Reflection on December 15, 1982

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb102.htm

I have spoken a lot about the importance of the definition of marriage what that means to our understanding of God. This is the first I have seen of SJPII using the word stable to describe marriage and its importance. This makes sense if you see marriage as the foundation of understanding so many other things, including our relationship with God, His relationship with the Church, and the other sacraments. If that foundation isn’t stable, it will collapse. Not only this, but marriage has been shown to be a stabilizing factor in the world, in civilization. There is really no argument that collapse of the traditional family leads to the collapse of a society. Therefore, it points to the extreme importance of a stable understanding and definition of marriage. When you begin to chip away at a foundation, the building will not stand up long.

Redemption comes to us all through the unity of Christ and the Church. These made me think about spouses bringing redemption to each other. I have heard that your job as a spouse is to get your spouse to heaven. That seems to follow with all that we have learned in the link and unity between the spousal relationship and the relationship of Christ and the Church. When you hear it, though, I sometime brush it off as cliché or fluff speak. I think that is because you don’t want to think about how much we fail at it. As we read and think about what that means, about living every moment as a gift, fully giving and receiving, it feels very daunting to live that and understand that living that life will be the salvation of your spouse. It makes you want to live it and still feel very guilty for not living up to it.

The idea that the vocation of marriage, and marriage itself, is the primordial sacrament, seems to mean that many of its qualities leak into our everyday life. The idea of giving of yourself, the ability to receive, and that this relationship bears fruit, is something that all relationships should trend towards. Living life, being charitable, helping others, it seems that every action we take is a small marriage. In living out these small marriage, we live out a life with an ethos of redemption.

I think SJPII see everything that we have applied to the vocation of marriage and its analogy to Christ and the Church applies as well to those that choose continence for the kingdom. I think he reaches that and laid that foundation when he showed that the two vocations had many of the same traits are were merely two different paths that one was called to and made for.