Sensitivity Analysis

You should have noticed that a lot, but not too much, has been said about the sacramentality of marriage. The idea of marriage as one of the seven sacraments of the Church in itself is not necessarily an ecclesiastical invention. It stems from the broader meaning of the sacrament as mystery, proposed by the early church fathers, especially Augustine, who speaks about the three foods of marriage: offspring, faithfulness, and sacrament (cf. Mod. 2:5). At the same time Augustine acknowledges that marriage of non-Christians is also a "sacrament-bond" of a sacred and mysterious reality, which, nevertheless, called to mind the fullness of the revelation of the Christian mystery (compare Augustine, Schillebeeckx and Rahner on the one hand, and Augustine and Scheeben on the other hand).

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3.5.1 Marriage as Human Mystery

The sacramental mystery of marriage is anchored fully in a human reality; it is a radically human sacrament. (Martinez, & Brignoli, 2001;

also Schillebeeckx, 1965). It is essentially a sign, not only of life, but of the whole of life. Its meaning is the salvation of a personal community.

It is important for you to note that marriage cannot be reduced to a sacred function or ritual, because it is a sign in all its human fullness and transcendent reality. In acknowledging that all human experience is potentially sacramental, and that it is transformed by Christ, Cooke calls marriage a basic and key sacrament of the saving presence of God to human life. (Cooke, 1983).

What we are saying is that the sacramental mystery of marriage is linked to human reality, which is, nonetheless, open to the transcendent. Again, note the following: (i) while love and friendship are part of the committed partnership and not unique to Christians, Christians have the opportunity to live in a way that allows the constantly renewing love of Christ to liberate them, and, thus, affords them the possibility of realizing the transcendent quality of the partnership; (ii) while the centrality of conjugal love constitutes the human foundation of the sacrament, when two Christians marry, God is present within their human partnership, and thus, the partnership is subsumed by the redeeming force of Christ, who is part of creation and head of it (Col.

1:16).

Thomas (1983) extends the sacramental meaning of Christian marriage to five distinct but organically inter-related, and mutually interdependent: (i) the sexual, (ii) the creative, (iii) the loving, (iv) the ecclesial, and (v) the spiritual. From this perspective the sacramental sign-value of marriage is all embracing and life-long. Marriage is an all-embracing symbol and a reality because of the centrality of committed love, which makes it a paradigm of an interpersonal relationship. This intimate partnership establishes the couple in a mutual, faithful, fruitful, permanent, and public union. Thus, love and sexuality, procreation and caring, intimacy and communication, and all the hopes and struggles of the intimate and familial lives of the spouses are not just natural phenomenon, but are salvific mystery (Martinez, & Brignoli, 2001).

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

1. What makes Christian marriage as a sacrament of human reality different from other marriages?

2. What are the five distinct but organically related and mutually independent aspects of Christian marriage as observed by Thomas (1983)?

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3.5.2 Marriage as a saving reality

Marriage is not only a radically human sacrament; it is also a sacrament of faith. The human values of the partnership constitute the "matter" of the sacrament and its sacramental root, which is fundamentally related to the experience of mystery. This mystery is called sacrament, a saving reality in the specific Christian sense, for "the Lord encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of marriage (GS 48). While considering the baptismal character of marriage, Scheeben points out that there is an essential and intrinsic relationship between sacramental marriage and the mystery of the spousal relationship of Christ and the church.

Marriage participates actively and effectively in that fundamental mystery (Scheeben, 1946). In this regard marriage is, in itself, a natural sacrament, that is, a radical hope of salvation and an actual means to it (Martinez, & Brignoli, 2001).

The theology of the sacramentality of marriage recognizes three fundamental dimensions of its sacramentality as Martinez and Brignoli (2001) observe: (i) marriage is a natural sacrament in its own right instituted by God; (ii) marriage is a covenantal sacrament, and as such is a prophetic symbol of the community of grace and salvation between Yahweh and Israel; and (iii) marriage is an essentially Christian sacrament, as revealed by Jesus, who has redeemed human beings, each to live as "a new creation."

What makes this natural sacrament (marriage) specifically Christian sacrament is not in the act of marrying itself (wedding) but in the sacraments of Christian initiation (baptism of water and the Spirit and Eucharist). It is in the newness in Christ, and by means of an ongoing relationship with Christ, that the Christian couple is, in fact, in the words of Rahner (1969, p. 7), "the very fulfilment of the Church." The "new creation" that we are "in Christ" is the essence of Christian sacramentality. The specific elements of Christian marriage stem from this Christ-church spousal relationship. Consequently, faith, baptism, and community, respectively, constitute the personal, ontological, and ecclesial qualifications of the Christian sacramentality of marriage.

Baptism is the foundation on which the intimate partnership of the spouses is built in the image of Christ, and through which the partnership becomes (ontologically) a "new way of being" in the church.

The sacrament of marriage is not only a public commitment, but it is also a concrete expression of the universal sacrament of the church. So when you see people celebrate the rite of marriage (sacramental sign) before the community, they celebrate not to make marriage holy (because it is already holy) but as a demonstration of their faith which demands a public and ecclesial expression. Such a symbolic and sacramental celebration does not come from outside, but from life itself,

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which is sustained by sharing in the divine source and the redeeming love of Christ. It is a particular actualization of the baptismal vocation;

the permanent manifestation and actualization (anamnesis) of the new covenant of Christ. The sacramental reality remains in the life of the couple, who continue to represent the mystery and to be a sacrament to one another, to their family, and to the community of faith. They are the

"fleshed out" sign of God's love to the world (cf. Martinez, & Brignoli, 2001). They are sacraments to one another.

So you can see that "marriage as sacrament" has two dimensions of sacramentality: the interpersonal marital relationship whose essence is love, and the ecclesial dimension, through which the marriage is specifically Christian – namely, in faith, baptism, and community.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

1. What are the three fundamental dimensions of the saving reality of the sacrament of marriage as noted by Martinez and Brignoli (2001)?

2. What is then the true foundation of Christian marriage?

3. Do you agree that a husband and a wife are sacrament to one another?

4. Do you agree that the Christian couple is the very fulfilment of the Church?