The Two Become "One Flesh": Living the "Great Mystery - Talk 5

By Jack Chui

"Be subject to one another out of reverence of Christ. As the Church is subject to Christ, so wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:21, 24-25)

Apparently the above passage is one of the hardest to accept for particularly for women - it can send shivers down their spines... From my point of view, and I'm bias because I'm male, the men have it just as hard if not harder than ladies.

The talk from Christopher West raises some good points.

• First, "Be subject to one another" is a call for mutual subjection. When St. Paul was writing to the Ephesians, male domination was the norm. Male lust is twisted into male domination of female - it was not part of God's plan. St. Paul is seeking to restore the original order before sin.
• "reverence of Christ" - mutual attraction. We men are in reverence of the mystery of the female body. Females are an image of Heaven on earth. Woman becomes the most holy dwelling of the most High God like Mary.
• Wife is a symbol of the Church and the husband is a symbol of Christ. For men, then our call is be like Christ. He came not to be served but to serve - to lay down His life for His Bride (Mt 20:28). Women are called to be obedient to their husbands just as all of us are called to be obedient to Christ. This can work, when husbands love their wives like Christ loves the Church. It is a receiving or experiencing of love.

Pope John Paul II writes this about the sexual act:

If a husband is truly to love his wife, "it is necessary to insist that intercourse must not serve merely as a means of allowing [his] climax... The man must take [the] difference between male and female reactions into account... so that climax may be reached [by] both... and as far as possible occur in both simultaneously." The husband must do this "not for hedonistic, but for altruistic reasons." In this case, if "we take into account the shorter and more violent curve of arousal in the man, [such] tenderness on his part in the context of martial intercourse acquires the significance of an act of virtue"

--- and who says priests don't know anything about sex =P

This next bit is meant to explain the sacredness of marriage but I don't' quite get it so I'll just write a bit of it. The purpose of the sacraments is to unite us with Christ the Bridegroom and "impregnate" us with divine life. Marriage is a model for all the sacraments. This is why the Church so diligently safeguards the meaning of marriage. Redefining marriage redefines humanity because it obscures the earthly sign of the marriage that we are called to the eternal marriage with God.

There are 4 characteristics which distinguish authentic love from the counterfeit.

1. Free gift of self
2. Total - without condition
3. Faithful - I will never leave you
4. Fruitful - life-giving because love by its very nature is life giving

These are expressed in the questions during marriage at the altar:

• Have you come here freely and without reservation? (Free & Total)
• Do you promise to be faithful till death? (Faithful)
• Do you promise to receive children lovingly from God? (Fruitful)

The sacrament of marriage is complete after the vows are taken AND the marriage is consummate (or once sex has taken place). Sex/Intercourse is where the words of the wedding vows become flesh. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." (Eph 5:21-33). Intercourse renews the marriage vows through the language of the body.

Marriage is a sacrament ministered by two people and doesn't involve the priest like it is for all the other sacraments. Sex is sacramental - it is the indefinitive expression of the marital act. We are called to bring the Church into the bedroom...