Reflection on October 13, 1982

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb97.htm

We have a discussion of the sacrament of creation and the sacrament of redemption. I wasn’t sure if I quite followed all of it, but felt a better grasp towards the end. (Reading ahead, it becomes very clear when SJPII points out that sacrament here is used as another way of saying mystery. I didn’t pick up on that.) Marriage is a visible sign of the gift of creation. God created all and allows us to join in this creation through procreation and marriage. But we fell and need redemption. Christ comes and through Christ and His gift of self, we have the Church and Redemption, the fruit from Christ Redeeming Love. In marriage we are given a sign of Christ unity with the Church and the fruit that comes from that unity. Marriage is a sign or sacrament of both the mystery of creation and redemption.

I think there is an argument in here for the Church being immaculate. Christ, as God, cannot unite with anything that is sinful, not immaculate. The Church must be immaculate in order for Christ to unite with it and for there to be fruit. I this uniting is laid out in other examples.

Adam needed Eve, a helper like himself, both whole and immaculate and created for unity and fruitfulness.

Mary, the immaculate virgin, had no sin and so was able to unite with God in order to conceive Christ.

We are to receive the Eucharist without mortal sin so that we are worthy of uniting with God and gaining those graces, become fruitful.

Without the purity in the union of the two, there is no fruit. If the Church is not immaculate, if Mary is not sinless, there is no fruit from that union.

I think you could say this idea can be used in the discussion of contraception, those being a barrier to unity, to fruitfulness. It might be a stretch, but the Scripture stating that “anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.” 1 Corn 11:27. Could that go into the idea that the use of contraception, the contraceptive mentality, has brought sin further into that realm, i.e. the spread of STD’s, etc. Taking the act of sex and making it something less than sacred, taking outside of marriage, thinking contraception makes it something anyone can do with anybody, is analogous to going and receiving the Eucharist with mortal sin. You are taking something that is sacred, that is to be fully given and received, that is supposed to be fruitful and a gift from God, and by distorting it, are endangering yourself, physically and spiritually.