Student Notes 2010D

Chapter Five COUNCIL OF TRENT

Reformers
The Protestant Reformation instigated another milestone in the Church’s teaching about marriage. The reformers, distressed by the Church’s over-involvement in marriage and by the easy nullities granted to the influential and wealthy, jettisoned the whole notion of marriage as a sacrament. They upheld the sacredness of marriage in the order of creation, but denied that it belongs to the order of grace as a Christian sacrament in the strict sense. They argued that it existed before Christ, did not need clerical administration, and non-Christians were being well married all the time without the benefit of the Church. The reformers therefore returned marriage to the secular, legal domain and concentrated on it as a state of life and as a domain of moral holiness. They rejected the Church’s juridical function in matrimonial matters. Most prohibited divorce until modern times, but some admitted the legitimacy of divorce because of adultery and other causes; some also held lenient opinions on bigamy.

Council of Trent
The Council of Trent, 1563, reacted by affirming marriage as a sacrament whose grace raised natural love to perfect love. So Christian marriage was perceived as superior to other forms of marriage. It did not, as often thought, defend the absolute indissolubility of marriage. After all, the Council Fathers were aware of their tradition of dissolving the marriage bond and of the Eastern tradition of allowing divorce; they did not condemn that. Moreover, the Council defended the Church’s claim to be competent in and to legislate for matrimonial matters. Trent vindicated both the sacramentality of marriage and the Church’s right to regulate it.


Tametsi
The greatest threat to the sacredness of marriage was the continuing practice of secret marriages that enabled people to enter unions which they later renounced, and that allowed them to seek annulments of public marriages on sometimes doubtful grounds. These clandestine marriages caused great harm. There was no way of verifying marriages under the Roman system. So the bishops at Trent decided to take a drastic step. In a separate decree, called Tametsi, which means ‘although’ or ‘even if,’ they recognised the validity of all previous secret marriages but declared that henceforth no Christian marriage would be valid and sacramental unless it was contracted in the presence of a priest and two witnesses. The text reads: ‘Those who attempt to contract matrimony otherwise than in the presence of the parish priest or of another priest with leave of the parish priest or of the ordinary, and before two or three witnesses, the Holy Synod renders altogether incapable of such a contract, and declares such contracts null and void.’ Those who tried to contract a marriage in any other way would be guilty of a grave sin and treated as adulterers.

Furthermore, as proof that a marriage had been celebrated according to law, each parish was required to have a book in which the names of the parties and the witnesses were to be inscribed, together with the date and time of the wedding. Each marriage had to be publicly announced three weeks in advance. This clarifies what was decreed at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which inaugurated the proclamation of the banns of marriage. Today, each Bishops’ Conference has the responsibility of laying down norms concerning the publication of marriage banns or other appropriate means of enquiry to be carried out as a prerequisite for marriage. When the parish priest has faithfully observed these norms he may proceed to assist at a marriage (Can 1067). The Council thereby changed fifteen centuries of tradition by introducing a mandated form of marriage. However, the decree was not promulgated evenly throughout the world and there were still clandestine marriage taking place over 300 years after Trent. These marriages were regarded as valid but illicit. This situation was corrected by the decree Ne Temere in 1907, which made the provisions of Tametsi universal law. The requirements of Tametsi are still in force, though a deacon with delegation or a lay person (where there is a great shortage of sacred ministers) may now assist at a marriage. Exceptions are also made when a priest is not available and when there is sufficient reason for the marriage to be celebrated in another Christian Church, in a non-Christian religious rite, or even in a civil ceremony.

Minister
The bishops’ decree effectively put an end to clandestine marriages, but the legal requirement for valid marriages, the giving of consent before a priest and two witnesses, raised additional questions for theologians and canon lawyers. The first was the reappearance of an old question, namely, who was the minister of the sacrament of marriage. In the Middle Ages the possibility that marriages could be contracted without a Church ceremony and even without any witnesses led most theologians to conclude that the ministers were the couple themselves. Other theologians argued that the priest was the minister of the sacrament, and so secret marriages were real but not sacramental since no priest joined them in marriage or blessed their union. Then in the sixteenth century, a Spanish theologian, Melchior Cano, claimed that in marriage the mutual consent of the partners was the “matter” of the sacrament, while the priest’s blessing was the “form.” This implied that people could validly marry (as in Protestant countries) even though they did not receive a valid sacrament (since the required form was not followed). It also implied that the priest was the minister of the sacrament since without his presence, which the Catholic Church now demanded, the marriage was nonsacramental. For Cano, the marriage contract was something separate and distinct from the sacrament. This position was defended by Catholic theologians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who wanted to agree that civil govern¬ments had the right to make laws governing the secular aspects of marriage even though the Church’s hierarchy had sole jurisdiction over the sacramental aspects of marriage. However, these theologians were in the minority. The hierarchy had had complete control over all aspects of marriage for so long that most theologians and canonists continued to assert that only the Church had the right to make marriage laws for Christians.

Civil Marriages
Those who were not under the administration of the Catholic hierarchy thought and acted differently. Other Christian communities developed their own wedding ceremonies and considered them valid, and as a matter of fact for over two centuries after the Reformation almost all marriages in Europe were Church marriages. But then, this picture began to change. The Church’s claim to have exclusive control over marriage was bitterly challenged by the rising national states of the seventeenth and eigh¬teenth centuries. The states protested that they should have total con¬trol. The hostile climate caused Pius VI in 1783 to go further than was warranted when he asserted that the jurisdiction of the Church over matrimonial cases was complete and exclusive. In France the revolution of 1789 brought an end to the ecclesiastical control of marriage, and the Napoleonic Code of 1792 made civil weddings mandatory for all French citizens. During the next century almost all the other countries in Europe began to allow people to marry before a civil Magistrate rather than a priest or minister. Governments also continued to regulate the other secular aspects of marriage and divorce (legal registration, inheritance rights, and so forth) as they had done before the French revolution.

The Church, while acknowledging the states’ traditional rights, felt that she should maintain some rights, at least the moral ones. She did not see how she could surrender its position on the sacramentality of Christian marriage. The Church had long recognised that baptisms even by heretics and schismatics were sacramentally valid, and now Rome followed a similar course with regard to non-Catholic marriages.

In 1852, Pope Pius IX reacted to the claim of civil governments that all marriages between their citizens were legally dissolvable by declaring that since sacramental marriage was instituted by Christ, “There can be no marriage between Catholics which is not at the same time a sacrament; and consequently any other union between Christian men and women, even a civil marriage, is nothing but shameful and mortally sinful concubinage if it is not a sacrament.” In other words, marriages between Christians were either both valid and sacramental or else they were not marriages at all. The same position was reaffirmed by Leo XIII in 1880: “In Christian marriage the contract cannot be separated from the sacrament, and for this reason the contract cannot be a true and lawful one without being a sacrament as well.” Though distinguishable, contract and sacrament were not separable. Leo XIII vindicates the Church’s authority over the marriages of Christians, because the marriage contract and the sacrament are inseparable. He claims exclusive jurisdiction for the Church over the marriage contract. In the historical context this can be understood as a reaction against various secularist tendencies which tried to deny the Church any right over it. Hence this teaching does not exclude the possibility of an amicable agreement between the Church and the civil power.

Ministers – Spouses
One of the reasons why the Popes could be confident that the sacrament was identical with the marriage contract was that by this time historical research had shown that through the early Middle Ages the priest’s blessing did not have to be given for a marriage to be valid; all that was needed was the mutual consent of the couple. This consent, then, established the contract between the two parties, and so at the same time it had to be the act which established the marriage as sacramental. The theory that the sacrament was conferred by the priest was therefore no longer tenable. Since the contract was established through the giving of consent, the sacrament had to be administered by the bride and groom to each other. Since the sacrament was administered by the bride and groom, even non-Catholic Christians would confer the sacrament on each other whenever they contracted a valid marriage.

Other Questions
This conclusion raised even further questions for canon lawyers. Were marriages between Christians and non-Christians sacramental as well? If non-Christians became Catholics did they have to be married again, or did their prior marriage automatically become a sacramental one in virtue of their baptism? If non-Catholic Christians divorced and remarried, was their second marriage valid, sacramental, both, or neither? Could a legally divorced non-Catholic validly marry a single Catholic? Could a divorced non-Christian do this? Suppose a Christian of another denomination became a Catholic and was divorced because of this by the non-Catholic spouse, could the “Pauline privilege” be applied so the Catholic could remarry? Or suppose that two non-Christians were married and divorced, and later became Catholics. Were they free to remarry or was their previous non-Christian union now sacramental and indissoluble in virtue of their baptism? Questions such as these were actually raised before Catholic marriage courts. They were cases that had to be decided, and the decisions set precedents for future cases. The ecclesiastical regulation of marriage was becoming more complex than it had ever been.
The Catholic hierarchy was forced to re-examine the official teaching on marriage and determine more precisely when and how the sacrament was conferred. Technically all baptised persons who were not married in accordance with Trent’s decree were living in sin because their marriages were not canonically valid. But Catholic bishops in Protestant countries began complaining to Rome that this put them in the awkward position of having to regard all Christians who were not married in the Catholic Church as adulterers and their children as illegitimate. The Popes by this time realised that the Protestant reformation and the civil regulation of marriage were not going to be reversed, and they allowed that the Tridentine decree should be taken as applying only to those who were baptised Catholics and thus still under the legal jurisdiction of the hierarchy.

Still the Catholic theology of marriage remained relatively simple. Marriage was a sacrament instituted by Christ in which two legally competent persons became permanently united as husband and wife. The sacramentum was the giving of consent, the external rite in which they agreed to the marriage and took each other as their spouse. The primary purpose of marriage was the procreation and education of children; its secondary purpose was the spiritual perfection of the spouses by means of the grace of the sacrament, the mutual support they gave to each other, and the morally permissible satisfaction of their sexual needs (Martos, DS, pp. 384-385).

1917 Code
The 1917 Code of Canon Law defined marriage in contractual terms as the mutual exchange of rights over one another’s body “for acts that are of themselves suitable for the generation of children.” The Code claimed that marriage was essentially a contract, a juridical matter, concerned with the exchange of rights to sexual intercourse to beget children. This was marriage’s first and foremost purpose. Canon Law did not take any account of the notion of marriage as a mutual sharing of affection or a sharing of community. It reduced marriage to the most specific of legal descriptions: it was a contract, pure and simple, of sexual rights whose sole purpose was to have children. Marriage had officially arrived at being a juridical entity. Conjugal society was reduced to mutually exchanging sexual acts for the sake of procreation, even though very few people thought of their marriage primarily as the exchange of rights over one another’s body.

Casti Connubii
The encyclical Casti Connubii (1930) of Pius XI gives a complete exposition of the Catholic teaching on marriage. Though the stress is somewhat on the institutional aspect, the encyclical also brings out many personal elements. While it calls the procreation and education of offspring the primary end of marriage, it also refers to mutual union as “primary cause and reason” of marriage perceived as a partnership.

Chapter Six RECENT TIMES

Changes in Marriage
Social duty → Individual right
Compliance to Parents → Personal love
Love after wedding → Love before it
Extended family → Nuclear family
Basic unit of society → One social unit among many.
In short, marriage was coming to be seen mainly as an expression of love between a man and a woman, and the family was no longer needed to educate children the way it used to be.

Personalist Influence
Moreover, Catholic thinkers began to redefine Christian marriage in line with the contemporary experience and understanding of marriage and to insist that marriage was fundamentally a community of persons. For them, the meaning of marriage was the unity of two persons in a common life of sharing and commitment, and the meaning of intercourse was the physical and spiritual self-giving that occurred in the intimate union of two persons in love. So, in their view, the primary purpose of marriage was the personal fulfilment and mutual growth of the spouses which occurred not only through their sexual relations but through all the interpersonal relations of their married life. Sexual activity has a much deeper glorification in human life than biological reproduction. While children are to be loved and nurtured, they are in a sense secondary to the purpose of marriage; they are really the result of the love of two people, not necessarily a primary goal to be achieved. These theologians appealed to reality itself, so different, they claimed, from Canon Law’s juridical description. People did not get married only to increase the population. They married to enter into a relationship and they had sexual relations not just to have children. They wanted to give and receive pleasure, to strengthen, support, and encourage each other. Marriage was much more personal than the official description allowed.

Roman Reaction
All this discussion was not well received by Rome. The Holy Office in 1944 reaffirmed that marriage indeed was primarily a contract, juridical at the core. Pope Pius XII saw some merit in the personalist approach to marriage, and in some of his speeches he granted that interpersonal values like commitment and personal fulfilment were essential even if they were secondary in Christian marriage. Taking this as an official acceptance of their efforts, theologians continued to explore the long-neglected personal aspects of marriage. Some tried to avoid the classic dichotomy between primary and secondary ends in marriage and preferred a more integrated approach. Others tried to translate the traditional scholastic teaching into more contemporary language. All of them tried to move away from a legalistic theology of marriage and sex, insisting that marriage was far richer than a contract to exchange sexual rights, and towards one that was more scriptural, more personal, and more related to contemporary married life. They turned to scripture with its notion of covenant love. They could perceive little graced action in a sacrament that was tied in with a contract. It was difficult to see grace in the lives of two people who might be basically indifferent to each other, but who declared their “I do” and had sex. Their persistent questioning and research plus the on-the-scene pastoral realities brought by many African and Latin American bishops had their effect on Vatican II.



Second Vatican Council
• Gaudium et Spes 48-50 (1965)
• Lumen Gentium 11 (1964)

1. Covenant
Now our primary vision for marriage is that of a covenant, an intimate partnership of married life and love. The Council did not use the traditional term “contract” to describe the marriage bond. Instead, it adopts a remarkably personalistic standpoint and speaks of the “marriage covenant” which is sealed by an “irrevocable personal consent” (GS 48). The Council caused the 1983 revision of the Code to see marriage more as a covenant between the spouses, reflecting the covenant between God and humanity. For example, Canon 1055 talks about the marriage covenant. The Latin text uses the word foedus, which is translated as covenant.
2. Interpersonal Communion
Gaudium et Spes insists on the personal nature of married love which pervades the whole of marital life and is uniquely expressed through the conjugal act (GS 48-49). Marriage is the “primary form of interpersonal communion” (GS 12) and is of the highest importance for the well-being of the individual, and of human and Christian society (GS 47). Husband and wife are equal in personal dignity (GS 49). By cultivating constancy of love, they give witness to faithfulness and thus help to bring about a renewal of marriage and family life (GS 49). Marriage, then, is primarily seen as a sharing of life by two human beings who love each other.
3. Sexuality and Procreation
Vatican II turned away from the language of primary and secondary ends of marriage. Sexual intimacy is perceived in the context of the total marital relationship (GS 49) and the procreation of children is seen as grounded in marital love and in the orientation of marriage itself. The begetting of children is not so much an explicit purpose of marriage as it is a natural development of two people who love each other (GS 50) (Bausch, NLS, p. 232).
4. Consummation
The old theology and the old canon law asserted that a marriage between two baptised Christians, once performed according to the rite of the Church (ratum) and once consummated by a single act of physical union (consummatum), can never be dissolved. According to the Council, the expression of the mutual love which is at the heart of the sacrament consists of more than biological union. Consummation without love is without meaning. The Council speaks of the “intimate partnership of married life and love” (Intima communitas vitae et amoris coniugalis, GS 48).
5. Sacrament
Because marriage is such a noble and sacred calling, “Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state.” Through this sacrament “they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ” which “suffuses their whole life with faith, hope and charity”. Moreover, “authentic married love is taken up into divine love and is ruled and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ and the salvific action of the Church...” (GS 48). So marriage is a path to holiness (LG 11). This new emphasis is consistent with the growing trends that now people marry and remain in marriage because they love each other. The stress is on the mutual exchange of love as constituting the sacrament of marriage, on married love as the source of the institution of marriage, on the need for growth in this love to bring the sacrament to its full realisation, and on the need for the Church constantly to bring forth the witness value of this sacrament to the whole community of faith. As husband and wife are called to be faithful, generous, and gracious to each other in fulfilment of their marriage covenant, so is the whole Church called to be faithful to its covenant with God in Christ. When Christian marriage flounders, the witness of fidelity in all Christian vocations flounders.
6. Faith Commitment
The Council emphasises the necessity of a faith commitment for the sacrament of marriage (SC 59). Marriage is not just a ceremony by which two people are legally bound together. As a sacrament, it is an act of worship, an expression of faith, a sign of the Church’s unity, a mode of Christ’s presence. Indeed the Council spoke of the sacramentality of marriage in an even broader sense, saying that Christian couples should be signs to each other, their children, and the world of the mystery of Christ and the Church by the testimony of their love for each other and their concern for those in need. The Council uses the term christifideles. Marriage is not just a union between baptised Christians; it is a union between faithful Christians.
7. Ecclesial
The ecclesial dimension of the sacrament is not only maintained but extended. The Council asserts that “Christian spouses, in virtue of the sacrament of matrimony, signify and share in the mystery of that union and fruitful love which exists between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:32)” (LG 11, 1964). But also the LG 11 text continues, “In what might be regarded as the domestic Church, the parents, by word and example, are the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children.” So marriage not only signifies the union between Christ and the Church, but also forms an ecclesial community.
8. Indissoluble
The sacramental nature of marriage, the unity of love, and the welfare of children all imply that marriage is indissoluble. “Thus a man and a woman, who by the marriage covenant of conjugal love ‘are no longer two but one flesh,’ render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union, as well as the good of the children, imposes a total fidelity on the spouses and argues for an unbreakable oneness between them” (GS 48)
9. Tribunals Challenged
When Gaudium et Spes was finally promulgated, the marriage tribunals around the world were thrown into something of a panic in dealing with annulment cases, since it would be much more difficult to determine whether a person was capable of entering into a marriage covenant in terms of “an intimate partnership of life and love” than it had ever been to determine whether the elements for a valid marriage “contract” were present. The latter could be determined with fairly objective accuracy. The former, however, involved a lot more uncertainties, psychological issues, heart matters, and the most puzzling issue of all: “love.” Nonetheless, the bishops at Vatican II refused to retreat from the interpersonal realities involved in marriage and insisted on placing them up front regardless of the difficulties in dealing with annulments.


Humanae Vitae (1968).
Here Pope Paul VI presents a very enlightened vision on marriage, never using the word ‘contract’, and giving prominence to marital love, mutual gifting and responsible parenthood. He uses the word covenant and sees the mutual gifting of the persons of the spouses for the sake of forming a communion of their beings as the object of marital consent with procreation being the culmination of this communion. Responsible parenthood is deeply related to the moral order established by God which requires that the finality of the conjugal act be ordained to the union of the spouses and be open to procreation (The Christian Faith, ND, 2001, p. 778).


Familiaris Consortio (1981)
John Paul II does not follow the Tridentine preference for celibacy/virginity over marriage. For him they are “two ways of expressing and living the one mystery of the covenant of God with us. When marriage is not esteemed, neither can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist; when human sexuality is not regarded as a great value given by the creator, the renunciation of it for the sake of the kingdom of heaven loses its meaning” (16). So marriage like celibacy is a way of expressing and living the one mystery of the covenant of God with His people. It is a sacrament or real symbol of the event of salvation in Christ, from which flow the unity and indissolubility of the marriage bond (13). The family as the first vital cell of society must be the prime concern of the whole of the society. It has a share in the life and mission of the Church. It is a community in dialogue with God through worship and prayer. The Pope emphasises the need for pastoral care of the family.
Recent Thinking
Since the Council the theology and the ecclesiastical regulation of Catholic marriage have tended to become even more liberal, moving away from a uniformly legalistic understanding of marriage and toward a more person-centered theory and practice. In theology there has been a shift away from the identification of the sacrament with the marriage bond or contract and toward a more liturgical and scriptural identification of the sacrament with the marriage itself. According to Edward Schillebeeckx, married love and life is transformed as a human experience because of its perceived role as a revelation of God’s loving presence to humans. So Christian marriage should continue to be a sacramental sign of God’s redeeming activity in human life and of the fidelity and devotion between Christ and the Church. Karl Rahner sees Christian marriage as a unique sign of the incarnation because in it men and women incarnate the transforming reality of divine grace in their total love for one another. Marriage is an actualisation of the Church in and through the everyday incarnate love that married persons have for each other.




Chapter Seven Friendship

Every person recognizes that he or she cannot survive without other people. The Zulu proverb expresses this well: umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – a person is person because of other persons. The philosopher, Gabriel Marcel has a famous saying esse est co-esse, to be is to be with others. The people that I let into my life, and who reciprocate by letting me into theirs, are apart from the general crowd and are special. They are called friends. Philosophers have given a great deal of attention to friendship, but Christian theologians have given it scant attention, and they have never listed it among the Christian virtues. Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of friendship: first, that of pleasure, someone amuses me and gives me pleasure. In the second, the other person is perceived as useful to me and in the third, I am attracted to and love something good in the other person. In each of the three friendships, it is something good that is loved, for good is always the object of love, but in each of the three it is a different good that is loved. Though all three loves may be called friendship, only the third is true friendship. Everyone who has experienced true friendship knows that it takes time to develop. Aristotle says: “It is impossible for men to know one another before they have eaten salt together.” They cannot admit each other to intimacy nor become friends before each appears to be worthy of friendship and confidence. To be perfect, friendship must be reciprocal. Aristotle suggests three reasons why we need friends. First, friendship is a crucial source of self-understanding. Second, friendship supports us against loss of interest in and commitment to even the most necessary activities, including the pursuit of good. Third, I cannot become morally good except in relation to another self, a friend, because virtue cannot be attained alone.
Cicero claims that friendships based on desire of gain, prestige, power, or wealth, or those based on carnal or erotic pleasure, are not true friendships. These benefits may derive from true friendship, but they are not its motivation. A rule of friendship is this: “We expect from our friends only what is honourable and for our friends’ sake do only what is honourable.” True friendship for Augustine is a gift from God, is rooted in God, transformed by God, and brought to its full perfection in eternal friendship with God. By living it in imitation of Christ, friendship is transformed into Christian universal neighbour-love.
Aelred of Rievaulx writes that there are four steps towards true friendship. “The first is choice, the second is testing, the third is acceptance, and the fourth is ‘the highest agreement on both human and divine affairs, combined with good will and mutual esteem.” There are two things to look for when choosing a friend, vices that make friendship impossible and virtues that are congenial to it. Among the vices are reproach, pride, betrayal and slander. Among the virtues conducive to friendship are faithfulness, intention, judgement and patience. What distinguishes true spiritual friendship is the love of God. Aelred is so convinced of the eternal character of true friendship that he dares to transpose the consecrated biblical phrase “God is love” (agape) (1 Jn 4:16) into “God is friendship” (philia).

Love and Friendship: Agape and Philia
There are two Greek words for love: agape and philia. Philia is the particular, preferential, and reciprocated love of a friend over all others. Agape is the universal, non-preferential, and not necessarily reciprocated love of others, the love commanded by Jesus: “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mk 12:31) and “love your enemies” (Mt 5:44). Though there is evidence that the early Christians referred to themselves as “friends (philoi) of God,” it was quickly superseded by “children of God,” which might have been judged to be more familial and intimate.
The relationship between philia and agape became problematic when the latter was promoted as Christian love, the love that makes us perfect as our heavenly father is perfect (Mt 5:48), leaving philia to languish as a lesser love that does not measure up to all that is required of the Christian. Friendship may be a good and powerful love; it may be necessary and very useful in every human life. It is just not specifically Christian and does not lead to God as agape does. Love of one’s neighbour is self-renouncing love and self-renunciation casts out all preferential love just as it casts out all self-love.
But it is not so clear that agape and philia are separate and unconnected. Augustine certainly does not think so. For him, friends are brought together by God. When friends respond to their friendship as a gift of God, root it in God, and live it as disciples of God, their friendship leads them to God as surely as agape. Indeed, when accepted as gift of God and lived in Christ, philia leads to agape, for when friends learn to love whom God loves they learn to love all God’s children as friends. The love of all comes best when the love for those, one is next to, comes first. Friendship has a twofold function: it teaches men and women to love particular friends, and it teaches them to love their universal neighbours. Far from being opposed, agape and philia are truly inseparable.
The problem in history is that agape was enthroned as the norm of all love and philia did not measure to that norm. Agape, however, is not the norm of love; God is the norm of all love, both agape and philia. Friendship by itself is not a non-Christian love; friendship without God and Christ is a non-Christian love. Human friendship-love and neighbour-love both originate in and are images of the love of God.
If friendship leads to a Christ-like life, it leads to God as surely as agape. “God is love” (agape), John tells us. However impossible it is to describe the inner relationships of the divine Trinity, it is equally impossible to imagine a divine love that is not particular and reciprocal benevolence between the three divine persons. In God, deep and lasting philia must surely coexist and particularize agape. If that is true in God, there is no reason to think it is not true also in humans made in God’s image (Gen 1:26).
Philia and caritas-agape so mutually enrich and nourish one another that Aquinas is led to identify them. To be friends with God, or to love God as a friend, is possible only because God has first loved us as friends (I Jn 4:19). Citing John 15:15, where Jesus calls his disciples “friends,” Aquinas suggests the friendship-love of Jesus for his disciples as a model for us.

Friendship and Marriage
Both inclusive and exclusive love, agape and philia are extolled in the Scriptures. Still, the tension between the universal, inclusive love of all and the particular, exclusive, or preferential love of some is retained in Galatians 6:10. Christian love is both universal (“all”) and legitimately particular (“especially”). The particularity is made even more exclusive, the relation even more preferential, in Timothy’s community: Note 1 Tim 5:8. The universal love of all comes easiest when the particular love of some, spouse, parents, children, fellow Christians, come first. The developing Christian tradition held firmly to this Pauline tradition. Martin Luther King teaches that agape is ‘love seeking to preserve and create a community.’ Community is preferential, mutual, reciprocal love, or philia. It is agape longing for communion, King adds, that impelled Jesus towards the cross, which is the symbol of the length to which God will go to restore broken community.
The Second Vatican Council defined marriage as “a community of love… an intimate partnership of life and love” (GS 47-48). Community derives from the Latin communis and is defined as common or reciprocal sharing, common or reciprocal ownership, common or reciprocal responsibility. For friendship, it is not enough to love another; my love of benevolence must be explicitly reciprocated. Thus it is conceived as adding to a one-sided love of benevolence (agape) a certain society of lover and beloved in their love. For the majority of modern men and women, the interpersonal partnership or community created by love continues to be publicly formalized in marriage and, in the community between spouses, marital love includes the reciprocal responsibility to maintain and develop the friendship love that founded communion in the first instance. Spousal love cannot be only agape, it must be also philia. It must be also affection (storge) and sexual love (eros); these are not being dealt with here.
The communion between spouses in marriage is not a monarchy, which is about unequal individuals; it is not a democracy, which is about equal but separate individuals. It is about equal individuals who are so united that they can truly be said to be “two in one body” (Gen 2:24), a small community a relational and coupled-We. When such love is Christian, it is a school for learning philia, particular, preferential, and reciprocal friendship-love of another and others, and agape, universal, non-preferential, and unconditional neighbour-love of all. Social-scientific evidence show that preferential philia is the best lasting foundation of a good marriage, because it cements with mutual virtue the community and communion marriage is. Research shows that friendship between the spouses makes good marriages succeed.
Loving is affirming the being, the very well being, of another. To love is to will the good of another. Willing the good of another is not yet friendship-love; that occurs only when my love is reciprocated by another, who wills my good in return. This mutual friendship-love between equal selves creates between us the communion, the reciprocal bond that is the distinguishing mark of lovers, the fertile root through which we draw life from and give life to one another. Reciprocal love does not lead to communion; reciprocal love is communion. Love can consent to bind itself further by social ritual. In marriage, it consents to bind itself legally by law; in sacrament, it consents to bind itself religiously by the grace of God. In a marriage between Christians, therefore, three bonds arise: an interpersonal bond of love between the spouses, a legal bond of marriage, and a religious bond of sacrament.
The most fundamental bond is the bond forged by both friendship and unconditional neighbour-love. It is the bond ritualized in both marriage and sacrament. Only if this root is healthy and strong can the bonds of marriage and sacrament flower as lasting bonds of satisfying and stable commitment. When the root friendship-love, through which the spouses give marital life to and draw marital life from one another, is healthy, so too are the marriage and sacrament which draw sustenance and flower from the root.


Chapter Eight COVENANT and SACRAMENT

Covenant

Sinai Covenant – Ex 19 ff
Last Supper – l Cor 11:25

1983 Code: Canon 1055, 1 – marriage covenant
Canon 1057, 2 – matrimonial consent is an act of the will by which a man and a woman by an irrevocable covenant mutually give and accept one another for the purpose of establishing a marriage


Contracts and Covenants
Things – people
Services – persons
Period of time – forever
Broken with material loss – cannot be broken: broken hearts
Secular affairs – Sacred affairs
Market place – Home, Temple, Church
Lawyers – poets
People & state is guarantor – God & God is guarantor
Children – mature adults
Legal reality – Bond of Love
Impersonal – Personal
Limited – Open-ended
Rights & Duties – Relationship
(cf., Christian Marriage, Paul Palmer, TS 33 (1972), 639)

Reflection of God’s Covenant
1. Covenant between God and People: Is 61:10-11, 62:4-5.
2. Covenant between Christ and Church.
3. Covenant of Marriage.


Prophetic Symbol
A sacrament may be seen as a prophetic symbol with which the Church proclaims and makes real and celebrates for believers that presence and action of God which is called grace. In the bible, we see that a prophetic act is an ordinary human action that proclaims something deeper and more sacred (Jer 5.1-6, Ezek 19.1-13). The Church recognises Jesus as the Spouse of Israel. The prophetic act that comes to be interpreted as the origin of Christian marriage is based on the event narrated in (Mk 2:18-20). "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?" This is a sign of the eschaton, the endless banquet between the Bridegroom and his Spouse, the Church.

First Completion of Prophetic Act: Paschal Mystery (This is my body given for you).
Marriage - Makes visible the attitude of Christ’s fidelity to Church.

The Intermediate Accomplishment of fidelity – Marriage.

Final Completion - Entry of faithful Church into the eternal joy of her Spouse.

So marriage is a two tiered reality: the human tier is the love between husband and wife, the religious tier is the proclamation of the covenant love between Christ and the Church. Christian married love is modelled on and reflects the love of God; it is Hesed, steadfast faithful love
There are two quite distinct prophetic actions in Christian marriage. There is, first, the action ritualised in the wedding ceremony, the action of mutual consent "by which a man and a woman by an irrevocable covenant mutually give and accept one another for the purpose of establishing a marriage" (Canon 1057, 2). There is, secondly, and perhaps more crucially, the action of living that conjugal covenant in an "intimate partnership of married life and love."
Two-Tiered Reality
1. Celebrates intimate conjugal community
2. Celebrates steadfast faithful covenant between Christ & Church Eph 5:21-32


Experiencing the Sacrament
1. Sexual: The newly married couple is very often filled with gratitude to each other and to God that their sexual experience of each other is both thrilling and fulfilling. In their gratitude they thank God for their bodiliness, for their God-given capacity to be able to express their love for one another so intimately and completely. The invitation is for spouses to use their bodies responsibly and with respect for each other, to be chaste in their sexual relationship. When they love each other this way, they are proclaiming the desired harmony between body & soul, man & woman, parent & child, loved & undesired and they are opposing a vision that favours exploitation, abuse and domination.
2. Creative: The capacity to be creative is another level on which Christian couples experience their marriage as sacramental. Their love summons them to an expansive care for others. Their call is to nurture and generate a world of care, compassion, reconciliation, justice and peace (1 Tim 5.8).
3. Loving: A husband and wife are truly grace to each other. This is the core of marriage as a sacrament because that special comprehensive and unconditional love between the marriage partners makes real God’s love in the world.
4. Ecclesial-Domestic Church: The Church proposes to the couple the mutual love between Christ and the Church as a model for their own love relationship. Christian marriage is meant to be the most basic instance of Christian community. Many writers, including Popes and the Bishops of Vatican II, have spoken of the Christian family as a domestic Church, a place where the love of God and religious faith are learned and celebrated. The Fathers of the African Synod acknowledge that seeing the Church as God’s family is particularly appropriate for Africa. ‘For this image emphasises care for others, solidarity, warmth in human relationships, acceptance, dialogue and trust’ (EA 63)
5. Spiritual: The fifth level of sacramentality experienced by Christian couples is called the spiritual experience of God’s love. Perhaps the most difficult thing to believe is that one is important enough to be loved by God. Nothing makes this more credible than the discovery of being important to and loved by another human. The bedrock of every friendship is generativity. For a marriage to be genuinely Christian, it must nurture Christian life and communion not only between the spouses and their immediate family, but also within the human community in which they live.


RITUAL

1. Vows: these are promises of fidelity before God, exchanged between the partners as they declare their consent. The mutual consent of the partners, their acceptance of each other with the words 'I do', has been seen by many theologians as the essence of marriage. When the couple exchange the words of the consent, they are declared to be husband and wife. If that moment is lacking or in any way flawed, there is no valid marriage. Before they exchange consent, they are questioned individually about their freedom with which they are undertaking their marriage, about their mutual love and their openness to having children. After their consent, there may be a blessing and exchange of rings.
2. Prayers said over them, possibly including a celebration of the Eucharist, commending their union to God and seeking divine grace for them.
3. Consummation: The sacrament is ratified with the exchange of consent, and is consummated by the conjugal act. For obvious reasons, the sexual act takes place at a later time, when the marriage ceremonies are over. Unless a marriage is consummated by the sexual act, it is considered null, as if it had never taken place at all.
4. Process: Marriage is not just an event that occurs on a given day at a given time, but a process that had already begun before the wedding ceremony and that will continue long after.
5. The characteristics of a friendly agapaic consent are:
a. linking each other’s well-being;
b. mutual consultation;
c. now a coupled-We;
d. shared interpersonal identity;
e. investment in freedom of coupled-We.



Chapter Nine Commitment and Fidelity

A marriage covenant is a deeply serious commitment. To covenant is to commit oneself radically and solemnly. Together the husband and wife commit themselves mutually to create and sustain a climate of personal openness, acceptance, trust, and honesty that will nurture intimate community and abiding love. Marital responsibilities are certainly not of the kind that can be undertaken lightly
Moreover, we live in a time when long-term commitments, including the commitment to a lifelong monogamous relationship, do not attract many people. The trend toward temporary relationships is strong. The number of unmarried couples living together has greatly increased in recent decades. In the US, a 2000 study found that more than half of newlyweds have lived together, at least briefly, before walking down the aisle. It is also becoming common in many African countries. Co-habitation for convenience and for discernment is a growing world-wide trend.
Beyond question, absolute fidelity is similar to celibacy for the Kingdom, and is just as demanding. The apostles understood this well (Mt 19:10). The obligations in marriage are, indeed, quite frightening, and it is not surprising that people shrink from them. Can we really expect young couples to enter into such a profound marital commitment that calls for mental, emotional, and spiritual maturity? Would it not be more sensible to make only a provisional commitment? ‘If things work out, I stay with this; if not, I look elsewhere’. Many people think this is the common sense approach to relationships; they think that the ideals of Christian marriage have become obsolete.
Forming Character. Before we accept this view, we have to ask whether it is compatible with becoming a truly human person. All of us, in matters small and great, are constantly making promises, committing ourselves, taking on obligations. Such a core of commitments form a unified personality, rather than a bundle of loosely connected and possibly competing instincts, opinions, urges, likes and dislikes. Some commitments are essential to the attainment of a full personhood.
Insecurity: Because they are living together as long as they are happy with each other, and not for life, an atmosphere of insecurity prevails; they can never be fully themselves in the relationship. This results in a slowing down of the personal maturation process and the formation of character, which in turn leads to detrimental effects for the children born in such relationships. (The Church has never accepted co-habitation as a preparation for marriage, because the partners are doing what they will promise not to do when they get married. They are living a contradiction in relationship and an inconsistency in faith. So the Church invites them to move towards a marital situation).
Created in Image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27). Since we are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27), partners in marriage have the ability to be like God in being a community and in living faithfully towards each other
Faithfulness and forgiveness. Faithfulness to a covenant involves the ability to forgive. Since God is always faithful, the God of the covenant is the God of forgiveness. In marriage, faithfulness and forgiveness are always linked. Since couples have the ability to forgive, they can make fidelity a reality in their relationship.


Chapter Ten FAITH and SACRAMENT

Non-Believing Catholics

• Sacrament and Contract: The Council of Trent states emphatically: "If anyone says that marriage is not one of the seven sacraments…Let him be anathema." The 1917 Code states equally emphatically: "Christ the Lord raised the marriage contract between baptised persons to the dignity of sacrament. Therefore, there cannot be a valid marriage contract between baptised persons without it being, by that very fact, a sacrament" (Canon 1012, 2). The 1983 Code makes the same statement (Canon 1055, 2).
• Faith: In Catholic tradition, only the Church offered sacrament approached in personal faith is a personally accepted sacrament and, therefore, only that marriage approached in Christian faith is Christian sacramental marriage.
• Baptised non-Believers: The Catholic tradition holds that the gift of faith is bestowed in baptism. Baptism gives the know-how to faith and to being a believer, but it does not make believers. Before that gift may be attributed to anyone it must be activated freely, consciously, and deliberately into an actual act of faith. It is the personal act of faith that transforms both the human being in a Christian believer and human marriage into sacramental marriage. Sadly, our times have brought to the forefront of Christian consciousness a new phenomenon of countless numbers all over the world who have received the gift of faith in baptism, but who have never made a personal act of faith. They comprise a group of baptised persons; those who though baptised remain all their lives nonbelievers. These baptised nonbelievers ought not to be equated with Catholic faithful in Catholic law.
• Church Weddings: Those who marry without Christian faith, be they ever so baptised, whether they marry with or without the prescribed canonical form, marry indeed validly and do not live in concubinage, but they do not marry sacramentally.
• Delay: We withhold or delay the Eucharist and all the other sacraments for lack of adequate faith. All the newer rituals warn that the sacraments are not to be celebrated lightly by those of little or of no faith. Delay, at least, is recommended until such people reach a tolerable faith and practice level.
• Marriage outside Church: Since the Church has so identified the contract and the sacrament, if it refuses or delays a marriage because of lack of faith; it in effect denies the couple their natural and human right to marry. If the couple is honest about their lack of faith, what option is open to them? Not to marry at all? Marry “outside the Church”? But if they adopt the latter course, the Church will not recognise their marriage. In Church eyes their natural right to marry is thwarted. They have a right and they cannot, according to the Church, exercise it. One has to ask, “Has baptism rendered them totally incapable of intending a permanent union unless it is a sacrament?”
• Stages towards Marriage: This in turn might lead the Church, from a pastoral point of view, to permit and recognise several stages towards a full sacramental marriage, much like the various stages of holy orders or the stages of the RCIA.
• The 1980 Roman Synod of Bishops urged the development of just such betrothal rites and even of celebrating engagements in the presence of the community.
• Autun: In the early 1970s, the diocese of Autun, in France, initiated a radical marriage programme. A couple considering marriage was given a pamphlet which outlined three forms of marriage, and was asked to reflect and choose the form which corresponded best to their situation. The first form listed is civil marriage. The second form listed is welcomed civil marriage, a celebration which takes place, perhaps, at home, in the Church, in the town hall, but always with some sort of Church setting. The third form is sacramental marriage, celebrated by those couples who, in Christian faith, wish their marriage to be an explicit symbol of the covenant union between Christ and his Church.
• Not Accepted: Despite the fact that the Autun solution was later banned by the Vatican, it presented a practical and forthright way of dealing with large numbers of baptised non-believers.
• Experience Marriage as a Sacrament: It is one thing for the Church to state in the Code of Canon Law that every marriage between baptised Christians is de facto a sacrament; it is another thing for the couple themselves to experience their marriage as a sacrament.
• The Way Forward: - Recognition of Consent, Inculturation and Independence of Earthly Affairs: Some theologians think that the time has come for the Catholic Church to assert the inalienable validity of every human marriage constituted by proper consent, including the validity of the marriages of the baptised outside the Tridentine form. For many centuries the Catholic Church taught what it continues to teach today: consent makes marriage. So, an ecclesiastically-witnessed ritual should not be essential for a valid human marriage. Such decisions would seem to be well in line with the proclamation by Vatican II on the independence of earthly affairs. Human marriage is one of those created realities that enjoy its own meanings and values apart from the Church. To acknowledge that simple fact would free marriage to be a truly human reality which, in its very created humanness, can become the basis for the sacrament of covenant marriage.


The Present Situation
1. Tradition: The recent tradition of the Church teaches that the marriage between two baptized persons is a sacrament and the Church leader as a representative of the official Church is expected to hold this position.
2. Love and Faith: While people may not believe intellectually in the Church’s teachings or practice as members of the Church, this does not imply that they do not have faith. Indeed the love they have their spouse, however imperfect it may be, is a sign that they have some faith.
3. Strengthening the Bond: We believe marriage is a gift from God and marital living is graced by God - Mt 19:11. The gift of their marriage continues to be graced by Christ. Christ is present in it, providing the model of steadfast love on which it is based, nurturing the love and faith the spouses have for each other and making the spouses holy by his presence (CCC 1641). When the couple respond to this gift by becoming married, the sacrament of their marriage in itself strengthens their commitment and consecrates them for their marital duties (CCC 1638). Besides, sacramental marriage shows that the couple is open to receive help from God in their relationship, an opening that gives the pastor and the ecclesial community an opportunity to support and care for the marriage. Couples, who receive help, are more likely to grow together in love and understanding. Sacramental marriage, then, may facilitate a greater commitment in the couple to grow in their love for each other and may strengthen their bond of union.
4. Marriage Preparation: Canon Law states that the pastor has a responsibility to provide personal preparation for entering marriage, so that the spouses are disposed to the holiness and the obligations of their new state (1063, 2). Priests are to facilitate the strengthening and nourishing the faith of those about to be married, for the sacrament of marriage presupposes and demands faith.
5. Family of God: Where there are no Christian families, the Church community struggles to exist. The first step towards a Christian family is sacramental marriage. So the pastor has a responsibility to promote sacramental marriage among Christians and to support the Christian families under his care, because they are the basis of the Church he leads.
6. Prophetic Calling: Sacramental marriage, which is graced by Christ and supported by the Christian community, facilitates this prophetic example expected by the spouses.

For these reasons, the Catholic pastor has a responsibility to encourage Catholic couples intending to marry to do so sacramentally.

Invitation for Inculturation
An important way of encouraging couples to marry sacramentally is to ensure that the marriage rite is significant and meaningful for people. This involves work at inculturating the rite in the local traditions and an invitation to create new canonical rites of marriage for peoples of diverse cultures so as to preserve their own authentic marriage customs. In the 1980 Synod, many African bishops demanded a thorough revision of the Christian marriage rite to make it compatible with the customs of Africa. The Praenotanda to the Marriage Ritual encourages such adaptation and inculturation. The creation of new marriage rites would be a remarkable sign that the Catholic Church is becoming a truly world Church, as distinct from an exclusively European one. Pastors, therefore, are encouraged to reflect on ways of adapting the marriage rite so that it is attractive, evocative and sacred for couples.

Student Notes 2010C

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE

Bibliography

Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, Paulines, Nairobi, 1981.
Pontifical Council for the Family, Preparation for the Sacrament of Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 1996.
Benezeri Kisembo, Laurenti Magesa & Aylward Shorter, African Christian Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 1997.
Benezet Bujo, Plea for Change of Models for Marriage, Nairobi, Paulines, 2009.
John Burke, Catholic Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 2006.
John Burke, Marriage Annulment, Paulines, Nairobi, 2007.
Mary Kibera, Love and Conflict in Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 2007.
Michael Lawler, Marriage and the Catholic Church, Collegeville, Liturgical, 2002.
Theodore Mackin, The Marital Sacrament. New York: Paulist Press, 1989.
Alan Loy McGinnis, The Friendship Factor, St Paul’s, Mumbai, 2008
James & Evelyn Whitehead, Marrying Well: Stages on the Journey of Christian Marriage. New York: Doubleday, 1984
Mercy Oduyoye & Musimbi Kanyoro, The Will to Arise, (esp. articles by Musimbi Kanyoro & Anna Nasimiyu Wasike and other articles on marriage), New York, Orbis, 1992. H. Norman Wright & Wes Roberts, Before You Say ‘I Do’, Eugene, Harvest House, 1997.
Saying I Do, New York, Paulist, 2006.
Today and All the Days of Your Life, Archdiocese of Saint Louis, Liguori, 2002.
William Blum, Monogamy Reconsidered, Nairobi, Gaba Publications, 1989

Chapter One OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis

• Sacredness - rooted in the creation narrative – Gen 2:18-24.
• Preservation of husband’s clan
• Children are regarded as a blessing and a gift from God.

Family Affair
• Marriage was a family affair that was arranged by fathers for their children.
• Scriptures say little about marriage customs and nothing about ceremonies since marriages were private affairs.
• Generally monogamous. Most Israeli men had only one wife.
• Polygamy tolerated (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob).
• Adultery forbidden by the Torah.
• Women had few legal rights and were seen as the property of their fathers or husbands. Adultery is wrong because it violates the property of father or husband. Even the Ten Commandments placed coveting a neighbour’s wife on the same footing as coveting his goods (Ex 20:17).

Monogamy
• Prophets present the faithful love between husband and wife as ideal and they see Yahweh’s faithful love for Israel in this context.

Hosea
• Waiting for Gomer, as Yahweh waits for Israel.
• Perception of husband’s love for wife as image of Yahweh’s love for Israel.

Other Prophets
• The imagery of husband-wife becomes the basic way in which prophets depict the relationship between Yahweh and Israel (Hos 2, Is 54.4-5, Jer 2.2, 3.20).
• Ezekiel 16: Yahweh’s love for Israel is like of a husband who loves his wife but is deserted by her.
• Song of Songs: Extols ecstasy of love
• Tobit 6-8: The perfect marriage is one of love between husband and wife.
• Sir 25-26: Dangers and Rewards of Domestic Life.
• Proverbs 5-7, 31: The virtues of the perfect wife.

Divorce
• While Malachi 2.16 denounced men who divorced their Jewish wives to marry foreigners, divorce was an accepted way to end an unhappy marriage.
• Adultery: Dt 20:22-24.
• Only husband has right to it. A woman desiring divorce had to request his husband for it.
• Remarriage accepted, except for wife to her first husband
• Dt 24:1-4 – ‘A man could give his wife a written note of dismissal if he found in her something indecent’
• Shammai: Adultery. Hillel: Displeasure of husband.

Yahweh is a merciful God who remains faithful to his people. The husband-wife relation becomes in the prophetic writings an alternative to the king-subject relation. The use of this imagery began to alter the understanding of the relationship between married people.

Yahweh Significance: The meaning of God in his relationship to humans became part of the meaning of marriage, and marriage became capable of explicitly signifying and revealing this God. So just as Yahweh loves Israel, husbands are to love their wives. It gives a richer significance to marriage; the personal aspect and fidelity are stressed and the woman is to be respected and loved as a person.

Chapter Two JESUS CHRIST

Kingdom of God
• Everything seen in light of the Kingdom of God
• Mk 12:25 – no marrying in Heaven.
• Lk 14:20, 17:27, Mt 24:38-39 – Concerns of marriage superseded by Second Coming.

Divorce
Divorce and Remarriage = Adultery (Mt 5:31-32, 19:3-12, Lk 16:18, Mk 10:1-12).
Permanent and Indissoluble Marriage.

Porneias
‘Except on the grounds of porneias, unchastity,’ Mt 5:32.
• Softening of Jesus
• Separation without remarriage for adultery
• Generally accepted as referring to an incestuous union, which was forbidden (Lev 18:6-18) and would nullify the marriage (Acts 15:20, 29.
Jesus gives New Significance to Marriage - Eph 5.32 – This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church.

Chapter Three NEW TESTAMENT

• Perhaps, the only real difference between Christian marriages in the NT and the rest of society was that of attitude. The Eschaton was expected, so marriage was seen as provisional. Paul prefers celibacy, giving one a focus on preparation for the end-time. He advised people not to make changes.
• Missionary Ideal Affirmed: Leave all for Kingdom of God.
• Marriage was never condemned.
• Messianic Period described as a Wedding Feast
• Slaves free to marry citizens.
• Divorce & Infidelity was Rejected by Christians.

Covenant: Ephesians 5:21-33 – Married Christians are to love in a way that reflects the covenant between Christ and the Church. Ephs 5:32 – “This mystery has many implications; but I am saying that it applies to Christ and the Church.”
Mystery was translated as Sacrament, which led Augustine to see marriage as a Sacrament. Paul lays the foundation for seeing marriage in personal terms, in terms of its being an outward sign of the loving union of Jesus and his bride, the Church.

I Corinthians 7 – Contract: The exchange of mutual rights and obligations. Paul was the first to set down equal rights for men and women – the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband.

Pauline Privilege: When a non-Christian is baptised and his/her spouse will not live at peace with him/her, then the Christian can obtain a divorce and be allowed to remarry.

Pastoral Epistles – Household Codes: Church leaders are to be successful in marriage and family life and be faithful to their wives. Younger widows are advised to remarry (I Tim 5.14). Husbands are to treat their wives with consideration because they are equally heirs to the life of grace (I Pet 3.7)

Chapter Four EARLY DEVELOPMENT

Patristic Period

• Civil Weddings. For first three centuries, marriage was a family affair and the Church had little or nothing to do with it. For marriage the Roman government required mutual consent.
• No religious ceremony was deemed necessary.
• Church Blessings were developed as time went on.
• Pope Nicholas I in 866: Marriage by mutual consent was accepted as valid.
• For first 1200 years, no Church ceremony. With Trent, 1563, the presence of a priest was demanded.
• The first ecclesial obligation was that in certain cases, particularly in the case of the clergy, permission had to be received from the bishop to marry.

Three Severe Pressures
1. Gnosticism: The body and sexuality are evil. The only way to live ‘spiritually’ was to be celibate.
2. Bible: Sex is really ‘Plan B.’ Plan A was a God given design where Adam and Eve lived in perfect unity and harmony that either did not require sex, or, if it did, was under perfect control at all times. The evidence was there; sex was the first act recorded after the fall and the Fathers sensed that humans do not control their sexuality; it has an unruliness and an irrational energy of its own. This was seen as an evil curse, a punishment, a come-down from Plan A.
3. New Testament: Jesus was celibate and his disciples left everything to follow him (Mk 12.35). John the Baptist and Paul were also celibate. In heaven, there is no marriage. Paul spoke of marriage as medicinal; it is a lawful remedy for concupiscence; it is better than burning (I Cor 7.9).

Procreation justified sex and marriage. Society and the Church needed children. Sex was justified because it brought children into the world. Besides God commanded us to increase and fill the earth, Gen 1:28, and infertility was seen as a curse. Paul says a woman will be saved through child-bearing, I Tim 2:15.

Augustine
• He saw marriage as good, but was ambivalent, if not negative, about sex. He saw our sexual desires as an unfortunate effect of original sin. Sexual intercourse itself is not sinful but concupiscence, the sexual appetite gone out of control. A man who is too ardent a lover of his wife is an adulterer. He also presented marriage and sexuality as good because they were created by a good God (I Tim 4.4). However, the interpretation of his teachings presented a negative view on sexual intercourse.
• The Values of Marriage: Fidelity of the Spouses to each other, The Procreation and Nurturing of Offspring, and Being a Sacrament, the visible sign of the invisible union between Christ and the Church (Eph 5.32).


Control, Sacrament, Ceremony, Contract & Consent 500-1450

Control – After the barbarian invasions, the local pastor was virtually forced to take over the work of the city hall, verifying marriages, registering marriages and keeping records. Once the Church was involved in the marriage process, it was hard to get out.

Movement towards Sacrament

The Doubts.
1. Marriage good – Sexuality suspicious. In Middle Ages, most Church people helf virginity in higher esteem than marriage. Paul said that marriage distracted one from the things of the Lord. Marriage was often viewed negatively as a remedy against the desires of the flesh rather than positively as a way to become holy.
2. Marriage involved Financial arrangements.
3. Marriage existed before the coming of Christ.

The Energies
1. The Renewal of Augustinian Thinking. Augustine saw marriage as a sacrament (Eph 5.32). It was a sign of the union between Christ and the Church and a sacred pledge of fidelity between husband and wife.
2. The Spiritual Renewal in the 11th and 12th Centuries.
3. The Reaction against the Albigensian Heresy, whose proponents saw marriage and sexuality as evil.

These three powerful impulses forced the Church to focus on marriage as a vehicle of holiness and in some sense a sacrament. So Peter Abelard with some hesitancy listed marriage with the other sacraments. Then Peter Lombard included marriage as a sacrament in his influential list. The Council of Verona (1184) confirms this and justifies it as a sacrament on the basis of Paul’s teaching that it is a living sign of Jesus’ Covenant with Church. The grace of the sacrament assist people grow in Holiness and fulfil their Marital Duties. Marriage was declared indissoluble to reflect Jesus’ faithful union with the Church. Subsequently at a number of ecumenical councils marriage was listed among the official sacraments of the Church.

The Wedding Ceremony was developed in the 12th Century and bishops began to insist that all weddings be blessed by a priest.

Marriage came to be seen as a Contract, with a precise exchange of rights over each others bodies for those acts needed for the procreation of children. Marital sex could have no other function. A spouse had a duty to render the marriage “debt” of intercourse under pain of sin. There was no room in this contractual concept for other personal matters, like covenant love and community of sharing and affection.

Consent: Finally, during this period, the Roman perception of marriage was challenged by the general European perspective. According to Roman tradition marriage was by consent. In the Frankish and Germanic tradition, however, the giving of consent came at the betrothal, and the marriage was not considered to be completed or consummated until the first act of intercourse had taken place. For the Europeans, marriage was preceded by a whole series of steps and this raised questions as to just where in all these steps did marriage become indissoluble. The Roman side was reluctant to have the bride treated as so much barter at the exclusive whim of her father. The European side was equally reluctant to recognise private mutual consent marriages because they undermined the father’s and family authority. This led to the question of what officially effected the marriage bond: Roman mutual consent or European first intercourse
Popes Nicholas I, Alexander III, Urban II, and especially Gregory IX, settled the issue with a final decision by declaring that mutual consent makes the marriage, but the bond is perfected and becomes absolutely indissoluble through consummation. A decision was made officially, which effectively excluded control over marriage by everyone but the bride and groom. Henceforward the marriage bond would be considered indissoluble not only as a Christian ideal but also as a rule of law.

• Council of Florence, 1439, affirmed the sacramentality of marriage and stressed the Triple Good of Marriage:
1. Children
2. Faithfulness
3. Indissolubility

Examination Part A February 2010

SACRAMENTOLOGY IV

In the exam three questions will be chosen from the following six and you will be requested to answer one question.

1 Discuss five main characteristics in the ministry of Jesus. Explain the derivation of the following words: episcopos, acolyte and cleric. What was the principal function of each of them in the early Church?
2 Explore the development of ministry in the NT.
3 What contributions did Ignatius of Antioch, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Gregory VII make to the development of ordained ministry? Give a short definition of each of the following: presbyter, mystagogue, celibacy and priestly character.
4 Discuss what Vatican II wrote about bishops. What were the consequences of the Council in relation to ministry?
5 Explore the main activities of the priest in relation to the community.
6 Write about the priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood, describing the relationship between them and the ways in which they participate in the priesthood of Jesus Christ.

For those who are writing a paper, your result in this exam will be marked out of 24 (your mark will be divided by five and multiplied by four) and half of the mark you receive from your paper will be added to it. Please remember your paper must be submitted on or before March 31st.