Tag Archive for: Love

 In November 2009, the U.S. Catholic Bishops approved a Pastoral Letter called “Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan.” The letter presents the essential points of Catholic teaching on marriage as a natural gift, as a sacrament, and as a public commitment between a man and a woman. The bishops’ Pastoral Letter is so important today because of all the challenges and/or threats to the institution of marriage. “Our Pastoral Letter is an invitation to discover, or perhaps rediscover, the blessing given when God first established marriage as a natural institution and when Christ restored and elevated it as a sacramental sign of salvation.” After all, “God himself is the author of marriage.” “Not us.”

Here is the essence of what the Church believes marriage to be, as authored by God and explained by our bishops.

• It is an institution created by God
  · It is an indissoluble bond
  · It is established by mutual consent
  · It is a “lifelong partnership… of mutual and exclusive fidelity”
  · It is an exclusive partnership between one man and one woman, who are complementary in their two distinct ways of being human
  · It is a “unique communion of persons” through the mutual self-giving of conjugal love
  · It is meant to mirror Christ’s love for the Church
  · It is ordered towards two equally important ends: the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children

Here is what I love from this letter: “The love that is as strong as death is the love that prays and praises, caught up into divine love.” This places love and service of God at the forefront of marital love.

The bishops point to the “fundamental challenges to the nature and purposes of marriage” which include contraception, same-sex unions, divorce, and cohabitation.

All these challenges can be seen as stemming from original sin, which harmed the original communion intended for marriage; but Jesus restored the institution by raising it to the dignity of a sacrament.

The bishops of the United States state, “In restoring to marriage its original meaning and beauty, Jesus proclaims what the Creator meant marriage to be ‘in the beginning.’ He does so because marriage will be made into the visible embodiment of His love for the Church. In His espousal of the Church as His Bride, He fulfills and elevates marriage to a Sacrament. He reveals His own love ‘to the end’ (John 13:1) as the purest and deepest love, the perfection of all love. In doing this He reveals the deepest meaning of all marital love: self-giving love modeled on God’s inner life and love.”

In marriage, my wife Elsa and I are called to give ourselves to each other as fully as Christ gave Himself to the Church. That is a tall order. If every married couple and every single or engaged person discerning marriage read this Pastoral Letter and made this a goal for their marriage, it could enrich the entire Church.

Elsa and I work at loving as Christ loves through self-gift every day, even when it is not easy. We can reflect the love that we and the bishops want to see in the world.

Jesus Himself demonstrated what love looks like when He allowed Himself to be hung on a cross for our sins. “Greater love has no one than this, that He lays down His life for His friends,” John 15:13.

<<<Isaak Abraham Isaak is Director of the Office of Catechesis and Evangelization>>>