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Romance and Matrimony :
the Mystery of Love
Conversing with a
priest about marriage...
-Why is marriage considered
a mystery? What is mysterious about it?
We do not refer to it as
a mystery because it has something incomprehensible about it, like the
common term implies. Every encounter between the created and the
non-created- that is, between God on the one hand and man on the other
- is referred to as a mystery. An encounter- or, more precisely, a
union - of this kind takes place during the religious matrimonial
ceremony, just as in the incarnation of God, or in the Holy Eucharist.
Naturally, this kind of union is too far beyond the mind's capability,
to be fully comprehended.
-Can you explain in more detail, how God
encounters the person during the matrimonial ceremony?
Exactly as He does during
the Holy Eucharist, where we bring material offerings (wine and bread)
to God, and He returns them, hallowed, in the form of Holy Communion.
Likewise, during the matrimonial ceremony, we offer God our union, and
we receive it back from Him, hallowed.
-What does this mean in practice?
In order to perceive
this, you must remember the gospel excerpt that is read during the
matrimonial ceremony. It is the one about Christ's first miracle, the
wedding at Canaa. As you may remember, when they realized that the wine
had finished, Christ asked for six earthen pitchers to be filled with
water, and then instructed that this be served to the guests. On
discovering that the water had turned into wine, the bridegroom was at a
loss; he called to the organizer of the feast and said to him "Everybody
brings out the best wine at the beginning, and the more inferior wine
later on. Why did you save the best wine for the end?" (John 2, 1-11).
The miracles of Christ
and His saints are called "signs", meaning that they are
"indicators" of another kind of reality. In this incident, is is
made apparent to us by the Lord, how the natural course of events would
be without the Grace of God, and how they are, with His Grace. Without
this union of God and man in matrimony, the natural course would be that
of deterioration and fatigue. When this union takes place, the physical
bond is incorporated in the body of Christ - the Church - and in
this way, the union acquires immeasurable strength.
-And what about all those marriages
between people who do not actively participate in the Church, or have
chosen a civilian marriage? Are they condemned to deterioration and
conventionality? Reality doesn't seem to confirm this.
Very true; In these
cases, the marriage is dependent on physical potential and good
intentions. People who do not acknowledge matrimony as a mystery,
may well have substantial physcal potential and extremely good
intentions; however, by lacking any union with God, these will not
flourish; it is only natural that this kind of union will be directly
dependent on the two partners' perseverance. But, as admirable as this
perseverance may be, it is most likely to wear out.
-Does that mean that God is totally
absent from such a marriage?
Of course not; God is
present in every human endeavour and He supports it. This also applies
to non-Christians, however, it is far more apparent to the baptized.
God doesn't wait for
our invocations, to give us His help. However, in order to understand
the difference, we must again refer back to the archetype of mysteries
- the Divine Eucharist. There are people who, during their life strive
to correct themselves, and there are others who call upon the power of
God, but without any communion with His Body and His Blood. There is a
difference here. With Holy Communion, man anticipates a psychosomatic
incorporation with Christ "in a life eternal", not to simply become
a good person, but to become sanctified and to live with Him in
eternity.
The same applies to
religious matrimony; those who attend the sacrament conscientiously are
doing nothing more than asking Him to incorporate their love in His
love, and to make the love between the couple acquire a quality beyond
its physical boundaries, so that it will live eternally. Remember the
phrase that the priest recites at the end of the engagement ceremony:
"Confirm them, in Your holy union….." as well as the one at
the end of the marriage ceremony: "Look after their marriage
wreaths, from within Your kingdom, preserving them immaculate and
blame-free and incorruptible, for ever and ever." In this
manner, a marriage acquires cosmological and ontological dimensions. The
manifestation of the truth in this world by man, is brought about
through selfless love. .
-Most of us know from experience that the
majority of people who have been married in church do not think in this
way. Their mind focuses on the external elements, to which they
attribute the majesty of the event.
This is the pitiful outcome of secular life. The
Church slackens in the presence of wordly ways, allowing herself to
become influenced by secular manners. No-one denies the joyous nature of
matrimony, but its true splendour lies in the faithful participant's
inner world, if "the mystery is actually officiated inside him". In
Psalm 44 we read "All the glory of the daughter of the king is
within" (verse 14). This, according to the Fathers, is understood
to mean that the glory and splendour of the Church (as daughter of God
the Father, since She is wedded to His Son) is esoteric, given that all
significant things take place within the mystic, esoteric sphere.
I repeat: this doesn't
mean that we should refuse the external elements of a wedding
celebration, because it truly is a celebration. Besides, our cultural
tradition is richly endowed with them. These elements simply serve to
remind us that it is nside the person's heart that the battle will
take place. This will be evident, in the manner that the person
approaches the sacrament. If they approach with the ecclesiastic
conviction that we just described, then they will make good use of this
encounter and this union with God. If not, then the Grace of God remains
inert.
-In other words, the Grace of God does
not automatically change a person.
Exactly. If a person were
changed automatically and contrary to his own volition, it would be a
magic kind of intervention. God collaborates together with us. This is
why so many church marriages fail - because people are interested only
in the "folklore" or the "gift wrapping" of the event, or its
purely practical - organizational aspects.
-I must say that the parallel drawn
between matrimony and the Divine Eucharist impressed me. However, there
is the issue of sexuality, which most people consider sinful, or at
least incompatible, with anything holy. Everyone knows how sensitive the
Church is, on sexual matters. Is it possible, that the Church decided to
make matrimony a sacrament, solely for the purpose of confining sexual
aberrations? Did the Church perhaps lean towards a compromise, in order
to avoid worse?
Of course marriage has
these roles also (moralizing of behaviour, stabilizing the community
etc. ), but these are generally the institutions of any community. Every
kind of marriage - political, religious, or of other beliefs - was
devised with the intent to limit man's greed, so that a suitable
environment may be created for the upbringing of children, and also,
that any centrifugal and dissolutional trends may be curbed. All these
are natual functions. The Church doesn't ignore the natural; it
transcends it. She is interested in that which the natural is directed
towards.
For example, man's
tendency for companionship is natural. God acknowledges this and blesses
it, from the very begining (Genesis 1, 27 -28 and 2, 18 -24). But, it is
sequeled by the apostolic excerpt on the sacrament (Ephesians, 5, 20
-33), which compares the union of two people with the union of Christ
and the Church. From as far back as the Old Testament, God used the
analogy of an romantic relationship between people, to indicate His
relationship with mankind (Psalm 44, Jeremiah 3, 6-9, Isaiah 54, 1 10
and 62, 4 -5, Ezekiel 16, 163 and the entire Song of Songs . Other
references can be found in the New Testament: John 3, 29, Matthew 9, 15
and 22, 114, Β' Corinthians 11, 2, Ephesians 5, 26-27, Revelation 21,
9 and 22, 17). The Fathers later on used this same example (Climax,
address no. 30, 5).
It is obvious from these
references, how greatly love is respected. Romantic companionship is
accepted as being a primeval and basic human function. This is also the
belief of all those who regard the person as being the focal point of a
marriage. But much more than this, marriage is endowed with a deeper
meaning by its celestial source, for which it gradually becomes
nostalgic.
Apart from the fact that
"God had liberally strewn these passions" (Saint John
Chrysostom) so that man may be fulfilled and complemented, He also made
them the steps that could raise man to loftier, celestial spheres. This
does not mean that erotic life automatically raises man spiritually (on
the contrary, with misuse, it can easily bring about his downfall); it
means that wherever spiritual life prevails, the erotic event can also
act as a motive for loving God, inasmuch as, by acknowledging how strong
love can be between people, they can imagine how powerful their love can
become for God.
Apart from this, man
learns through this inter-person relationship how to open up to another
person and to be in communion with him. Without this basic prerequisite,
it is impossible for anyone to achieve communion with God.
In reality, the Church
has incredible respect for love and marriage, and it is only on this
premise, that we can appreciate the Church's "prohibitions", which
are essentially protective measures for these gifts, just as one would
protect a candle flame from being extinguished by the wind, or, like the
athlete's strict abstinence, in anticipation of the joy of victory.
The primary capital of love should be incremented and transformed, and
not spent recklessly, which what frequently happens.
On the other hand, it is
a fact that various members of the Church unfortunately do not conform
with Her life-giving Theology, perhaps out of ignorance, or, for a
number of personal reasons. There are parents who were so tormented by
their own Puritanism, that they never allowed themselves to enjoy love
as a gift of God; similarly, clergymen and catechist teachers who were
not taught the Truth correctly, or had misunderstood Orthodox exercise -
all these, have often contributed towards alienating today's people
from ecclesiastic life, by pushing them into believing that the Church
is the guardian of Puritanism.
-This ugly situation co-exists with the
sexual irresponsibility of our times, as expressed in print and the
media.
You have made a very accurate observation. Today's people are trapped
between two tribulations: the phobias of the past, and the modern-day
spectre of ecoming commercialized. The phobias are obstacles that hinder
their appreciation of God's gifts in a Eucharist manner, while the
other situation deprives them of these gifts. The multitudes of songs
written in praise of love are nothing but an alibi for its degradation.
It is difficult to conclude which calamity is worse: the guilt
and anxiety over love and sex, or the tyrrany of sensuality that
distorts and eventually destroys man's innate power to love?
Furthermore, we are living inside a storm of terminologies that
misconstrue bodily attraction for love, and that proclaim all emotions
as being unreliable. The Church's proposed exercising is also aimed at
clearing up the innermost depths of the psyche.
-A friendly couple that went to
confession, came away disappointed, because the spiritual father did not
allow them to take Holy Communion, the reason being their premarital
relations. Was that proper?
This is one of the more
frequent causes of bitterness in today's people, which results in
alienating them from the Church. In order to comprehend this
"prohibition", we need to recall the things we said in the beginning
about the mystery of matrimony.
The word mystery
is derived from the Greek verb "myo", meaning an initiation, or,
being introduced into something, or, conveying a truth. Those involved
are called initiates. Therefore, the primary meaning of this
procedure is found in the Divine Liturgy: the ultimate mystery. Those
that become baptized and anointed become initiates; in other words, they
can now participate in the inner sanctum of God's love (which is the
Divine Eucharist); they can respond to the priest's invocations
(today, it's done by the chanters, who represent the people); they can
listen to whatever is pronounced inside the Church; they can partake of
the Body and the Blood of Christ. Together with the other faithful, they
comprise the body of the Church, that is, those who have been
incorporated in the Truth and the Life (in other words, in Christ : John
14, 6).
From this event onwards,
everything changes, everything takes place (it should), in the light of
this inconceivable gift. A Christian's entire life acquires meaning,
when he joins the Church. Nothing can be done without the Church's
blessings, not because it is imposed by a certain regulation or a
religious superstition, but because the Church actually comprises a
way of life. The Church embraces our entire life, and this is why
there is a multitude of prayers and special church services for all our
activities: our meals, education, politics, travels, commerce,
agriculture, industry, etc.. It would therefore be unthinkable to exempt
the psychosomatic union of two people, from the blessings of the church
- albeit in marriage there are many more reasons involved, given that
marriage comprises a complex activity.
Thus, premarital
continence takes on the meaning of a voluntary exercise, in order for a
person to remain enlisted in the ranks of the Church. Through baptism
and anointing, the faithful acquire a general priethood, or, secular
priesthood. By participating in Christ's sacerdotal office (Christ -
as Head Priest - offered Himself in sacrifice), we likewise offer our
personal exercise, just as we offer every other exercise, as a kind of
sacrifice (since this takes place inside the body and the soul); in this
case, the exercise being continence. If this exercise is ignored, a
person becomes detached from the body of the church, because he has
previously amputated the erotic-sexual function from its Christian
basis.
In other words, to be
deprived of Holy Communion doesn't mean that a punishment has been
imposed; it is more like a disclosure of that which has already
occurred inside a person.
However, in practice a
sort of "economy" is applied, namely, a somewhat tolerant handling
of this so prevalent problem, depending on the faithful's
determination to fight. It is obvious that there is a difference between
knowing what you are fighting for but sometimes failing to achieve your
goal, and ignoring the goal altogether, or even despising it. The
difficulty observed in our times, is a result of the neo-greek's split
identity, which has made him flounder between a traditional
religiousness of which lacks any awareness, and the pursuit of a
hedonistic lifestyle, thus remaining totally unaware of what the Church
is really about. At any rate, a reprimand such as the imposed absence
from Holy Communion should in no way become an excuse for the faithful
to sever their relations with the Church or to slacken their prayers and
their spiritual life, which unfortunately is often the case.
-Could we perhaps be forgetting today's
living conditions, and how distant they are from the traditional
community? When sexuality has become so commercialized, and the age
limit for marriage extended, it has become increasingly difficult to
maintain premarital continence.
You are right. We could
safely say that today, continence is equal to a miracle. But, just as
every miracle involves the power of God and the faith of a person, so is
continence feasible, when people really desire it by asking for God's
help. Let us not forget that, since continence is justified
ecclesiastically only, then it can be attained, but only when living
within the Church. Only the consciously faithful, who studies, who
prays, who goes to confession, who takes Holy Communion, is in a
position to maintain an inner atmosphere of trust in God and spiritual
alertness. Testimony of this, are the thousands of young faithful who
have embraced this lifestyle today. These days, there are innumerable
books on the meaning of marriage, so that whoever desires in-depth
research on the subject, is able to do so. Besides, the sexual issue is
not limited to premarital continence. Many years of vigilance are
required, in order to direct this function in the service of love,
unity, tenderness, and profound communion.
We have entered a new
era, whose ambition is to establish alternative family structures,
solely for the purpose of satisfying every cheap desire, and to
propagate the modern ideal of "marriage" as an uncomplicated
contract. In a world that is rocked by suspicion and hostility and
disrupted by hedonism and exploitation, we are in need of religious
matrimony today, more than ever before in the history of mankind. Not as
a superficial ritual, but as a central axis of life, from which all
other aspects of life can take on a meaning. The world will not be saved
by the naοve romanticism of (so-called) love, or by the impersonal
pleasures that came along to replace love, which others have already
exploited as commercial items.
Man's Hope forever
rests in marriage that is nurtured by the Body and the Blood of Christ;
in marriage that maintains selfless love like a vision before its eyes,
in marriage that fights (sometimes very hard) to transform the natural
to divine-human; in marriage that materializes God's eternal will on
the desired form of human relations, namely, the profound communion
between personae.
Archpresbyter Vasileios Thermos
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