gn 2:24). And this blessing made it possible and worthy to fulfil the command: “multiply, and fill the earth” (Gn 1:28).
Consequently, the conjugal union is intended to produce two fruits: one natural, which is the perpetuation of the human species; the other spiritual, which is the mutual help and sanctification of the spouses, whose relationship must partake in the highest degree of friendship.1
This bond truly possesses a sacred character, not acquired, but intrinsic, not of human invention, but engraved in nature itself, because it has God as its author and because it is a figure of the Incarnation of the Word.2
Elevation to the supernatural plane
The Divine Master spared no effort in praising the sanctity of marriage. The Gospels tell us that, at the beginning of His public life, He deigned to attend a wedding in Cana, Galilee (cf. Jn 2:1-11). “He, who was born of a Virgin and by His example and His words exalted virginity, […] wanted to honour marriage with His presence and reward it with a great gift [His first miracle], so that no one would see in matrimony the mere satisfaction of the passions, nor could they declare it illicit.”3
In His preaching throughout Judea, and in opposition to the distortions introduced by custom among the chosen people, the Redeemer completed His work by elevating the conjugal union to the status of a Sacrament and restoring to it its primitive purity and indissolubility: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mt 19:6). Marriage, elevated to the supernatural plane, was then linked to God’s grace forever. No longer would anyone have to see it merely as a state that imposed difficult duties, but as a true source of benefits, help and blessings.
However, this union has an even more sublime aspect.
“This mystery is great”
St. Thomas Aquinas4 says that there are four Sacraments that are called great: Baptism, because of its effect, which is to erase original sin and open the gates of Heaven; Confirmation, because of its minister, since only bishops dispense it; the Eucharist, because it contains Christ Himself; and Matrimony, because of its meaning, since it represents the union of Christ with the Church.
What an excellent symbolic condition God has imparted to the bond of marriage! In fact, Tradition teaches that, just as it happened with Adam and Eve in Paradise, from the side of Christ asleep on the Cross, the Father formed a Bride: the Church.5 And when the Divine Lamb awoke resurrected from the sleep of death, He contemplated her – flesh of His flesh and bones of His bones (cf. Gn 2:23) – with infinite love and united Himself to her in a mystical espousal. From these sacred nuptials, all the children of God will be born until the consummation of the ages.
“Every marriage,” comments Msgr. João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, “repeats, on a smaller scale, this supreme marriage.”6 Since it is a virtue of the Sacrament to produce what it symbolizes, husband and wife really participate in the union between Christ and His Church.7
Defender of this great mystery (cf. Eph 5:32), St. Paul establishes in his Epistle to the Ephesians a close analogy between the Saviour’s espousal and human marriage, presenting, in words full of unction, the former as a model for the latter:
“Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, His Body, and is Himself its Saviour. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present the Church to Himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (5:22-27).
God could hardly have filled this Sacrament with more dignity, holiness and grace, in a moving demonstration of His immense love for mankind.
The family, the original cell of social life
Eternal Wisdom taught us that we know a tree by its fruit (cf. Mt 7:16-20). Since marriage is such an excellent tree, we could not expect less significant fruit from it.
The family is the cellula mater of society. Resting on the threefold good of fidelity, indissolubility and offspring,8 this institution, so strong and organic in its simplicity, has a crucial influence on social phenomena, and only through it can the Reign of Christ be established on earth. For this reason, the office of begetting and raising new human beings, the main purpose of marriage, is one of singular nobility and responsibility.
The family relationship, as Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira explains,9 is a kind of primary analogate of all the other relationships that man will establish over the course of his life. Naturally, an individual’s authentic affective bonds, such as those established with a friend or a teacher, tend to become fraternal and filial; and relationships that do not have, at least in part, a parental character are superfluous, unstable or even false.
Moreover, a child who grows up in a healthy family environment easily understands, for example, what loyalty or selfless love is, and is apt to have such dispositions towards others.
Furthermore, parents are the first image of God for children. Through an affectionate and warm relationship with their parents, children will later have a basis from which to understand the relationship with their Heavenly Father, who cares His people by taking them in His arms, drawing them with bonds of love and stooping down to feed them (cf. Hos 11:3-4) –not perishable food, but His Body and Blood, the Bread of Life and the Cup of eternal salvation.
From marriage that preserves its sanctity, unity and perpetuity, society can expect upright citizens, who, accustomed to loving and revering God, have the duty to obey the legitimate authorities, esteem everyone and do no harm to anyone.10
“The world must learn once again to believe that marriage is something eminently great, holy and divine, and that its strength, health and salvation depend on the preservation of its purity.”11
The family yesterday, today and always!
Through divine grace, marriage can become a heaven on earth, abounding in that true and lasting love which has God as its foundation
Even in the vale of tears of our mortal existence, marriage can, by divine grace, be transformed into an earthly heaven. A heaven not of carnal and sentimental pleasures, but of true and lasting love, which has God as its foundation; not without sorrows and sacrifices, but surrounded by the superabundance of strength needed to overcome any obstacle.
What a blow, then, for the most tender Heart of Jesus, who so graciously gave mankind the gift of this Sacrament, to see the enormous number of souls who despise it in our day! What an outrage the worldly commit against Him, when they say that the solution to marriage problems is to abolish every form of commitment, as well as to abandon the traditional and supposedly obsolete criteria regarding the family! And they say this as if today’s society, in which such procedures are already in force, were not the most palpable proof of their error!
The solution to ending the problems of the family is not to destroy it, but to bring it closer to God, its Author and Saviour, and to the Holy Church, its splendid and maternal model. Spread this truth throughout the world and the light of Christ will begin to shine on the terrible psychological, emotional and moral crises that plague humanity; Catholic couples will come to grasp the sanctity of their state, and the necessary conditions will be created in the world for the establishment of the reign of Jesus and Mary. ◊
Union Sealed by God
According to the language of Tradition, “marriage is a union sealed by God’s blessing” (TERTULLIAN. Ad uxorem. L.II, c.8). It is not enough that consents are exchanged and the parties give themselves; the Author of grace must intervene. By virtue of His intervention, the union is sanctifying and sanctified. Divine grace penetrates it, consolidates it and eases the difficulties. It is a Sacrament. […]
Natural love, however well founded it may be on respect and esteem, is not always able to withstand the sudden revelations that show us imperfections, defects and vices that we had not thought of. Our shaken security and threatened peace discourage the poor heart that thought it was so solid and invite it to stop loving.
In fallen persons without dominion over their passions, natural love tires of being attached to the same object. All too easily – unfortunately! – inconstancy and caprice divert it towards some other object, near which it forgets its duty and its vows. This is a lamentable weakness from which marriage has suffered in every age.
Nevertheless, after Christ sanctified love, grace perfects it, making it wise and teaching it that nothing in this world is perfect; that God’s infinite beauty is the only ideal capable of satisfying a heart eager for perfection, and that when we do not have everything we would like to love, we must love what we do have.
Wedding at Cana, St. Patrick’s Church, Boston (MA)
Grace purifies the eyes of nature and makes misfortunes bearable, infirmities endearing, and old age and grey hair lovable.
Grace makes love patient. It protects it from the shock produced by the defects it has become aware of and from the too-sudden revelation of those that have escaped its insight.
Grace makes love just and merciful. It easily persuades us that if we have to suffer, we also cause suffering, and that – in married life more than in any other situation – it is necessary to put into practice this evangelical maxim: “Bear one another’s burdens.”
Instead of reproaches, it suggests apologies. It transforms recriminations into good advice, wise exhortations, gentle encouragement and kind corrections; it softens hearts and inclines them to forgive easily.
Finally, grace makes love faithful to duty; it presents it in a radiant light which the clouds of fantasy, caprice, illusion and lies cannot obscure, and makes it find honour and joy in constancy, for which it gives thanks to God, who is so faithful even to those who outrage Him. […]
This is marriage. Twice honoured by God’s intervention, in the solemn epochs of Creation and Redemption, it demands our respect, and I have the right to say to men: do not touch it, it is a holy thing. Yes, gentlemen, it is a holy thing.
You must be convinced of this truth if you wish to be able to agree with me on the conclusions I shall draw from it. These conclusions can only confirm St. Paul’s statement:
“This sacrament is great – Sacramentum hoc magnum est.” ◊
MONSABRÉ, OP, Jacques-Marie-Louis.
Exposition du dogme catholique.
Grace de Jésus-Christi. Mariage. Paris: L’Anne
Dominicaine, 1890, v.V, p.32-33; 40-43
Notes
1 Cf. MARRIAGE. In: MONDIN, Battista. Dicionário enciclopédico do pensamento de Santo Tomás de Aquino. São Paulo: Loyola, 2023, p.431.
2 Cf. LEO XIII. Arcanum Divinæ Sapientiæ, n.11.
3 ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. De incarnatione Domini, c.XXV: PG 75, 1463.
4 Cf. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Super Epistolam Sancti Pauli Apostoli ad Ephesios lectura, c.V, lect.10.
5 Cf. ST. AUGUSTINE. In Iohannis evangelium tractatus. Tractatus CXX, n.2.
6 CLÁ DIAS, EP, João Scognamiglio. Homily. São Paulo, 14/1/2006.
7 Cf. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Summa contra gentiles. L.IV, c.78.
8 St. Augustine, later supported by St. Thomas Aquinas (cf. Summa contra gentiles. L.IV, c.78), teaches that marriage possesses three great goods: fidelity, by which the spouses do not unite themselves to anyone outside the nuptial bond; indissolubility, by which they maintain their commitment until death do them part; and offspring, to be received with love and brought up in religion (cf. ST. AUGUSTINE. De Genesi ad litteram. L.IX, c.7).
9 CORRÊA DE OLIVEIRA, Plinio. O tecido social perfeito [The Perfect Social Fabric]. In: Dr. Plinio. São Paulo. Year XVIII. N.209 (Aug., 2015), p.18-23. See the full transcript of the article in the section A Prophet for Our Times in this magazine.
10 Cf. LEO XIII, op. cit., n.14.
11 WEISS, OP, Alberto María. Apología del Cristianismo. Barcelona: Herederos de Juan Gili, 1906, v.VII, p.446.
