Jesus the Bridegroom and the Sacrament of Matrimony

What is marriage?

Is it a purely human invention? a kind of civil partnership or temporary contract?

Or is a sacred covenant? a divinely instituted covenant for the union of spouses and the procreation & establishment of a family?

When we are confronted with “the great mystery” of the marriage of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32), we realize that Christian marriage—as opposed to other forms of marriage—is more than just a personal contract or a sacred family covenant. Even more, Christian marriage is a living icon of the sacrificial spousal love between Christ and the Church. It is (or it is supposed to be) an outward sign of the invisible mystery of Jesus’ love for his bride and the bride’s love for him. 150

Read Ephesians 5:21-33

  • Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 for the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I am speaking about Christ and the church. 33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

1st – “submission”

  • Paul uses this exact word (Greek hypotasso) to refer to Christ’s submission to the Father in 1 Cor 15:28.
  • Since Christ is equal to the Father, Paul in no way is implying that wives are inferior to their husbands.
  • “If man is the head, woman is the heart” (Pope Pius XI).

2nd – Paul is NOT saying that the relationship between Christ and the Church is “like” a human marriage. No.

  • To the contrary, Paul is saying that Christian marriage between a man and a woman should be like the supernatural love between Christ and the Church. It is Christ’s relationship with the Church that is the “great mystery” (Greek mysterion mega) to which Christian marriage must look as its model (Ephesians 5:32). 153
  • Husband – icon of Christ the Bridegroom – laying down his life in sacrificial love.
  • Wife – icon of the Church – receiving the husband’s love.

3rd – Goal of marriage = holiness

  • For Jesus the Bridegroom, He loved His bride and died for her – not just to be united to her & produce spiritual children of God, but also so “that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27).
  • Marriage is a mystical participation in the spousal & sacrificial love relationship between Christ & the Church.

St. John Chrysostom

  • You have seen the measure of obedience, hear also the measure of love. Would you have your wife obedient unto you, as the Church is to Christ? Take then yourself the same provident care for her, as Christ takes for the Church. Yea, even if it shall be needful for you to give your life for her, yea, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, yea, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever — refuse it not. Though you should undergo all this, yet will you not, no, not even then, have done anything like Christ. For thou indeed art doing it for one to whom you are already knit; but He for one who turned her back on Him and hated Him. In the same way then as He laid at His feet her who turned her back on Him, who hated, and spurned, and disdained Him, not by menaces, nor by violence, nor by terror, nor by anything else of the kind, but by his unwearied affection; so also do thou behave yourself toward your wife. Yea, though thou see her looking down upon you, and disdaining, and scorning you, yet by your great thoughtfulness for her, by affection, by kindness, you will be able to lay her at your feet. For there is nothing more powerful to sway than these bonds, and especially for husband and wife. 

Marriage is a participation in the Cross

  • Christ 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. This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ’s cross, the source of all Christian life. CCC 1615

Marriage is not a “ball & chain” – it’s a Cross!

  • Marriage involves both spouses choosing to share in each other’s sufferings – out of love.
  • Both spouses are called to lay down their lives for one another, in good times and in bad…

Since Christian marriage is an icon of the bond between Christ the Bridegroom & His Church

  • that’s another reason why Christian marriage is indissoluble.
  • Christ’s love will never change.

An early foretaste of the wedding of the Lamb

  • Husband and wife not only participate in the Cross but also a foretaste of the glory of the eternal marriage in heaven.

Christ is the source of this grace. “Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony.” Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,” and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love. In the joys of their love and family life he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb. CCC 1642

All of the sacraments can be seen as nuptial mysteries because they are participating in the mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of the Bridegroom.