Traditional Catholic Teaching - Lesson 14 - The Sacrament of Matrimony (1)

Lesson 14 - The Sacrament of Matrimony (1)

Confession

After the instinct to keep alive, the strongest force in human beings is the instinct to reproduce —sex. The sex instinct is so strong, so deep-seated, its consequences are so far-reaching and important for the individual as well as for the community that men can never be indifferent about it.

Men have worshipped it as a god: others have regarded it as an unmitigated evil and tried to suppress it: others have tried to regard it as an instinct no different than any other, putting it on a level with eating and drinking. The last attitude is probably the most foolish of all. Whatever sex may be it is certainly very different from any other ordinary instinct.

Sex is Good but Disordered

The Catholic Church teaches that the sex instinct is good. As all things made by God are good. But like all good things it can be abused. Like all instincts it is to a certain extent disordered as a result of the Fall of Man. And therefore if it is to be used in the proper way it must be used within a certain order with certain restraints.

There are those who will say that to restrain or control an instinct is unnatural. They are quite wrong. On the contrary it is not natural for man to let his instincts have their head. We are not merely animals. We have an intelligence and a free will. We must use them to direct our instincts, to be masters in our own house. A human instinct is like a river. Leave the river to itself and it will burst its banks, flood the countryside, cause havoc, desolation and ruin. Control the river with intelligence, build up the banks, watch the sluices and the river will be a source of power.

Three to Make a Marriage

The proper setting for sex is marriage, the contract by which husband and wife bind themselves to found a home and to he faithful to each other. But in Christian marriage there are not simply two parties to the contract, there are three — husband, wife and God. When the bridegroom and bride stand at the altar they pledge themselves each to each in these words:

"I take thee to my wedded wife to have and to hold from this day forward for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part."

That is the contract and as their hands clasp you may say the hand of Almighty God clasps theirs too. From then on there is a partnership between three — husband, wife and God. The partnership is henceforward a Sacrament, a holy thing, a means of God’s grace. God guarantees that He will be present at every moment of married life. He guarantees His help for every moment. He does not promise that all will be easy. With wise realism the Church puts into the service the words:

"For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health."

There will be good days and bad, hard times and smooth times. But nothing will ever be too difficult if both partners are prepared to play their part. That God guarantees.

Children

Marriage then is a vocation. It is a special way of life designed by God. Husband and wife are called to the high dignity of sharing the creative work of God. Everything we have comes from God. But God gives us His gifts in this way that He calls us to share in the work of making them. So we may rightly say God feeds us. But we must till the land and plough and sow and reap. God clothes us. But we must spin and weave. So when God gives an increase of the human race He calls men and women to share in that creative work.

When the marriage is consummated God blesses and shares in that supreme physical expression of the love of husband and wife. From that union the parents provide of their own substance the body-to-be of a child. Flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone, blood of their blood. And God creates out of nothing a soul. He infuses that soul into the substance which the parents have made. There begins to live a new creature, an immortal being to know, love and serve God forever.

We sometimes say of a child he is the image of his father. Every child is the image of his father, the image of his mother and the image of Almighty God. For all eternity husband, wife and God will see a family resemblance in the child who has been begotten. That is the dignity of child-bearing in Christian marriage. And that is the first (though not the only purpose) for which marriage is made.

The Family

But it is not enough that a child should be born into the world. A child must be brought up in the world, too. And therefore there is a duty to provide a home and to educate the child in the fullest sense of the word. It is not enough to provide for the body. The intelligence and free will of the child must be trained. The first duty of the parents will be to train the child’s intelligence to know God, to train the child’s will to love God and serve Him. That is the first purpose of a Christian family.

We take the idea of a family very much for granted precisely because it is natural. But it is worth while thinking how striking a thing the family is. Day in and day out people write, lecture, study and discuss to find out the perfect means of education. And the more perfect and efficient the means they invent the nearer they approach to the idea of the family. An ideal school would have small classes where children could be known and helped individually. It would have a balanced proportion of men and women teachers. It would have a bond of affection and respect between teachers and pupils. It would have a variety of subjects.

In the family you have the ideal of all those things. A small number, a variety of ages, a man and a woman as teachers, a bond between teacher and child stronger than any other human tie. And as for the variety of subjects every parent knows that the curriculum for the family covers all human life.

The Family and the State

The family exists before the State. It has rights which are independent of the State. Therefore the State must consult the wishes of the parents in the matter of education or the upbringing of children. The State’s action must be confined to ensuring that parents do their duty — a neglectful parent may rightly he constrained — and to ensure that the general rights of the community are safeguarded.

The State has also the right and indeed the duty to make laws regulating property, wages, so that a family will be able to provide sufficiently for its needs. It has a duty, also, to have a housing policy. But in all these things it is the duty of the State to supplement not to supplant the family.

The principal purpose of marriage, then, is the procreation and education of children. It is obvious indeed that children can be born and are born outside marriage. But if a child is to be born into the world in a manner befitting his human nature he must be born into a family. That little society of parents and children, stable and permanent, is the natural environment in which the child’s bodily needs and the needs of his intellect and free will can be met. It is the natural group in which an atmosphere of affection and understanding can he found. A child’s body and his character must be trained and developed in an atmosphere of affection and loving discipline. For this anything but a family can only be a makeshift.

Husband and Wife

The second purpose of marriage is the mutual affection and support of the married pair. A man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they two shall be in one flesh. Our Lord quotes those words from the Bible (Genesis 2) and adds Himself:

Therefore now they are not two but one flesh. (Mark 10.) In a striking phrase He is driving home the fact that the marriage contract establishes between husband and wife a real relationship. It is not just an arrangement for mutual convenience. They are bound to one another from now on by bonds much stronger than mere consent. They have given themselves irrevocably to each other. And therefore the marriage service again after saying:

"With this ring I thee wed."

(the unbroken circle of the ring is a symbol of their union) adds with bold realism:

"With my body I thee worship."

The act of marriage is blessed by God. The instincts of the flesh are sanctified in marriage. So close is the union that St. Paul compares it to the union of Christ and His Church. Christ and His Church are bound in an unbreakable bond of love and life. The Church draws strength and life from Christ because Christ gives Himself completely to His Church. So husband and wife give themselves completely each to the other. They should grow like one another in knowledge and love of God as well as of each other. They have a duty therefore to be faithful to each other. They have given the exclusive right of using the marriage to each other. It is treachery to use it with anyone else. It is the mortal sin of adultery.

Married Love

Loyalty and love are the foundations of a happy marriage. And the heart of both loyalty and love is unselfishness. The danger in every marriage is that the husband and wife should begin to take each other for granted. Then comes thoughtlessness on the part of the man, possessiveness on the part of the woman. Every husband and every wife should keep throughout their marriage some of the delicacy and some of the courtesy of courtship. Without that, marriage soon becomes a stale and even burdensome affair.

Above all, those who are joined in Christian marriage should never forget that Our Lord is present intimately in their marriage all the time. The Sacrament of Matrimony did not end on the wedding day. It began then and continues until death. At every moment Our Lord is present guiding, helping, smoothing out difficulties or giving the courage to face those difficulties he wants the couple to conquer.

In the Catholic Church husband and wife have the wonderful help of the Mass, of Holy Communion, of the Confessional. Think what it means when they can kneel together at the altar and receive in Holy Communion Our Blessed Lord Who joined them in marriage. If they are prepared to put themselves humbly and confidently in His hands, their love will develop and grow, their marriage will flower into the beauty of maturity, their home will be a happy one because God will be in it.

The Use of Marriage

Because marriage is a Sacrament, a channel of God’s grace, husband and wife advance in the grace of God by living their marriage and by using it together. And so the use of their marriage together is always legitimate provided it is not deliberately cut off from its main purpose, that is, the procreation of children.

This does not mean that they must always explicitly intend to beget a child. The use of the marriage may be quite rightly and simply an expression of their mutual love. And therefore they are right to use it even at a time when conception of a child is unlikely or impossible, provided that they themselves do not put any obstacle in the way or thwart the act.

Some whose dearest wish it is to have children, unhappily are not given any by God. They should never think their marriage is a frustrated thing.

It is a Sacrament like any other and a fulfilling of God’s purpose by the fact that the mutual affection arid love of a married couple is fostered and sustained. If God does not send children we must trust Him to have His own good reasons.

The Use of Sex Outside Marriage is Wrong

Sex therefore is in its right order when it is used within marriage. Outside marriage any use of sex is wrong. Hence thoughts, actions, words, pictures, books, or anything which is used deliberately to stimulate sensual powers outside marriage are sinful. Christ went to the heart of the matter when He said:

You have heard that it was said of them of old 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'. But I say to you that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart, (Matthew 5: 27)

This teaching is not a puritanical fear of sex. There is nothing wrong in a sane discussion of these matters. There is nothing wrong in speaking of them in a perfectly natural and ordinary way. Even jokes about these matters are sometimes cleansed by the healthy wind of laughter provided that a certain grossness is not indulged in for its own sake. We should have no fear of sex. But there should be reverence for it. It should never be cheapened or defiled by using it simply as a source of indulgence.

Reverence For Virginity

Again there is no command on any individual to use the sexual faculty. There are those who have voluntarily renounced the use of sex not because they consider it wrong but because they are prepared to give it up for a greater good. To devote themselves more freely and fully to the service of God or to the service of their fellow-men. So the Church reverences virginity and chastity. And it is a fact that marriage is most honoured in those communities where virginity is honoured still more.

Such then is the Catholic ideal of sex and marriage. It may be summed up thus:

"Matrimony is the Sacrament which sanctifies the contract of a Christian marriage. To those who receive it worthily it gives a special grace to enable them to bear the difficulties of their state, to love and be faithful to one another and to bring up their children in the love and fear of God."

In the next lesson (No. 15) we shall treat of some of the things which hinder the attainment of that ideal.

End of Lesson 14

Supplement A

Supplement B: "Life In the True Vine"

Back | Index | Next