MARRIAGE – A DIVINE INSTITUTION & A SACRAMENT
An amateur mathematician defined marriage in an equation. He said that
marriage is 1 + 1 = 1. I guess that’s how Matt 19:6: “man and wife are no longer 2
but 1 flesh” can be expressed in an equation
There are so many things to talk about in marriage but this afternoon we
will focus on 3 points: 1) Marriage – a divine institution and a sacrament; 2) caring
for one’s marriage and family and 3) chastity in marriage. Hopefully we can finish
in half an hour.
Marriage – A Divine Institution
Marriage is an institution. An institution is defined as “integrated systems
of rules that structure social interactions". Marriage is more than just a human
institution Marriage was founded or instituted directly by God. As such it is absurd
to pretend that any senator or congressman can amend God’s rules on marriage.
From natural law we can deduce that marriage was INSTITUTED BY GOD
when He created Eve and gave her as a companion to Adam. The reason for her
creation was given even before original sin was committed. “It is not good for
man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself. (Gen. 2:18). And
“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and
they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Another reason was added after original sin
was committed: “Increase and multiply and fill the earth.” (Gen. 1:28).
That God created a single couple conferred to marriage its PRINCIPAL
CHARACTERISTIC: MARRIAGE IS ONE, that is, one man marries one woman; and it
was meant to be FOREVER, that is for the whole life of the couple. Therefore,
according to natural law, MARRIAGE IS ONE AND INDISSOLUBLE.
All of mankind, the chosen people as well as the pagans, lived in the state
of Natural Law marriage until the coming of Jesus Christ.
(Natural law refers to a range of moral theories that rely on rational
discernment of the natural order as a means of telling good from evil. The ability
to discern good and evil comes from God who gave us our conscience.)
Some generations after Adam and Eve however, the UNITY of marriage was
broken by the introduction of polygamy. Later, its INDISSOLUBILITY was also
violated when Moses admitted the repudiation of an adulterous woman as a
cause for divorce with a re-marriage being allowed. Both of these deviations were
allowed among the Chosen People because of the hardness of their hearts”.
To remedy this general decadence into which marriage had fallen, Our Lord
reaffirmed the unity and indissolubility of marriage, and raised it to the level of a
Sacrament.
This is a very important point because there are people who use this
biblical account, namely, Moses’ grant of divorce among the chosen people as an
argument in favor of divorce. In fact, it is not, because when the Pharisees
questioned Jesus’ teaching on the permanence of marriage because of what
Moses decreed, Jesus affirmed the indissolubility of marriage.
The Pharisees asked Jesus: “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning
made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together,
let not man put asunder.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one
to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “For your
hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the
beginning it was not so.” (Matt. 19:3–8; cf. Mark 10:2–9; Luke 16:18)
Thus, Jesus re-established the permanence of marriage among his
followers. He raised Christian marriage to the level of a sacrament and taught that
sacramental marriages cannot be dissolved through divorce.
Marriage – the Sacrament
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains marriage, the sacrament, in
the following points followed by my parenthetical remarks:
# 1601 "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."
(“man and woman” - not man and man or woman and woman. Because
the purpose aside from the “good of the spouses” is also procreation –
something that is impossible in a same sex union)
# 1603 "The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the
married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him
with its own proper laws.... God himself is the author of marriage." [GS 48
# 1]
(Common sense - only the author can amend the terms and conditions of
marriage not congress.)
# 1605 "Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one
another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." [Gen 2:18] The
woman, "flesh of his flesh," i.e., his counterpart, his equal, his nearest in all
things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God
from whom comes our help. [Cf. Gen 2:18-25] "Therefore a man leaves his
father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."
[Gen 2:24] The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union
of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the
beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh." [Mt 19:6]"
(Emphasis on “unbreakable” - no man-made law granting divorce can
impinge upon obligations God has imposed on us especially us, Catholics.)
Caring for Marriage and Family
Holy Mother Church herself, recognizes that Marriage is not a bed of roses
nor a happily ever after. Like life in general, married life is fraught with
challenges and problems, sometimes serious. Sometimes very serious. This is
because of original sin.
Listen to what the Catechism says:
# 1606 "Every man experiences evil around him and within himself. This
experience makes itself felt in the relationships between man and woman.
Their union has always been threatened by discord, a spirit of domination,
infidelity, jealousy, and conflicts that can escalate into hatred and
separation. This disorder can manifest itself more or less acutely, and can
be more or less overcome according to the circumstances of cultures, eras,
and individuals, but it does seem to have a universal character."
# 1607 "According to faith the disorder we notice so painfully does not
stem from the nature of man and woman, nor from the nature of their
relations, but from sin. As a break with God, the first sin had for its first
consequence the rupture of the original communion between man and
woman. Their relations were distorted by mutual recriminations; [Cf. Gen
3:12] their mutual attraction, the Creator's own gift, changed into a
relationship of domination and lust; [Cf. Gen 2:22; 3:16b] and 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. [Cf. Gen 1:28;
3:16-19]"
# 1608 Nevertheless, the order of creation persists, though seriously
disturbed. To heal the wounds of sin, man and woman need the help of the
grace that God in his infinite mercy never refuses them. [Cf. Gen 3:21]
Without his help man and woman cannot achieve the union of their lives
for which God created them "in the beginning."
The Church recognizes that the greatest challenge that married couples
could face is the temptation to give up on each other, give up on marriage, i.e.,
divorce, annulment or separation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches
us that:
# 1614 In his preaching Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of
the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning
permission given by Moses to divorce one's wife was a concession to the
hardness of hearts. [Cf. Mt 19:8] The matrimonial union of man and woman
is indissoluble: God himself has determined it "what therefore God has
joined together, let no man put asunder." [Mt 19:6]
# 1615 This unequivocal insistence on the indissolubility of the marriage
bond may have left some perplexed and could seem to be a demand
impossible to realize. However, Jesus has not placed on spouses a burden
impossible to bear, or too heavy - heavier than the Law of Moses. [Cf. Mk
8:34; Mt 11:29-30] By coming to restore the original order of creation
disturbed by sin, he himself gives the strength and grace to live marriage in
the new dimension of the Reign of God. 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. [Cf. Mt 19:11] This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ's
cross, the source of all Christian life.”
Because of these challenges and problems, we have to take good care and
nurture our marriage and our family. And the Catechism gives us invaluable
insights:
“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. [Cf. Mt 19:11] This grace of Christian marriage is
a fruit of Christ's cross, the source of all Christian life.”
Our last end, our sanctification, continues to be the same, before and after
marriage. But as husband and wife, we have to seek sanctity through the faithful
fulfillment of our marriage duties, practicing the virtue of charity in the family. St.
Josemaria used to say that, for us, the way to heaven has a name. For the
husband, it is his wife’s name, and for the wife, it is her husband’s.
It is necessary that married couples share all their plans for life and to
pursue those plans together. Consequently, communication is vital: from the
great plans for the education of the children, to the plans for the weekend, or the
small improvements in the house. Everything has to be an occasion of
communication, of conjugal communion.
My personal experience of 48 years of married life has taught me that this
sharing, this communication or conjugal communion, the mutual self-giving which
are the essential ingredients for a marriage that lasts forever is almost impossible
to do without SELFLESSNESS. The Catechism, calls it self-renunciation.
Selflessness - the quality of caring more about what other people need and
want than about what you yourself need and want.
Jesus spoke of selflessness when He said: “If anyone wishes to come after
Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mt. 16:24). To
deny ourselves is to forego what is rightfully ours, to abstain for the sake of Christ,
or to make sacrifices for the sake of others. We do this by humbly acknowledging
the greater good of God over our selfish, self-serving motivations.
I know it’s easier said than done but with God’s help, it can certainly be
done even in married life. Especially in married life.
Selflessness is difficult because God gave us the instinct of survival. We are
wired to seek our own good. However God also gave us a social dimension. He
made us aware that we can only achieve our true good if we contribute to the
good of others. We cannot be truly happy if we pursue our own good at the
expense of others. This means that to be selfless we must learn to love others for
their own sake and not simply because they fill a need or we can “use” them.
Using a person is sometimes linked to “enjoying” that person, similar to
how you enjoy a good meal. We “love” a person simply because she gives us
pleasure: the pleasure of an intellectually stimulating conversation, a beautiful
face, a sexy body, or even lots of money. But that’s not true love. True love is
selfless – loving a person for her own sake and not because of the pleasure or nice
feelings we get from her.
This does not mean that it is wrong to enjoy being with our loved ones. On
the contrary, we naturally enjoy their company. But we should not allow our love
for them to depend on the pleasure they give us. A wife may love her husband
because he is a good friend, a good companion, a good lover, a good provider, or
he always stands up for her. A husband may love his wife because she cooks well,
takes good care of the children, keeps the house clean and orderly, carinosa or
very loving and very supportive. That’s great. But a husband’s love for his wife
and vice versa is deeper – it is totally selfless.
Let me illustrate selfless love by a husband for her wife with a real life
anecdote from the book, “Inner Beauty Shining Through” by Dr. Roque Carballo:
“Once I was invited to go to a manufacturing firm in Batangas to give a
lecture on professionalism to the employees.
At one point in my lecture, I wanted to give an example of selflessness to
illustrate the value of selfless service. I pointed at one of the participants
seated in the front row. I asked if he was married. He looked so young he
could have been single. He answered that he was married. Then I followed
my question with a 2nd: Does he love his wife? He very softly answered, Yes
I do love her. To emphasize the values of selfless love, I presented to him a
hypothetical situation: I asked him if he would still love his wife if she got
sick and ended up paralyzed from the waist down. The participants became
so quiet you could hear a pin drop. And the young man who was an
engineer answered very softly in Tagalog: Yes. I will still love her.
I continued lecturing, using his answer as an example of selflessness.
After the session the HR Manager brought me to lunch at the Boardroom
together with some supervisors. He asked me if I knew the young engineer
that I dialogued with at my lecture. I told him that it was the first time I saw
him. Then he told me the following story: the engineer’s young wife, newly
married as they were, ended up paralyzed and bedridden after a very
difficult first pregnancy. In spite of her condition, the engineer was thankful
that both his wife and child survived.
However, I thought his wife can no longer be a good cook, a good
housekeeper, a good lover. He will have to take care of her forever. It is his
love for her that is so precious, a love that is purely selfless, for his wife can
no longer be an active companion in life. She cannot do much for him,
except pray and smile and love him back truly with her eyes but not with
her whole body since she is paralyzed.”
Another real life anecdote from the same book gives us a moving example
of selfless love this time of a wife for a husband, already on in years.
Dr. Carballo gave a lecture to married couples in a large city in Mindanao
about the importance of selfless love in married life. He related the moving story
of the young couple in Batangas. The next day, after attending early morning
mass at a local Carmelite Convent, he stayed for a few minutes giving thanks for
the mass and his communion. This is what he wrote in the book:
“As the mass goers were filing out of the Church, I noticed a very elegant-
looking elderly lady with white hair walking towards me. She paused a
while before proceeding to the exit and then decided to approach me. I did
not recognize her at all. She told the following story:
‘Dr. Carballo, I attended your lecture last night at the bistro. I am the
owner of that place. After your lecture, I went home immediately and went
to my husband’s room. He is an invalid for several years now due to a
stroke and I have to take care of him. He is a difficult sick person,
complaining always and making things difficult for all, and I would always
get angry at him and threaten to abandon him since I found it so hard to
take care of him. But after last night’s lecture, I went home and kissed him
and embraced him and told him I would take care of him always. Thank
you.’
Then she kept quiet and left silently. I prayed for her and her husband and
thanked God that my words had some good effect on at least one of my
listeners…”
The realization came late in this case but what a wonderful decision the
wife made. It’s never too late. Yes, if our love has been a selfish and not selfless
love all these years, it is never too late. We can always begin while we’re still
alive. Let’s make a resolution in this retreat.
Chastity in marriage
First things first: everybody is called to chastity. But the call to chastity is
not the same for all men. The call to chastity for priests, the religious, or those
called to single-blessedness is different from the call to conjugal chastity. We limit
our subject matter this afternoon to conjugal chastity – chastity in married life.
It is sad that there has always been a widespread belief even among
Catholics that marriage is a remedy to human weakness particularly to our natural
inclination to pleasure – specially sexual pleasure. That a man or a woman, by
virtue of his or her being married is “licensed” to enjoy porn, ogle or google sexy
or scantily clad or naked women or men as long as he does not have sexual
relations with anybody other than his wife or her husband. This is of course a
grave error. We are called to live chastity in marriage.
Holy Mother Church knows the human person well. She knows that our
desire for things of the flesh does not simply go away with the passage of time.
Our natural desires for food, drink, sex, comfort, freedom from pain, shelter, and
the like will continue to persist perhaps until we die. As long as desires which are
not intrinsically wrong exist, we can misuse or abuse these natural desires. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church admits this quite pointedly:
“Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it
acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life (CCC
2342).”
Sexuality or sex can only be expressed within marriage because human
sexuality must always include both a unitive and procreative dimension. In other
words, sex is meant to be a joy and pleasure between spouses in which the two
become one flesh.
Authentic sexual expression is always rooted in two purposes: procreative
and unitive. The procreative aspect of sex is the couple’s openness to life. The
unitive is the fulfillment of the one-flesh union of man and woman within the
context of marriage. If the procreative or unitive act is ever removed from the
context of the sexual act, then the act is always disordered. The misuse of such a
beautiful gift is an offense against God because it harms the person misusing the
gift. Improper use of the sexual act will always hurt us and others, sometimes in
ways that are not always easy to see, and God never wants us to be hurt.
I think it is sufficiently clear that even in married life, te temptation to lust
does not go away.
These are the main offenses against chastity in married life:
1. Having sex outside of marriage. Sexual intercourse belongs only within
the confines of the marriage covenant.
2. This does not mean that the husband or the wife can be compelled to
have sex at any given time by husband or wife. There are times when
the marital embrace is simply not an option. If the husband or wife is
sick, they are not free to totally give of themselves. Therefore, to coerce
them into sexual intimacy would wholly inappropriate and a violation of
the love of the spouses.
3. Pornography. The viewing of pornography is an offense against the very
love of God. It is a perversion of the conjugal act which does “grave
injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since
each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others
(CCC 2354).” The viewing of pornography is an illusion, and often times
the actors are the victims of sexual abuse, sufferers of diseases, and
even human traffic victims.
4. Infidelity of thought. If you are out in public and see someone that you
find attractive, this is not, in itself, lust. God made mankind and He
made us good. He made us beautiful. The human body is a beautiful
work of art. However, when our chaste admiration goes too far, then
lust steps in. For the married person, lustful thoughts directed toward
another are always disordered and are an act of infidelity. As Jesus said,
“But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has
already committed adultery with her in his heart (Mt 5:28).”
5. Adultery/Concubinage. Querida, kabit. Guard your eyes and you heart.
An adulterous relationship can begin with lustful thoughts which then
progress to fantasizing or flirting. This can be a form of emotional
adultery. If this progresses to the physical level, it is what is normally
called adultery. This is a serious offense against God because marriage
must be faithful. To be unfaithful is a grave injustice. Lust is a temptation
of the flesh, but a willing spirit can embrace Christ and pursue chastity.
6. Use of contraceptives: Sex outside of marriage is disordered, but sex
within marriage without the openness to life by using condoms or
contraceptives is equally disordered. A faithful husband and a faithful
wife might unite together freely, but this expression of love ceases to be
total self-gift if the spouses through contraception or other means block
the openness to life. Without the openness to life it is disordered
because it frustrates the second purpose of marriage which is
procreation and is done for pleasure alone which is against will of God.
To be very clear, chastity, in marriage or otherwise, is not an easy thing, but
it is absolutely vital for a healthy marriage. St. John Paul II said, “Only the chaste
man and the chaste woman are capable of true love.” Achieving chastity, like
achieving holiness, is not a one-and-done activity; for some, it can truly be a
lifelong activity.
A Few Final Words
Practical advice from someone who’s been through it all for 48 years:
1. Do everything for love – of God and of your wife.
2. Never give up – husband and wife may disagree on many things but they
must absolutely agree on one thing – NEVER GIVE UP.
3. Be willing to compromise – recognize that you will have differences.
Actually, that’s a good thing if you make the most of it. The way to do
that is to listen to each other’s opinion about an issue. If your wife’s idea
is a good one, be open to a change of mind. You don’t have to always be
right. Often there are 2 rights, both with good outcomes. Settle on one,
then work together to make it happen. Be willing to give and take.
Won’t work if one’s ideas always have to be the right ones. Compromise
is a key factor in keeping unity.
4. Look for the good in each other– Let me tell you a story of a young
married couple. Husband to wife: Why can’t you keep the house as
orderly and clean as my Mom did?. Wife: That’s because you don’t do
anything but watch TV or play video games in one corner unlike my Dad
who helped my Mom! Forget about little things that aren’t worth a fight.
A widow married for 50 years was asked what made her marriage
happy. Answer: I decided early on to ignore things that didn’t matter.
Some things just aren’t worth a fight. There was too much good in my
husband to pay attention to the few faults he had.
5. Work as a team – Sometimes things happen that throw a monkey
wrench into an otherwise happy married life. Every couple will
experience bumps along the way. Don’t let the bumps cause you to
stumble. Hold on and help each other navigate thru the bumps. How?
Consider these:
a) Pray together everyday
b) Go to mass together every Sunday, if possible every day.
c) Have meals together as a family or as a couple with the TV
off and with no smart phones or gadgets. Try to make every
dinner at night, a family meal
d) Recreation time together. My wife always took up the same
sports I was into. From pelota to tennis to golf. Today we
walk 10000 steps 3 days in a week, sometimes more.
e) Family fun times – road trips, visits to cultural sights,
museums, churches, trekking with the children. When you
enjoy your kids together, you also build relationships.
f) Talk about what you need and anticipate your wife’s needs.
Sometimes your wife is not having her needs met. And you
will never know unless you open up and talk. Do not
presume. Presumption can lead to serious trouble if wrong
and is allowed to drag on for years.
g) Understand each others’ temperaments and personality.
I urge you during or after our retreat to read POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC
EXHORTATION “AMORIS LAETITIA” of Pope Francis. If you can’t find it among the
reading materials available here, you can google it.
Leaving you these words from St. Josemaria Escriva:
“I constantly tell those who have been called by God to form a home to
love one another always, to love each other with the love of their youth. Any one
who thinks that love ends when the worries and difficulties that life brings with it
begin, has a poor idea of marriage, which is a sacrament and an ideal and a
vocation, it is precisely then that love grows.”
