Kenneth Henderson
The Great Mystery of Marriage
October 12, 2007
Possibly one of the most beautiful gifts that God has given to humanity is the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Sadly, it is also the most attacked and profaned by Satan. Many people have very little understanding of just how important and holy the gift of marriage is. This can explain why many do not see the importance of saving the gift of sexuality for after they are married, why so many marriages end in divorce and why there is an increased push for homosexual unions. At the root of this problem is a lack of understanding of just what a sacrament is.
A sacrament is a sign instituted by Christ to convey grace. The Church teaches us that the sacraments are the most profound way that God administers His grace to us, His children. The sacraments are His most direct and significant means of healing our brokenness. It is through the sacraments that we, His children can come in direct contact with the living God. Ultimately it is the way that God makes Himself visible, physically present to us.
Through Baptism we receive the "initial cleansing" that washes away the stain of Original Sin, making us a new creation in Christ. Confirmation further equips and strengthens us with grace to be His disciples, to be warriors on the battlefield. The Eucharist, the most important of all the sacraments, is for us our "daily bread" — food for our daily needs — by which we receive Jesus in the most profound and real way we can, in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The Eucharist is the very flesh He gave for the salvation of the World, our salvation. Confession allows us to receive the continued cleansing of our souls and the need we have for further healing.
Because of the effect of Original Sin on our lives, we have a tendency to fall into sin. This tendency, called concupiscence, is what pulls us toward sin. By humbling ourselves in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we allow God to reach into our souls and heal us as individuals. The more humble and truthful we are with God, the more He can mend the brokenness of our souls.
The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, also known as Extreme Unction, strengthens us during times of illness and, if called, prepares us for the journey at the time of our deaths to be received by God into His heavenly kingdom.
The Church teaches us that marriage is more than just two people living together who share common likes or because of convenience. It is a sacramental covenant that bonds two people together in an indissoluble union by which the couple makes God present in their marriage. It is the only sacrament that is not administered by a priest. The priest is present at the wedding to witness the validity of the marriage. But the sacrament itself is administered by the husband and wife to each other. The sacrament begins at the moment they commit themselves in marriage with the exchange of vows to freely, faithfully and fruitfully love each other. But the sacrament is perfected when they consummate the marriage in the marital embrace. It is in the sexual union that the couple makes manifest the sacrament and shares in the divine grace that God wishes to give them as man and wife. The vows said with their mouths at the altar are perfected and renewed through their bodies each and every time in the conjugal act.
It is important to understand that the union must be open to life, open to the gift of children, for the marriage to be valid. This is why contraception is a direct contradiction to the very openness to life that must be present in a valid marriage. Without this openness, we block the grace that God wishes to give to marriage. This is also why two men or two women can never be married, because for a marriage to be valid in the eyes of God, the sexual union must potentially be fruitful — something that can never happen in homosexual unions.
In scripture, God gives us His intended plan for marriage and the beauty of sexuality. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul tells us of God's intention for marriage:
'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church (Eph 5:21-32).
In the original Greek the word for "mystery" here means sacrament. The great mystery or sacrament of marriage is meant to reflect the love that Christ has for His people, the Church. Christ loves His people completely without holding anything back. His love is freely given, fruitful, and faithful. A marriage is to reflect Christ's love for the Church. This is why divorce is impossible for a valid marriage because the bond between man and wife has made them one flesh. To divorce is to profane and destroy what God has joined together.
Because of the great significance this sacrament has on the family itself, it has probably received the greatest attacks from Satan. As it is Satan's desire to destroy all of humanity, he knows that to attack the Sacrament of Marriage is to destroy families at their very core. Possibly the most significant attack that he has made is profaning and devaluing the gift of sexuality. Premarital sex is a significant problem and this is promoted by the mainstreaming of the mindset of the pornographic subculture. "Hooking up," a term used on college campuses to describe uncommitted sexual relationships, is common among young adults. To many, using another's body for their own selfish pleasure is just something to do for recreation.
Pride and selfishness are the key factors that Satan has used to lure man and woman away from God's intended purpose for life:
The Serpent said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? ...You shall not die, For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil' (Gen 3:1-5).
The result was the Original Sin and with it came the corruption of love and marriage, distorting the original intent of marital love into lust. Lust is the desire to use another for ones own selfish pleasure, while love is to will the greater good of another. Love and lust are directly opposed to one another.
Satan's attack on the Sacrament of Marriage through the corruption of the sexual union is intended to prevent us from gaining the very grace that is given by God to help us throughout our married lives as man and wife. Indeed it is the very grace we need to help us succeed in marriage.
When men seek out selfish pleasures — "It's all about me and my pleasure. If you love me you will fulfill my sexual needs" — they will often turn to pornography, masturbation or even adultery. Their corrupted intellects see women primarily as objects to be used for sexual pleasure, a mindset that is all too often carried into marriage. With the Internet, pornography is much more accessible and is often used as an easy escape for many men. Yet, Jesus tells us in the gospel of Matthew, "You have heard it said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:27-28). When men view pornography, they are committing adultery in their hearts.
Satan convinces women that men only want to use them for sex. If they are not getting their emotional needs met, if they are not feeling loved or understood by their husbands, they withdraw because they do not wish to be used. They may withhold sex as a bargaining chip or give into having sex with a man, even if they are being used in order to "feel" loved. Men will use love to get sex, while women will use sex to get love. Lust is the root cause of many of the problems we see in marriages today. Lust destroys marriages by destroying trust between the husband and wife. We must have trust to be vulnerable. We need to be vulnerable in marriage for marriage to succeed. Ultimately we need to trust God's intended plan for marriage for marriage:
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:21, 24-25).
Couples must be subject to one another "out of reverence for Christ." Without this kind of trust, we cannot experience the kind of joy that God intended for marriage. Without wives giving themselves completely to their husbands, and without husbands loving their wives with the giving of their very lives, marriage will not work. Men must be trustworthy in order for their wives to be open and vulnerable. This level of trust in marriage can only be accomplished by allowing the grace of God to transform us and transform our marriages, to open our hearts completely to God and Trust Him with everything. In order to love as God loves us, we need to have the love of God in our hearts. We cannot give what we do not have.
Jesus performed his first public miracle at a wedding. This shows us the great significance that God places on marriage. The Catechism tells us that "Without [Christ's] help man and woman cannot achieve the union of their lives for which God created them 'in the beginning'" (CCC, n. 1608). This is the very reason that God gave us the sacraments, to help restore that which was lost in Original Sin. Christ came to restore the superabundance of grace that He intended for every holy sacramental marriage. We are to see each other as a gift to one another — to be given freely and not taken. We are to see in our spouses the image of God, as we are all created in the image of God. We need to give ourselves completely to God, entrust Him with our marriage, our family, indeed our very lives, to experience the great gift that He wants to give all of us.
URL: http://www.catholicexchange.com/node/66511
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
The Mass Series Part 5
The Mass series - Part V: The miracle of the Eucharist: 'My flesh is true food'
By Father Tom Margevicius
The following is the fifth part in a seven-part series.
Now that the bread and wine - the fruit of our lives - are at a dignified place on the altar, the assembly stands and begins a dialogue with the priest that's difficult to translate:
"The Lord be with you."
"And also with you" (literally, "and with your spirit").
So far, so good. "Sursum corda," the Latin says next. This has no verb and means literally, "upward hearts." Is the priest telling the people to "lift up your hearts," as our missal has it, or is he saying hearts are already there? Or both? The Latin is ambiguous, and has always been way back to at least A.D. 200.
Language of prayer
I mention the ambiguity for two reasons.
First, you may have heard that a new translation of the Mass is in the works, which might be finished by the end of 2009. It will be closer to the original Latin than the current missal.
You may wonder, "What's taking so long? How hard is it for experts to do a translation?" Well, harder than it seems. Our present text has been criticized because the translation was done too hastily in the 1960s and the changes happened too rapidly. The U.S. bishops don't want to repeat that haste.
Secondly, a theological point: Liturgy is multivalent, meaning it can be understood in many ways. Prayer is ultimately the language of lovers - us and God - and how does one pin down love?
I ask my students, "What's the meaning of a kiss?" It depends on who does it, to whom, when, how, etc. The symbolic language of liturgy also cannot be confined. Though theology tries to articulate it (remember "lex orandi, lex credendi" - "the law of believing, is the law of praying"), we can never fully understand it.
The language of prayer is more poetic than scientific; it moves the heart even more than the mind, which bows in awe before the miracle of the Eucharist.
Theologians use the word "transubstantiation" for this miracle. This means a change of substance: bread and wine become Jesus' true body and blood.
This word relies on ancient Greek philosophical categories of "substance" and "accidents." Substance means the "what" a thing is - a chair, a song, a loaf of bread - and accidents means how the "what" appears: hard or soft, heavy, light, chewy, etc.
After eucharistic transubstantiation the accidents remain: bread and wine appear the same as before. But they are not bread and wine anymore: their substance is now the body and blood of Jesus Christ himself. As he told his followers, "My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink."
Seven parts
Though our minds can't fully grasp the change, we can trace the outline of the prayer. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal lists seven basic parts of all eucharistic prayers.
Thanksgiving, including the dialogue and the preface in which the church thanks God the Father for the salvation wrought in Christ.
Acclamation, when the church joins the angelic and heavenly hosts in crying out, "Holy! Holy! Holy!'
Epiclesis, a Greek word meaning "calling down." The priest asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon the gifts to change them; and later he calls the Spirit down on the assembly, to change us so we also become the body of Christ.
"You are what you eat" is St. Augustine's phrase that originally means not "eat healthy and you'll be healthy;" it connects the church and the Eucharist, both as the body of Christ.
Words of institution. The priest repeats Jesus' own words at the Last Supper. Note that the priest is not "play-acting." He does not pretend to be Jesus and treat the assembly as apostles, telling them, "Take this, all of you. . ." Instead, these words are still part of a prayer addressed to the Father.
Anamnesis, another Greek word, means "making memory." In week one, I mentioned "remembering in the strong liturgical sense," not merely reminiscing about what Jesus did 2,000 years ago in the Upper Room. Rather, by making memory, salvation is actualized, really present among us here and now.
Intercessions occur in various places and usually mention the pope and local bishop by name, as well as saints, our beloved dead, and "any others for whom we now pray."
Doxology is the closing part when we give the Father all glory and honor through the Son in the Spirit. The assembly responds with the Great Amen: Let it be so! Let our lives be all for the glory of God. Such is a fitting way to end all prayers, and the great eucharistic prayer is the most excellent prayer of all.
But wait: there's more. For what happens next, you'll have to tune in next week.
Father Tom Margevicius is instructor of liturgical theology at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.
URL: http://thecatholicspirit.com/main.asp?Secti..15&subsecti..132&articleID=881
By Father Tom Margevicius
The following is the fifth part in a seven-part series.
Now that the bread and wine - the fruit of our lives - are at a dignified place on the altar, the assembly stands and begins a dialogue with the priest that's difficult to translate:
"The Lord be with you."
"And also with you" (literally, "and with your spirit").
So far, so good. "Sursum corda," the Latin says next. This has no verb and means literally, "upward hearts." Is the priest telling the people to "lift up your hearts," as our missal has it, or is he saying hearts are already there? Or both? The Latin is ambiguous, and has always been way back to at least A.D. 200.
Language of prayer
I mention the ambiguity for two reasons.
First, you may have heard that a new translation of the Mass is in the works, which might be finished by the end of 2009. It will be closer to the original Latin than the current missal.
You may wonder, "What's taking so long? How hard is it for experts to do a translation?" Well, harder than it seems. Our present text has been criticized because the translation was done too hastily in the 1960s and the changes happened too rapidly. The U.S. bishops don't want to repeat that haste.
Secondly, a theological point: Liturgy is multivalent, meaning it can be understood in many ways. Prayer is ultimately the language of lovers - us and God - and how does one pin down love?
I ask my students, "What's the meaning of a kiss?" It depends on who does it, to whom, when, how, etc. The symbolic language of liturgy also cannot be confined. Though theology tries to articulate it (remember "lex orandi, lex credendi" - "the law of believing, is the law of praying"), we can never fully understand it.
The language of prayer is more poetic than scientific; it moves the heart even more than the mind, which bows in awe before the miracle of the Eucharist.
Theologians use the word "transubstantiation" for this miracle. This means a change of substance: bread and wine become Jesus' true body and blood.
This word relies on ancient Greek philosophical categories of "substance" and "accidents." Substance means the "what" a thing is - a chair, a song, a loaf of bread - and accidents means how the "what" appears: hard or soft, heavy, light, chewy, etc.
After eucharistic transubstantiation the accidents remain: bread and wine appear the same as before. But they are not bread and wine anymore: their substance is now the body and blood of Jesus Christ himself. As he told his followers, "My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink."
Seven parts
Though our minds can't fully grasp the change, we can trace the outline of the prayer. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal lists seven basic parts of all eucharistic prayers.
Thanksgiving, including the dialogue and the preface in which the church thanks God the Father for the salvation wrought in Christ.
Acclamation, when the church joins the angelic and heavenly hosts in crying out, "Holy! Holy! Holy!'
Epiclesis, a Greek word meaning "calling down." The priest asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon the gifts to change them; and later he calls the Spirit down on the assembly, to change us so we also become the body of Christ.
"You are what you eat" is St. Augustine's phrase that originally means not "eat healthy and you'll be healthy;" it connects the church and the Eucharist, both as the body of Christ.
Words of institution. The priest repeats Jesus' own words at the Last Supper. Note that the priest is not "play-acting." He does not pretend to be Jesus and treat the assembly as apostles, telling them, "Take this, all of you. . ." Instead, these words are still part of a prayer addressed to the Father.
Anamnesis, another Greek word, means "making memory." In week one, I mentioned "remembering in the strong liturgical sense," not merely reminiscing about what Jesus did 2,000 years ago in the Upper Room. Rather, by making memory, salvation is actualized, really present among us here and now.
Intercessions occur in various places and usually mention the pope and local bishop by name, as well as saints, our beloved dead, and "any others for whom we now pray."
Doxology is the closing part when we give the Father all glory and honor through the Son in the Spirit. The assembly responds with the Great Amen: Let it be so! Let our lives be all for the glory of God. Such is a fitting way to end all prayers, and the great eucharistic prayer is the most excellent prayer of all.
But wait: there's more. For what happens next, you'll have to tune in next week.
Father Tom Margevicius is instructor of liturgical theology at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.
URL: http://thecatholicspirit.com/main.asp?Secti..15&subsecti..132&articleID=881
The Mass Series Part 4
The Mass Series - Part IV: Presentation of the gifts: Bread, wine and ourselves
By Father Tom Margevicius
The following is the fourth part in a seven-part series on the Mass.
Before moving forward let's review. One week ago, we saw that the church considers the Liturgy of the Word power-packed. What the liturgy's actions say, the word of God enacts. Or as the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" says: "The liturgical word and action are inseparable both insofar as they are signs and instruction and insofar as they accomplish what they signify."
Two weeks ago, we observed how the entrance rites developed in the church's history. At the time of St. Justin Martyr in A.D. 155, they were very rudimentary (see CCC, 1345), but other parts of Mass, including the procession of gifts, were already being done.
Three weeks ago, we examined some liturgical concepts that are helpful in understanding the Mass, especially how the liturgy makes use of signs and symbols to communicate God's grace to us.
All three of these - symbols, gifts, and word plus action - are important for the part of the Mass we look at today: preparation of the gifts.
Sometimes this is also called this the "offertory," but since the bread and wine will be supremely "offered" in the eucharistic prayer, we'll use the term preferred by the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
Presentation of the gifts assumed great importance in the early church.
St. Cyprian, martyred in Africa in 258, chided those who came to Mass and received the Eucharist but made no offering of their own: "You are wealthy and rich, and do you think that you celebrate the Lord's Supper, not at all considering the offering? Who comes to the Lord's Supper without a sacrifice, and yet takes part of the sacrifice which the poor man has offered? Consider in the Gospel the widow. . ."
St. Augustine was impressed by a fifth-century procession of gifts in Rome in which the faithful brought from their own homes things from their kitchen tables. (After handling all the gifts, no wonder the priest had to wash his hands!)
Augustine called this an "admirable exchange" - for their gifts, God gave back Jesus. Our present prayer over the gifts from the sixth day in the octave of Christmas uses Augustine's language: "Lord, receive our gifts in this wonderful exchange: from all you have given us, we bring you these gifts, and in return, you give us yourself."
Valid matter. The church uses unleavened bread made only of pure wheat flour and water, and wine only from grapes. Why?
Because that's what Jesus used. He told us to "do this" in his memory, and if "this" changes too much, we're no longer following his command.
Even in places of the world where wheat or grapes are scarce, the church still insists that these foodstuffs be imported instead of substituted with local products such as corn flour or rice wine. For persons with celiac disease or alcohol intolerance, the church permits virtually gluten-free hosts and mustum, wine, whose fermentation has been arrested.
Collection of money. Yep, it's in the Bible. "From the very beginning, Christians have brought, along with the bread and wine for the Eucharist, gifts to share with those in need" (CCC, 1351). Tithing and almsgiving are acts of worship (2 Corinthians 9:10-15) and express not only our desire to help those in need but also our generosity to God.
A $20 bill and a $1 bill are next to each other in a man's wallet. The $20 bill says, "Isn't life great! I get to go to the best places: to movies and nice restaurants and the mall." The $1 bill replies, "Well, I go to church." (Right about now lots of people are upset with me, while pastors are secretly sighing, "Thank you Father Tom!")
Made by hand. The ordinary form of Mass uses adapted Jewish "berakah" (blessing) prayers whose words are packed with meaning, even if they're done silently during the music.
Bread and wine symbolize a wonderful cooperation between God and humans. We lay upon the altar not only creation's goods but ours, too. The gifts are not mere wheat and grapes, but "the work of human hands."
Symbolically, that's us on the altar, offering ourselves to God. In the eucharistic prayer, we will ask God to send the Spirit to change the gifts and change us as well - but, again, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The gift of ourselves is never easy, and the church, knowing that, treats our offerings with great care. The priest places them in a dignified place on the altar, incenses them reverently, and asks God to receive them to himself.
"Pray, sisters and brothers, that our sacrifice" - not only bread and wine, but what they symbolize: our work, struggles, joys, money, our very lives - "may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father."
In the next part of Mass, the great eucharistic prayer, it happens: the Holy Spirit comes down, and as the words of Christ are repeated over the bread and wine . . . Stay tuned!
Father Tom Margevicius is instructor of liturgical theology at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.
URL: http://thecatholicspirit.com/main.asp?Secti..15&subsecti..132&articleID=844
By Father Tom Margevicius
The following is the fourth part in a seven-part series on the Mass.
Before moving forward let's review. One week ago, we saw that the church considers the Liturgy of the Word power-packed. What the liturgy's actions say, the word of God enacts. Or as the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" says: "The liturgical word and action are inseparable both insofar as they are signs and instruction and insofar as they accomplish what they signify."
Two weeks ago, we observed how the entrance rites developed in the church's history. At the time of St. Justin Martyr in A.D. 155, they were very rudimentary (see CCC, 1345), but other parts of Mass, including the procession of gifts, were already being done.
Three weeks ago, we examined some liturgical concepts that are helpful in understanding the Mass, especially how the liturgy makes use of signs and symbols to communicate God's grace to us.
All three of these - symbols, gifts, and word plus action - are important for the part of the Mass we look at today: preparation of the gifts.
Sometimes this is also called this the "offertory," but since the bread and wine will be supremely "offered" in the eucharistic prayer, we'll use the term preferred by the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
Presentation of the gifts assumed great importance in the early church.
St. Cyprian, martyred in Africa in 258, chided those who came to Mass and received the Eucharist but made no offering of their own: "You are wealthy and rich, and do you think that you celebrate the Lord's Supper, not at all considering the offering? Who comes to the Lord's Supper without a sacrifice, and yet takes part of the sacrifice which the poor man has offered? Consider in the Gospel the widow. . ."
St. Augustine was impressed by a fifth-century procession of gifts in Rome in which the faithful brought from their own homes things from their kitchen tables. (After handling all the gifts, no wonder the priest had to wash his hands!)
Augustine called this an "admirable exchange" - for their gifts, God gave back Jesus. Our present prayer over the gifts from the sixth day in the octave of Christmas uses Augustine's language: "Lord, receive our gifts in this wonderful exchange: from all you have given us, we bring you these gifts, and in return, you give us yourself."
Valid matter. The church uses unleavened bread made only of pure wheat flour and water, and wine only from grapes. Why?
Because that's what Jesus used. He told us to "do this" in his memory, and if "this" changes too much, we're no longer following his command.
Even in places of the world where wheat or grapes are scarce, the church still insists that these foodstuffs be imported instead of substituted with local products such as corn flour or rice wine. For persons with celiac disease or alcohol intolerance, the church permits virtually gluten-free hosts and mustum, wine, whose fermentation has been arrested.
Collection of money. Yep, it's in the Bible. "From the very beginning, Christians have brought, along with the bread and wine for the Eucharist, gifts to share with those in need" (CCC, 1351). Tithing and almsgiving are acts of worship (2 Corinthians 9:10-15) and express not only our desire to help those in need but also our generosity to God.
A $20 bill and a $1 bill are next to each other in a man's wallet. The $20 bill says, "Isn't life great! I get to go to the best places: to movies and nice restaurants and the mall." The $1 bill replies, "Well, I go to church." (Right about now lots of people are upset with me, while pastors are secretly sighing, "Thank you Father Tom!")
Made by hand. The ordinary form of Mass uses adapted Jewish "berakah" (blessing) prayers whose words are packed with meaning, even if they're done silently during the music.
Bread and wine symbolize a wonderful cooperation between God and humans. We lay upon the altar not only creation's goods but ours, too. The gifts are not mere wheat and grapes, but "the work of human hands."
Symbolically, that's us on the altar, offering ourselves to God. In the eucharistic prayer, we will ask God to send the Spirit to change the gifts and change us as well - but, again, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The gift of ourselves is never easy, and the church, knowing that, treats our offerings with great care. The priest places them in a dignified place on the altar, incenses them reverently, and asks God to receive them to himself.
"Pray, sisters and brothers, that our sacrifice" - not only bread and wine, but what they symbolize: our work, struggles, joys, money, our very lives - "may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father."
In the next part of Mass, the great eucharistic prayer, it happens: the Holy Spirit comes down, and as the words of Christ are repeated over the bread and wine . . . Stay tuned!
Father Tom Margevicius is instructor of liturgical theology at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.
URL: http://thecatholicspirit.com/main.asp?Secti..15&subsecti..132&articleID=844
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