Christian Marriage

As I have loved you

In this Special I write about the features that distinguish Christian marriage from other unions between man and woman in today’s society.
In several Books of the Old Testament we already read, God’s love for His people is described by the marriage metaphor in pages of great intensity (do you remember Ezekiel and Hosea?). In the New Testament, in particular in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the point of view is inverse: to the persons who believe in Jesus every relationship, even the matrimonial one, keeps Christ as a model. The mystery of love between Christ and the Church describes how a Christian marriage should be: «“For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh.” This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and of the Church» (Eph 5,31-32). Let us examine it more in detail: «Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ also is the head of the Church, being himself the savior of the body. But as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything» (Eph 5,22-24). On first sight it seems to be a chauvinist discrimination, according to the ancient Hebrew culture in which Paul grew up. It surely was the starting point, but Christ’s presence changes the situation from inside: He did not want to be an absolute ruler for His disciples; instead, He dedicated His whole life to their service, asking them to listen to His Word (obedience) as the Friend who knows and points out the right way. «For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many» (Mark 10,45); «No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father I have made known to you» (John 15,15).
What Paul asks to the husbands is even more demanding and radical. «Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself up for her» (Eph 5,25). I quote the comment on this passage by John Chrysostom, Father of the Church: «Would you have your wife obedient to you, as the Church is to Christ? Take then yourself the same provident care for her, as Christ takes for the Church. Indeed, even if it shall be needful for you to give your life for her, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever, - do not refuse it. Though you should undergo all this, yet will you not, no, not even then, have done anything like Christ. For you indeed are 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 you behave yourself toward your wife. Indeed, though you 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» (text adapted from John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians, XX).
This way we can understand better the motivation of the Church’s positions about Christian marriage. Spouses, like all Christians, are called to be witnesses of Christ’s love in the world (as they experience it and they live it), all the more so they have a particular vocation that seems to be the one in which love is stronger: «love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness. This would seem to be the very epitome of love; all other kinds of love immediately seem to fade in comparison» (Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI, no. 2). As Christ was faithful until death to His Church, He permanently bonded to her, in a fecund (we can think about the growth from the twelve apostles to the billions of today’s Christians) and total way (He did not leave anything of his out of the gift, He gave His whole person with love «to the end», see John 13,1), so Christian spouses have to do.



The request can seem too hard and in fact it is impossible to accomplish with mere human forces: to the Church, Matrimony is a sacrament, in which Christ abundantly effuses His Spirit to allow the spouses to love each other as He did. In the sacraments, Christ’s ability to relation in the right way with God and with neighbors is given to all Christians: it is up to them to decide to use those capabilities in daily life or to leave them vanish. That vital relationship with Christ is the source and the strength of all the other relationships among Christians, even the matrimonial one: it is necessary to put it first to get the divine love that gives life to every human bond. «I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. [...] Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing» (John 15,1-2.4-5).