Chapter 5: The Mystery of Love

Within the Orthodox Church matrimony is a sacrament. A sacrament, as mentioned in previous posts, shows the idea of a transformation, referring to the ultimate event of Christ’s death and resurrection, and is always the sacrament of the kingdom. If this is how we are to see the sacrament then the church can be given the term sacramental. It is always the manifestation in time of the “new time”. In a more specific way the church calls the sacraments those acts given to life in which the transforming grace is “confirmed as being given”, which the church through its liturgical life identifies itself with and it then becomes the very form of the gift which we are all a part of. How then is marriage related to the coming kingdom? How is marriage a sacrament, related to the cross, death and resurrection of Christ? These questions might be hard to answer in our modern world because of the inconsistencies that we are taught about marriage. Marriage today is covered up under labels such as, “she/he is the one”, “we are meant to be” and the list can go on. The truth about marriage is being covered up. It is forgotten as everything else in the world. We never see marriage as being a distorted marriage, and that it must be restored and united in the person of Christ. This restoration then carries marriage into His life, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. With this meaning being expanded on more one can see how this definition gives marriage a more cosmic and universal dimensions. The point then is if we continue to envision marriage as the concern of those who “only” are being married and as something that happens “only” to “them” and not to the church, therefore being “only” for the world, then we will never understand the sacramental meaning of marriage and won’t understand the mystery of marriage to which St. Paul writes about (cf. Eph 5.32). Marriage then in its truthfulness and power to give life must be seen not from “family” but rather love. Family has the power to distort the meaning of love as scripture points to this countless times (cf. Mt 10.36). In this sense the sacrament of holy matrimony is much wider than family. It is the sacrament of divine love. This is why it’s important to see how the church (the community) is involved within the sacrament because it is within the concept of community that we approach the world and this applies to the married couple who are wedded within the community.

The best way to understand the sacrament of matrimony is not by starting with matrimony as its commonly seen as being but rather looking at the individual who stood at the church as the purest expression of human love and response to God; Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It is significant that in the west Mary is primarily the Virgin, a being who is totally different from us in her purity and freedom from the pollution of sin, in the east she is referred to and glorified as Theotokos (the Mother of God), and all icons depict her with the Child in her arms. In other words, there exists two emphases on Mary, which they both do not exclude one another, lead to two different visions of Mary’s place in the Church. The differences in mind, if one is to understand the experience of veneration of Mary which has always been that of the Orthodox Church. This is not odd as something pertaining to the “cult of Mary” but instead a light, a joy, which is proper to the whole life of the church. An Orthodox hymn says about her “all creation rejoices”. In Mary and because of her example of love and obedience she was able to accept what all creation was meant to be created in; the temple of the Holy Spirit being the humanity of God. She accepted and gave her body and blood to be the in the fullest and deepest sense the mother of the world because she was able to be the mother of the Son of God. She accepted the nature of the creature and all creation by placing the meaning and the fulfillment of her life in God. By accepting this she fulfilled the womanhood of creation. This seems strange in our modern world because the “equality of the sexes” has become a dominate issue. However, through Mary we see how the one affirms in Christ that there is neither male nor female (cf. Gal 3.28). In Mary the boundary of humanity is not limited then to “male” and “female” but instead is the bringing together humanity in our brokenness in the body of Christ. The idea of love then is united back into Christ. The world finds its restoration and meaning in the church which is the bride of God and in sin this relationship has been broken, distorted. This is where the Theotokos in her response to God, the church has its living and personal beginning. This response is total obedience in love and not obedience and love, but the wholeness of the one as the totality of the other. True obedience is then true love for God which becomes the real response of creation to its creator. Humanity is fully humanity when it becomes a movement of total self-giving and obedience to Him. In the “natural” world the one who is the bearer of this obedient love is the woman. This acceptance gives life to the man, becoming the fulfillment of life which becomes fully love only when it is fully acceptance and response. This is why the Theotokos become the example for us all. The whole of creation-the church-and not only women find the expression of their response and obedience to God in Mary and rejoice in her. When we accept this love and obedience can creation transcend beyond the limitations of seeing “male” and “female”. With this in mind creation then fulfills its role as the males and females in the body of Christ. Fr. Alexander describes the roles of males in females in the following fashion: “For man can be truly man—that is, the king of creation, the priest and minister of God’s creativity and initiative—only when he does not posit himself as the "owner” of creation and submits himself—in obedience and love—to its nature as the bride of God, in response and acceptance. And woman ceases to be just a "female” when, totally and unconditionally accepting the life of the Other as her own life, giving herself totally to the Other, she becomes the very expression, the very fruit, the very joy, the very beauty, the very gift of our response to God, the one whom, in the words of the Song, the king will bring into his chambers, saying: "Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee” (Ct. 4:7). Page 85”. This explains why Mary is called the second Eve. Mary was able to do what Eve failed to do- to become a woman. She became a female, the instrument of creation, “ruled over” by man. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to your word” (Lk 1.38). It is at this instance that humanity recognizes the words that express our nature and being, our acceptance to the bride of God our unity to the one who from the beginning loved us. Mary’s virginity is the fullness of love itself. If virginity is then understood as completion of love we must not misunderstand this as the absence of sex. Of this fulfillment in “this world” sex is the paradoxical the tragic affirmation and denial. This explains the high standing the Virgin Mary has within the church not because she is “break” in a long and patient growth of love and expectation but rather she is the gift to the world to God. It is through God that this love and obedience is bestowed upon Mary (cf. 1 Lk. 35-37) and she is the one who brought to him the totality of human love. Mary then is the mother of us all. By giving herself that love gives life, becoming the source of all life. By giving life this is how love is then good. Mary through her virginity reveals the fullness of love in this great mystery.

After talking about the Theotokos we can now return to the sacrament of matrimony. If we can now see marriage as being a transforming process that is done within the community and church then one begs to ask how can we understand marriage as a whole? The meaning is then based on taking the natural marriage and transforming it into the great mystery of Christ and the Church. Not only is marriage transformed but the concept of human love is also transformed. How do we know that this is the “true” meaning of marriage? In the early church marriages were done within the context of the liturgy and the Eucharist. Marriages were part of the liturgical service (with some people still deciding to have their marriages performed during a liturgy) and it is then consummated with the partaking of the Eucharist. This is how the great mystery is understood within the context of church and community. It was only later that the church received the right to perform a marriage for “civil” purposes. This has brought great pains to the sacrament of marriage. The meaning has distorted what a marriage represents. Today you will find many marriages being performed outside of the context of community and liturgy. Marriage has become a private ceremony for a few who are invited destroying the concept of community. The Eucharist is partaken of either a day before or a day after the marriage celebration. As Father Alexander calls it this has caused a “desacramentalization”. The obvious sign of this is the divorce of matrimony from the Eucharist. When the bride and groom enter the church this shows the procession into the church. Just like the church and Christ are married so too is the bride and groom. They become married to the church and the community in the body of Christ. This procession merely represents the entrance of the world into the world to come, the procession of the people in Christ and into his kingdom. Each family now is indeed a kingdom, a little church, therefore becoming the sacrament of and a way to the kingdom. The way into the kingdom is the martyria-bearing witness to Christ-meaning suffering and dying in Christ. As Fr. Alexander says marriages today has stopped being for His glory but rather for selfish reasons and ambitions of the “I” and “ME”: “A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not "die to itself” that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of "adjustment” or "mental cruelty.” It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God. This is expressed in the sentiment that one would "do anything” for his family, even steal. The family has here ceased to be for the glory of God; it has ceased to be a sacramental entrance into His presence. Page 90”. The crowns which are placed on the head finally represent the ultimate reality in which everything in the world becomes a sacramental sign and anticipation.

By way of conclusion Father Alexander sums it up beautifully when he says: “…some of us are married and some are not. Some of us are called to be priests and ministers and some are not. But the sacraments of matrimony and priesthood concern all of us, because they concern our life as vocation. The meaning, the essence and the end of all vocation is the mystery of Christ and the Church. It is through the Church that each one of us finds that the vocation of all vocations is to follow Christ in the fullness of His priesthood: in His love for man and the world, His love for their ultimate fulfillment in the abundant life of the Kingdom. Page 94”.

A few quotes from chapter five:

             

Here is the whole point. As long as we visualize marriage as the concern of those alone who are being married, as something that happens to them and not to the whole Church, and, therefore, to the world itself, we shall never understand the truly sacramental meaning of marriage: the great mystery to which St. Paul refers when he says, "But I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” Page 82.

She accepted to give her body and blood—that is, her whole life—to be the body and blood of the Son of God, to be mother in the fullest and deepest sense of this world, giving her life to the Other and fulfilling her life in Him. She accepted the only true nature of each creature and all creation: to place the meaning and, therefore, the fulfillment of her life in God. Page 83.

Yet is it not significant that the relation between God and the world, between God and Israel, His chosen people, and finally between God and the cosmos restored in the Church, is expressed in the Bible in terms of marital union and love? This is a double analogy. On the one hand we understand God’s love for the world and Christ’s love for the Church because we have the experience of marital love, but on the other hand marital love has its roots, its depth and real fulfillment in the great mystery of Christ and his Church. Page 84.

Humanity is fully humanity when it is this response to God, when it becomes the movement of total self-giving and obedience to Him. But in the "natural” world the bearer of this obedient love, of this love as response, is the woman. The man proposes, the woman accepts. This acceptance is not passivity, blind submission, because it is love, and love is always active. It gives life to the proposal of man, fulfills it as life, yet it becomes fully love and fully life only when it is fully acceptance and response. Page 85.

Mary is the Virgin. But this virginity is not a negation, not a mere absence; it is the fullness and the wholeness of love itself. It is the totality of her self-giving to God, and thus the very expression, the very quality of her love. For love is the thirst and hunger for wholeness, totality, fulfillment— for virginity, in the ultimate meaning of this word. At the end the Church will be presented to Christ as a "chaste virgin” (Cor. 11:2). Page 86.

For what we find in her and what constitutes the joy of the Church is precisely the fullness of our adoration of Christ, of acceptance and love for Him. Really, here is no "cult of Mary,” yet in Mary the "cult” of the Church becomes a movement of joy and thanksgiving, of acceptance and obedience—the wedding to the Holy Spirit, which makes it the only complete joy on earth. Page 87.

For the Christian, natural does not mean either self-sufficient—a "nice little family”—or merely insufficient, and to be, therefore, strengthened and completed by the addition of the supernatural.” The natural man thirsts and hungers for fulfillment and redemption. This thirst and hunger is the vestibule of the Kingdom: both beginning and exile. Page 89.

Hence the third and final meaning of the crowns: they are the crowns of the Kingdom, of that ultimate Reality of which everything in "this world”—whose fashion passeth away—everything has now become a sacramental sign and anticipation. "Receive their crowns in Thy Kingdom,” says the priest, as he removes them from the heads of the newlyweds, and this means: make this marriage a growth in that perfected love of which God alone is the end and fullness. Page 91.

Man was created priest of the world, the one who offers the world to God in a sacrifice of love and praise and who, through this eternal Eucharist, bestows the divine love upon the world. Priesthood, in this sense, is the very essence of manhood, man’s creative relation to the "womanhood” of the created world. And Christ is the one true Priest because He is the one true and perfect man. He is the new Adam, the restoration of that which Adam failed to be. Adam failed to be the priest of the world, and because of this failure the world ceased to be the sacrament of the divine love and presence, and became "nature.” And in this "natural” world religion became an organized transaction with the supernatural, and the priest was set apart as the "transactor,” as the mediator between the natural and the supernatural. Page 92-93.