The Sacrament of Marriage - a Brief Historical Overview – Part VI
Second Vatican Council: Marriage as a Sacramental Covenant
The Second Vatican Council teaches: " The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent " (GS 48,1). The renewed vision of marriage, presented in the above conciliar formula, calls it a covenant. This covenant, instituted by God, is always a religious covenant. It was raised to the dignity of a sacrament by Jesus Christ. Marriage is a covenant both in statu fieri and in statu esse. The in statu esse covenant is at the same time a profound community of life.
Marriage is a religious covenant
The marriage covenant begins with the work of creation. It is God, as the crowning achievement of his creative work, that creates man. Sacred Scripture teaches: " God created mankind in his image; in the image of God, he created them; male and female - he created them." (Genesis 1:27). He created man as two different persons. God blessed them, saying: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it ..."
(Genesis 1:28). Thus, a marriage covenant established by God the Creator is a religious relationship. God endowed marriage with His rights by establishing them as an enduring institution. The knot formed in this way is sacred.
The marriage covenant, which is religious in nature, has been given laws and principles by God, such as indissolubility. Man cannot change or ignore these constitutive principles because it is not within his competence. It can only supplement them, but only so that what comes from God in the marriage covenant, thus the law of God was kept and intact. The expression "marriage covenant" is not found in the Scriptures.
However, the reality of the marriage presented there fits well with this term. The teaching of Vatican II called marriage a "covenant", enriching the term "contract" or "agreement" that has been used so far in the law. The term "covenant" seems to reflect the religious and sacred reality of marriage more fully than the term "contract." Contracts are more about things, objects, and covenant is more about people. Contracts are usually fixed-term, covenants are forever. Contracts can sometimes be terminated due to the destruction or loss of its subjects. The covenant cannot be broken. The guarantor of the contract is the people, the state, and the guarantor of the covenant is God.
A characteristic feature of a marriage covenant is love. John Paul II teaches:
"The communion of love between God and people, a fundamental part of the Revelation and faith experience of Israel, finds a meaningful expression in the marriage covenant which is established between a man and a woman." (Familiaris Consortio,n.12)
The marriage covenant radiated with love reflects the main message of the revelation that God loves his people. It is a faithful love, which is the model for conjugal love that must unite spouses. A new and in-depth look at conjugal love is revealed in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II teaches: "Many men of our own age also highly regard true love between husband and wife as it manifests itself in a variety of ways depending on the worthy customs of various peoples and times" (Gaudium et Spes, n.49)
Jesus in his teaching, stresses ing: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Mt 19: 5). This statement is not about the physical unity of man and woman, but about the unity and indissolubility of the marriage covenant. This is what Jesus confirms with his conclusion: "Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate" (Mt 19: 6). Thus, a marriage funded by God in the work of creation is a religious and indissoluble covenant. Every marriage, as a natural reality, is rooted in the economy of creation and comes from God, hence it has a religious character. Therefore, according to the teaching of the Church, marriages contracted by non-Christians outside the Catholic Church, based on natural law, are valid and indissoluble.
Referring to the above arguments, it must be stated that Jesus Christ restored marriage to its original dignity of an indissoluble religious covenant, and then, through the work of redemption, gave it a new dignity of a sacramental covenant. That is why the Third Extraordinary Synod of Bishops rightly teaches: "With the coming of Jesus and the reconciliation of a fallen world, thanks to his redemption, the new epoch begun and but Moses' era has ended." The era of the legality and admissibility of divorce has ended, and the era of marriage as an indissoluble sacramental covenant has begun. Pope Francis refers to this truth: "In the matter of marriage, the Church, through the ages more and more aware of the words of Christ, has understood and profoundly presented the doctrine of the indissolubility of the holy matrimonial bond."
The sacramentality of marriage
The Second Vatican Council teaches: "For as God of old made Himself present to His people through a covenant of love and fidelity, so now the Savior of men and the Spouse of the Church comes into the lives of married Christians through the sacrament of matrimony. He abides with them thereafter so that just as He loved the Church and handed Himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal" (Gaudium et Spes, n. 48).
The teaching and work of Jesus Christ enrich the order of creation regarding marriage in two ways. Firstly, the natural order itself was ordered and restored by the fact that Jesus restored the original dignity of marriage as an indissoluble covenant of a religious nature, which is governed by God's natural law and then supplemented by positive law, both God's and ecclesiastical, but in accordance with God's law.
This is how one should perceive the presence of Jesus and his mother at the wedding ceremony in Cana in Galilee, where, at the request of his mother, Jesus performed the first miracle (cf. Jn. 2:1-11). Then Jesus gives marriage a new supernatural dignity by making it a sacrament.
The Third Extraordinary Synod of Bishops teaches: "By reason of the divine pedagogy, according to which the order of creation develops through successive stages to the order of redemption, we need to understand the newness of the Christian Sacrament of Marriage in continuity with natural marriage of the origins, that is, the manner of God’s saving action in both creation and the Christian life"
(Relatio Synodi, n. 13). Thus, the reality of creation - the natural marriage covenant - Jesus made a sacramental covenant, enriching it with a supernatural reality and unifying these two realities this way, that one marriage arises, being one sacramental covenant.
The religious marriage covenant, elevated to the dignity of a sacrament, is enriched with holiness, a gift of Jesus' grace for spouses and children. The gift of the sacrament makes the marriage covenant an even greater unity, and its indissolubility is strengthened and confirmed. Teaching about the sacramentality of the marriage covenant is summarized in the Code of Canon Law as follows: § 1. "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized”. §2. “For this reason, a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament."(can. 1055).
The Second Vatican Council, calling marriage "a deep community of life and love" appreciated true conjugal love. Nevertheless, the traditional principle that marriage happens through the consent of the parties involved in marriage remains important, while conjugal love has a psychological value, not a legal one. This does not diminish the importance of love; it does not mean that it is secondary and unnecessary. John Paul II teaches: "The love between husband and wife and, in a derivatory and broader way, the love between members of the same family-between parents and children, brothers and sisters and relatives and members of the household, is given life and sustenance by an unceasing inner dynamism leading the family to ever deeper and more intense communion, which is the foundation and soul of the community of marriage and the family "(Familiaris Consortio, n. 18)
Conclusion
In the renewed and deepened teaching of Vatican II on marriage, it appears as a sacramental covenant. Marriage instituted by God the Creator at the very beginning of humanity as an indissoluble union between man and woman was elevated to the dignity of a sacrament by Jesus Christ. A marriage that realizes its goals and tasks becomes the foundation of a family whose greatest gift are children. Marriage and the family need the constant care of the Church, which is expressed in an intense pastoral care governed by appropriate guidelines and norms. An expression of this concern is the teaching of the Synod of Bishops and Popes, especially Saint John Paul II and Pope Francis on the role and tasks of marriage and the family.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george