Reflection on July 4, 1984

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb112.htm

I am having some trouble with this one. “This seems to be the integral significance of the sacramental sign of marriage.” This makes me think that what he is explaining is very important and yet I do not feel like I am seeing the picture he is trying to paint. It feels like staring at one of those hologram pictures, squinting very hard, but just seeing colors and dots.

I think my confusion comes from SJPII use of the word liturgy in these talks. The only way I understand liturgy is the celebration of the Mass or a celebration or getting together for some organized and structured prayer. Marriage as a liturgy, I am not grasping. I understand that a couple gets married during a liturgy, that this is a liturgy, but I don’t think that is the message. How is marriage a liturgy.

I am going to type out what I am grasping, then reread it again and see if I feel I have anything. We have seen that the marriage of 2 people speaks to the world. This union is itself prophesying to the world about God and His relationship with us. The unity of these two is both physical and spiritual. If we take Mass as our base form or basic definition of liturgy, I can see several connections with what we just said of a marriage. At Mass, we have both a physical and spiritual union with God. Physical in the Eucharist, Spiritual in the sense that Mass is Heaven on Earth, God is present in the readings. There are both physical and spiritual parts of the liturgy that allow that union. In Mass, God speaks to the world through the Scriptures and readings. That doesn’t have as much to do with the union, but we are called, after every Mass, to go out into the world and bring Christ. The union we have with God in Mass allows us to speak to the world about God. In the liturgy, God gives Himself fully to us as gift and we are called to receive Him fully and to fully give ourselves. Same language we have seen in our discussions on Marriage. So if these ideas are ways of describing both liturgy and marriage, you can say that marriage is a liturgy, a form of public worship.

Although I don’t think any of what I said above is wrong, I also don’t believe it is what is being talked about in this talk. It does appear that SJPII is focused specifically on the liturgy of the marriage, the marriage ceremony, and the language used. The language used, the vows from one to the other, are meant to put into words the non-verbal language of the body. I think we have already discussed the vows can be seen as that, I may have just been trying to dig to deep when the answer was right on the surface or merely expanding on a topic already discussed, which SJPII does a lot of.

“I, (name), take you, (name), to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.” A complete and full gift of self for life.