The integral relationship between the Eucharist and matrimony is profound
By Father Randy Stice
In recent columns, I have been discussing the relationship between the Eucharist and individual sacraments. The seven sacraments of the Church “touch all the stages and all the important moments of Christian life: they give birth and increase; healing and mission to the Christian’s life of faith.”1 Together, they “form an organic whole in which each particular sacrament has its own vital place.” However, the Eucharist, the “sacrament of sacraments,” occupies a unique place within this organic whole, for “all the other sacraments are ordered to it as to their end.”2
St. Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) summarized how each of the sacraments is ordered to the Eucharist as its end. Baptism is ordered “to the reception of the Eucharist,” and confirmation perfects us by removing any fear of approaching the Eucharist. Holy orders is “directed to the consecration of the Eucharist,” and through the forgiveness of sin, penance and anointing prepare us “to receive the body of Christ worthily.” Matrimony is a sign of “the union of Christ with the Church, and of this union the Eucharist is a figure, so that the Apostle says (Ephesians 5:32): ‘This is a great sacrament, but I speak of Christ and of the Church.’”3 In this column, we will look at the relationship between matrimony and the Eucharist.
In Ephesians, cited by Aquinas, St. Paul compares marriage to Christ’s sacrificial love for the Church: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish…. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24).
This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and Church” [Ephesians 5:25-27, 31-32]. This passage is foundational for understanding the relationship between marriage and the Eucharist.
“Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” by His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. St. John Paul II wrote, “The ‘sincere gift’ contained in the Sacrifice of the Cross gives definitive prominence to the spousal meaning of God’s love. As the redeemer of the world, Christ is the Bridegroom of the Church. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of our Redemption. It is the Sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride . . . .Christ is united with this ‘body’ as the bridegroom with the bride.” Ephesians, he continues, reveals that “the perennial ‘unity of the two’ that exists between man and woman from the very ‘beginning’ is introduced into this ‘great mystery’ of Christ and of the Church.”4
The integral relationship between the Eucharist and matrimony is profound. “The Eucharist is the very source of Christian marriage,” wrote St. John Paul II. “The Eucharistic Sacrifice, in fact, re-presents Christ’s covenant of love with the Church, sealed with His blood on the Cross.”5 Because it makes present “Christ’s sacrifice of love for the Church, the Eucharist is a fountain of charity”6 that continuously nourishes marriage. “The Eucharist inexhaustibly strengthens the indissoluble unity and love of every Christian marriage. By the power of the sacrament, the marriage bond is intrinsically linked to the eucharistic unity of Christ the Bridegroom and His Bride, the Church (cf. Ephesians 5:31-32).”7
In the Mass, which is the sacramental re-presentation of Christ’s covenant of love for his Church, “Christian spouses encounter the source from which their own marriage covenant flows, is interiorly structured, and continuously renewed.”8 Christ’s total gift of Himself for the Church is the inner reality of “the mutual consent that husband and wife exchange in Christ,” making a total gift of each to the other. This “establishes them as a community of life and love,” bringing into existence their marriage.
This total gift of self to the spouse “has a eucharistic dimension,” for in the Eucharist Christ continuously offers Himself for his bride the Church. 9 Christ “never ceases to offer Himself for us.”10 Christ, through the priest, “offers the eucharistic sacrifice” and, under the appearances of bread and wine, Christ “is the offering of the eucharistic sacrifice.”11 Through the unceasing gift of Himself in sacramental communion, He strengthens and transforms the spouses to do the same for each other and manifest to all “Christ’s living presence in the world, and the genuine nature of the Church.”12
1 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), 1210
2 CCC, 1211
3 An Aquinas Reader, ed. Mary T. Clark, p. 417
4 St. John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 26
5 St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 57
6 St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 57
7 Benedict XVI, The Sacrament of Charity, 27
8 St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 57
9 Benedict XVI, The Sacrament of Charity, 27
10 Roman Missal, Preface III of Easter
11 CCC, 1410
12 Gaudium et Spes, 48
Father Randy Stice is director of the diocesan Office of Worship and Liturgy. He can be reached at frrandy@dioknox.org.