MARRIAGE IN THE LORD

      by Rev. Dominador N. Marcaida Jr.

        Image from: https://orthochristian.com/94561.html

It is good, right and fitting that divorce is now being legalized in the Philippines as a way to put an end to the marital woes, atrocities and violence being committed by some couple in their homes that happened in marriages performed without the Church’s guidance and supervision, because when these were performed, they lacked the preparation that should have been given by the Church through a proper and thorough catechesis about the lifetime union that these couples are about to enter.

At the outset, I would like to put a distinction between a marriage that could be subject to divorce, legal separation and annulment from a marriage which is immune from these human or legal actions.

Marriage that is subject to divorce is the marriage that was performed as a mere legal contract between the man and his partner, or between a woman and her partner.

Marriage that is immune from divorce, or from any other act of man or by force of human law, is the marriage that God himself had “joined together and that no man should put asunder” (Mt. 19:6). It is the “marriage in the Lord” performed in the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony [from L. “mater” (mother) + “munus, munera” (work, or task)]. 

“Marriage in the Lord” means that the marriage between the man and his bride is made in the spirit of the marriage between Christ and his Church that results in the everlasting union of Christ’s Mystical Body, which is the Church.

We use the word “body” in referring to the “Mystical Body of Christ” precisely because, after his resurrection from the dead, Christ really formed, or developed, a spiritual body, which was his Church, his “mystical body”, that came to be formed by the first community of disciples gathered during Pentecost day. Later, this original community was expanded through the first missionary activities of the 12 apostles themselves worldwide.

This body that was formed by the community of Christ’s original disciples is what we call now the Church of Christ, His Mystical Body, that was aptly described by St. Paul the Apostle when we said: “We are Christ’s Body, his Church” (cfr. 1 Cor. 2:27-28).

When St. Paul the Apostle used “body” as in the phrase “Mystical Body of Christ”, he meant a literal, physical body, composed of a head, and complete with the parts and organs of an anatomical body, to symbolize the unity of the Church as his “Mystical Body”. What is this unity that is seen in a literal physical body? We say that a person is alive and living when every part of his body is functioning because it is properly being attached to the head that serves as the thinking, controlling and command center of all the parts of the body that dictates their functions and movements to form just one organic living system.

This concept of a body as applied to marriage had its source from an earlier biblical narrative found in Gen. 2:21-24 in the garden story of Eden where God put the first man Adam into a deep sleep, then took a rib from his side to form the first woman whom God gave to him to be his wife. This marriage between man and wife as forming one body has been deeply emphasized by Jesus Christ when he said: “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. This is why a man must leave father and mother, and the two become one body. They are no longer two, these form one body” (Mk. 10:6-8. Cfr. also Gn. 2:24; Mt. 19:5; Ep. 5:31). This was the first marriage as a perpetual and unbreakable law for all marriages under God that is being exemplified in the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. 

To further clarify this one body in marriage, the Apostle Paul used the phrase “one flesh” to denote human marriages (Cfr. 1 Cor. 6:16).

Now, therefore, in order to restore the unhappy state of all human marriages which were not done “in the Lord” (Cfr. 1 Cor 7:10,39), Christ, the Son of God, came to realize for us a marriage which is spiritual and divine in nature, which is no other than His marriage with the Church, copying the “one body, one flesh” principle both embodied in the divine and human law for marriages (Cfr. Ep. 5:21-33).

The Church is Christ’s bride (Apo. 19:8, 21:2), and she is being symbolized by the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven for the wedding with the Lamb, Jesus Christ, her spouse. She is the new Eve who will fulfill the ancient prophecy regarding the woman whose offspring shall crush the head of the serpent and whose heel it shall strike in retaliation (Cfr. Gn. 3:15; Apo. 12).

Since we are members of the Church, we are Christ’s virgin bride who had been given to him in marriage (Cfr. 2 Co. 11:2).

To be an effective marriage therefore, this marriage of the Church with Christ has been compared by the Apostle Paul in the analogy of the one body of Christ: “Now therefore you together are Christ’s body: but each of you is a different part of it” (1 Co. 12:27f).

In other words, Christ’s body, which is the Church, must function in a teleological relationship just like any organic body (=one part exists because and for the sake of the others and therefore each must always look into the well-being and welfare of the other parts in the spirit of love and unity).

Christ has set in a most certain and clear way this teleological relationship as functional also within his own body, the Church, as His spouse. That is why the Apostle Paul said: “Christ’s love for the Church is realized when, as her head, he saved the whole body and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy” (Cfr. Ep. 5:23-25). Therefore, the Church reciprocates Christ’s love by submitting herself to Christ in everything (Cfr. Ep. 5:24).

This teleological relationship that is happening within the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, is the basis why the organization of the Church as always a “corporatio sole” (a single-headed corporation) and not a “corporatio aggregata” (a multi-headed or aggregated corporation) because in the Church, as Christ’s Mystical Body, the single head in always Christ, as aptly symbolized by an overseer bishop. For to be a multi-headed corporation Church, is a clear and complete departure and turning away from the model that Christ himself had set as a perpetual model for his Mystical Body, the Church; he, Christ, is being its single and sole head. 

Hence, even also in marriage, following this model of the one head with many parts and organs as memebrs, forming a single body, particularly in the marriage done in the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ,  divorce is very impossible to take place because the members of the family from the father, to the mother and all their children are always mindful that they are being governed by a teleological relationship in the perpetual bond of holy marriage, and that when they break this teleological relationship it would mean the death and eventual separation of the one body that they are forming, which is to be their own family (or, in our case, our organization or our congregation, whichever is applicable). 

To insist on this particular model of a “multi-headed, or aggregated, family, corporation, congregation, or organization, means to break away from the unity, or single-bondedness of a church, a family, or a congregation. It will also constitute a monstrosity; a monster with one body that has many heads. 

So, let us not be afraid even if divorce is finally legalized in the country, because if the Christian church is performing marriages in the spirit of Holy Matrimony, one that is done in the “spirit of the Lord” through a prior, proper and thorough catechesis about the Church as the living mystical Body of Christ that is a model of the Christian family, then no divorce will ever happen, or occur, among Christian couples and families, and also among church congregations, or organizations.

On my father’s 56th Death Annversary_4 June 2024