Thursday, August 06, 2009

Vatican II and the Church that Jesus Founded: Marriage

What did Vatican II teach about the Church which Jesus Christ founded? This series is meant to show what elements of the Church Vatican II teaches as being ordained by God rather than invented by man. This installment looks at marriage as both an institution and a sacrament.


Marriage was established by God
"The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the [con]jugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. ... For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes." (Gaudium et Spes 48)

"Firmly established by the Lord, the unity of marriage will radiate from the equal personal dignity of wife and husband, a dignity acknowledged by mutual and total love." (Gaudium et Spes 49)


Marriage was ordered to the begetting of children
"By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown." (Gaudium et Spes 48)

"Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents." (Gaudium et Spes 50)


Marriage is not only ordered to the begetting of children
"Marriage to be sure is not instituted solely for procreation; rather, its very nature as an unbreakable compact between persons, and the welfare of the children, both demand that the mutual love of the spouses be embodied in a rightly ordered manner, that it grow and ripen. Therefore, marriage persists as a whole manner and communion of life, and maintains its value and indissolubility, even when despite the often intense desire of the couple, offspring are lacking." (Gaudium et Spes 50)


Marriage is the conjugal union of one man and one woman
"Thus a man and a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love "are no longer two, but one flesh" (Matt. 19:ff), render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions." (Gaudium et Spes 48)


Marriage is an irrevocable (i.e. permanent) bond
"The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the [con]jugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one." (Gaudium et Spes 48)


Marriage is a sign of the relationship between Christ and his Church
"Christ the Lord abundantly blessed this many-faceted love, welling up as it does from the fountain of divine love and structured as it is on the model of His union with His Church." (Gaudium et Spes 48; cf. Eph. 5:21-33)


Marriage is governed by Christ and his Church
"Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ's redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in sublime office of being a father or a mother. For this reason 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." (Gaudium et Spes 48)