Sacrament of Matrimony

A Eucharistic Family

The host is a superlative energiser that supports,enhances and builds in romantic love

In the Sacrament of Matrimony a husband and wife share in Jesus? love through a very wonderful and mysterious vocation. They are called by God to a union in God.

It is a Covenant of love, wherein the committed individuals die little deaths, and rise to new life in each other, powered by Christ?s Paschal Mystery. This is why a Sacramental relationship is Eucharistic.

Jesus gave us a superlative energiser in the Eucharist that supports, enhances and builds on romantic love. Jesus was the sacrament of the ?God love?. He asked us to live in the memory of this great love shown in his dying and rising.

The journey, meaning and discovery of God begins in the context of human love and friendship, in which God is revealed as love, especially in Marriage and the Church. This community of love, seeks to initiate others into its unifying spirit and life.

There is a timelessness accompanying the unity which is experienced between a vowed twosome. There is less obsession with things, less compulsion to be doing, and more acceptance and satisfaction in being. The couple learn to savour the awesome beauty of their holy exchange of love.

This is a time of closeness, a period of true communion, a phase during which husband and wife pledge their love by touch and by word ? the non-verbal and the verbal. It is an enriching experience, filled with fresh hope and new-found joy.

In a good marriage, one in which both partners have found meaning and a mature sense of reality, the couple is gifted with a sort of after-glow, a lingering heavenly feeling of closeness and devotion. This eases the pressures on their lives and adds to the joie de vivre, which is an essential ingredient of true love. All this adds up to that most wonderful mystery called sexual intimacy.

To say that sexual love, if empowered by the Eucharist, touches all dimensions of the marriage, that it colours the total relationship, and that, it meets innumerable conscious and unconscious needs, is to state the obvious. Only partners who break and give themselves to each other, are capable of this all-embracing love. The psychology of sexual lovers is man and woman in their total humaneness, topped with grace.

The Eucharist, likewise, brings every aspect of marriage and family life to the altar, there to be nourished and healed, why, even delivered from bondage. It can miraculously dissolve the family line of contamination, cleanse the bloodline of inherited sin; and remove the dangers emerging from the Family Tree. This is why the Church, in its infinite wisdom, has thought it fit to pray for the deceased members of the community, at every Mass. Their sins are surely forgiven, but the harmful effects of their evil deeds need divine intervention.

In God?s Plan for Christian marriage, the child is conceived and born in love. It is in love that both, husband and wife, not the wife alone, carry the child tenderly, and together bring it into the world.

The onset of labour adds a new and inspiring closeness to their sexual love. And, hopefully, they will share an experience of heightened unity in the birth of their child. As they did in their love-making, in which it was conceived.

It is the very same love of the Father, empowered by the Holy Spirit, that enabled a frail, famished and despairing Jesus, to die for our sake on Mount Calvary.

Our marriages fail or falter because we rely too much on human love; on our own efforts. Only when we go together, as a couple, back to the Cross, and feel secure in the Blood of the Lamb, will our own brokenness and bleeding, bond into wholeness. Our marriages are born and flourish at the foot of the Cross! This is the transforming power of Calvary. The very same boost that we receive at the Eucharistic Table.

When a couple prepare for ?oneness? they need to shed their egos and any traces of selfishness, or profanity. This will help them enter sexual union in total, unabashed generosity and self-giving, as Jesus did on the Cross. Only then do they experience the bliss such a mystical meeting brings. Lord, be glorified in the love-making of husband and wife!

The Cross is a place of love. Saving love ? from sin. Sacrificial love. Jesus is the Sacrificial Lamb of God. Steadfast love. ?I will love you with an everlasting love, and so, I still maintain my faithful love for you? (Jer.31:3). The Cross is a place of Grace (Jn.19:35). Blood (Sacrificial Lamb) and water (the Holy Spirit) flowed from the side of Christ. Unmerited, amazing grace and marvellous blessings were conferred on the People (Ez.47:1; Rev.22:1). We can claim these graces and pass them on to our children (Is.59:21).

The Cross is a place of Compassion (Lk.23:28). ?Women of Jerusalem do not weep for me but for yourselves and your children?. And, those famous words : ?Woman, behold your son. Son behold your Mother? (Jn.19:25-26). Jesus was stark naked, utterly helpless, blood-stained and almost dead. Yet, his mother looked at him with composure and peace. A poignantly delicate and profoundly touching moment for a mother and the woman supporters! Truly, mothers have the capacity to bear such anguish with longsuffering, pondering everything in their hearts.

The Cross is a place of Forgiveness. ?Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do? (Lk.23:34; Ps.22:19). God can heal struggling marriages if the partners involved forgive one another. Forgiveness must become a daily exercise.

The Cross is a place of Hope. The good thief was promised Paradise ?this very day? (Lk.23:42-43)! What a dramatic change ? from sinner to saint, in an instant! There is hope for marital partners, then!

It is finished (Jn.19:30)! Jesus? mission was fulfilled. We can look forward to the eternal banquet, as we are washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Married couples can await, with great expectations, the Promised Land, if they only hold each other?s hand securely. Yes, secure in the thought that our marriages, and our lives as well, are already saved by Jesus? Redemptive death.

The Eucharist offers us the most complete fare. It offers us the goodness of God in all its resplendent fullness. This is why it is regarded as the source and summit of Christian living. The fountain of all holiness.

The Paschal Mystery teaches us not to throw away our crosses. Ours is a crucified Lord! When suffering is taken from the hands of Jesus, there is no room for despair; only hope everlasting. Suffering is the season when the Fruit of the Spirit is at its luscious best! And, when ?it? ripens and falls at the feet of our dear children and others, then a marriage can be called great and, such a family would mirror the very heart of Christ.

Suffering makes me like Jesus. I bring salvation to my spouse, my children and the whole community. In suffering I become a co-Saviour with Jesus! St Monica, the mother of St Augustine, who indulged in the worst kind of debauchery and licentiousness, offered her tears to God and the Church. Today he is a towering saint, so is the persevering and patient mother. The best example of a sorrowful mother is Mary. She held the limp and lifeless body of her Son in her lap, with equanimity, as depicted in Michaelangelo?s ?Pieta?. This is living the Paschal Mystery in flesh and blood reality. The brilliance, joy and glory of the resurrection soon tip-toe on such Eucharistic living. The marital bed is the sacred altar at which a couple can offer each other eucharistic love, every day. Unforgiveness is the way of the world. When a couple ask for forgiveness and reconcile their differences, fire will descend from heaven and burn away all that is negative. The raging fire is none other than the Holy Spirit at work! The same fire that Elijah called down on the sacrificial animals on Mount Carmel (cfr.1Kgs.18:37-38). The very same fire that rained ?anointing? on Mother Mary and the disciples, in the Upper Room, at Pentecost. When we are filled with the creative power of the Holy Spirit, it passes through us to our children. This is life-giving at its best!

And finally, this priceless gift from Santa, at Christmas: God can resurrect dead marriages and bring scattered families together again. For every Eucharist is not just a ?memorial? of the death, and resurrection of Jesus; it offers a ?born again? experience and an ?infilling of the Holy Spirit? for the entire family.

The Bread of Life, indeed, our Daily Bread! What a miracle! What a mystery!

PUBLISHED IN THE EXAMINER DTD 10.1.2004

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