The Eucharistic Understanding of Marriage

An excellent book that tackles marriage from a historical perspective and ties in many issues in our modern time that couples face in marriage. 

The paradigm (starting point) of Marriage is Christ. And if Christ is the starting point off Marriage that brings us together in the anticipation of the kingdom then marriage is connected to the Eucharist. The difference between a "secular" marriage and a "christian" marriage is the Eucharist. It is through the Eucharist that the unity of the couple is manifested in the body of Christ. The connection is alluded to in the wedding story of Cana (Jn 2.1-11). The text is pointing to the climax of the marriage service which brings together the Baptism and Eucharist. The water is transformed into wine, so the life of the sinful human being in transfigured through the presence of Christ into the reality of the kingdom. Our life is transformed once we are united in the bond of matrimony. This explains why today the marriage service done within the full context of the church service is conducted within the entire liturgy. The culmination our our baptismal duty to the church which is to mission to the entire world and this culminates in the partaking of the divine gifts. Unfortunately, many have misunderstood marriage and the majority of all marriages are performed outside of the context of the liturgy.

Even in the early church when the administrative work was missing (before Constantine became emperor the church was not united) the church understood the importance of marriage and the Eucharist. Terturllian writing in the second century writes that marriage is arranged by the church, confirmed by the oblation (Eucharist), sealed by the blessing, and inscribed in heaven by the angels. The church had this understanding that marriage was not only important to civil society (each couple had to be registered a practice that still continues to this day) but their joint participation in the regular Sunday liturgy, in the presence of the entire community (not a private affair as is practiced today) was blessed by the Bishop or priest. The marriage became an eternal union when the Eucharist was distributed to the entire community. Ignatius of Antioch echoes a similar sentiment of Terturllian when he says those who get married must unite with the knowledge of the bishop, so the marriage may be according to the Lord, and not by human desire (Letter to Polycarp 5.2).

What makes a "sacrament" is not necessarily a set of specific, visible gestures, accomplished by a valid minister. The church itself-being a mysterious union of God with his people-is the sacrament as St. Paul talks about the mystery of salvation (Eph 3). When the union of marriage is done, this is indeed "sacrament", for the mystery of salvation is applied to the individual commitment. But all these "sacraments" are completed in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is itself a wedding feast as St. Paul reminds the community in Corinth that separating the table of thanksgiving is a mistake that needs to be corrects (1 Cor 11). After the wedding ceremony the couple are constantly working out their salvation in the body of Christ. Elder Elisha of Simonopetra tells us that marriage is a great sacrifice. This sacrifice is realized through the life of prayer. As prayer unites us to God our marriage unites us also to God through our struggles and pains within the marriage life. If we come to understand marriage through the lens of the Eucharist then and only then will a marriage be able to be made holy for the life of the world. But if we continue to think that marriage is based on materialistic (what kind of job they have and how much property do they own) objects then the 50 percent divorce rate (In the west countries) will continue to rise.    

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Therefore, don’t think that you aren’t praying. You pray daily, if for the sole reason that you have decided to offer yourselves to God, and to live apart, against the worldly mindset. Thus you should know that this constitutes prayer. This is prayer. Prayer is when I become a monk, to offer myself to God. This is prayer.

You pray when you offer yourself to the church and as a sacrifice towards each other within marriage. One who gets married, therefore, in his married life, is a prototype. Marriage is a return to the former state in Paradise, in other words. It is to offer yourself in the married life, for what does it do? To offer myself to someone else is to sacrifice myself for the other.

No one can distinguish the lay person from the monk, for what are they? Being a monk is a return to a former state, in other words, that of Paradise, without compromises.

We sell our freedom to God, because God is our freedom.  

Elder Eliseus (Elisha) of Simonopetra on Sacrifice in Marriage and Monasticism  

Marriage and Ascetisicm

Marriage has had a changing form throughout the centuries and it continues to be challenged in our modern era. The following entry will try to establish and challenge the notion of what ascetical marriage means within the context of our modern times. Marriage a few thousand years ago was viewed as a means to survive through the process of pro-creation. Marriage today has been characterized as a self-fulfillment of both security and fulfillment of one’s own career. These two notions of marriage I plan to challenge to see if truly the meaning of marriage is for only pro-creation or for the establishment of one’s own career.  

    

Abstinence and procreation have become two ways to understanding martial asceticism. However, by examining the paradigm of marriage we will begin to see that abstinence and procreation are nothing more than a teaching tool to the fuller picture of what marriage is understood to be. They’re both very positive tools are procreation and abstinence are needed tools for marriage however, when they start to define the marriage that is when the marriage begins to collapse from within.

The foundational words for understanding marriage occur when one opens scripture. God created the human being in his image and likeness. He created them male and female asking them to be fruitful and multiply. Theologians point to this passage as being the main reason one gets married. I would challenge this notion because God also allowed the animals to procreate (cf. Gen 1.22). Human beings were created by the word of God while every other creation was spoken into existence. God said let it be and it was. Humanity was the only creation made in the image and likeness of God from the creation accounts. So why would God bestow a great mystery of procreation to the animals? One answer might be that the purpose of marriage was not only limited to procreation but a deeper meaning lies beneath understanding the purpose of the ascetical marriage.    

Marriage then, understood in the context of the Genesis account, can be viewed as a giving up of the self to be restored in the image of God. This paradigm continues on in the Scripture of the New Testament. Marriage is understood by the Apostle Paul as a sacrifice being made for the other individual. He summarizes in to the Corinthians that a man or a woman should not rule over their body but to give up the body for the other (cf. 1 Cor 7.1-6). Paul later on would tell the community that he would wish everyone to be like him, which is to say, to remain celibate. Celibacy has its reward as a sacrifice to Christ through the formation and breaking down and rising up of the human being, to be formed in Christ’s image and likeness. By conclusion the New Testament through St. Paul demonstrates that both marriage and celibacy have a unique place within the church. The church later on would hold this beauty of marriage and adopt it as one of the mysteries of the church. 

By way of conclusion, marriage then should not only be viewed from the realm of procreation. This can happen if God allows it to be. The challenge then that Christians must bring to marriage or the celibate life, is not how to cope with either but rather it should look towards Christ. By making Christ present in this world this will spiritually procreate Christ. A Christian marriage is thus defined neither by its procreation function or unity two people together as two separate aspects of the marriage. If these two are understood to stand alone within the paradigm of marriage then this will lead to a self-centered ideology. Rather Christian marriage is a means of manifesting Christ, continuing and showing his liturgy for the life of the world. In turn marital asceticism as temporary sexual abstinence is not what it has mistakenly become in modern thought on marriage, a means of making sexual activity more unitive. Rather, temporary sexual abstinence, should be viewed in light as a God given means of refocusing our center of attention, with the aim of achieving, what was given from the beginning-to be made males and females in the image and likeness of God. But the truth remains of this is still hidden with Christ in God, who stature we continue trying to attain throughout the progression of life.   

Father Alexander Schmemann sums it up beautifully on what it means to married:

“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. It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it. In a Christian marriage, in fact, three are married; and the united loyalty of the two toward the third, who is God, keeps the two in an active unity with each other as well as with God. Yet it is the presence of God which is the death of the marriage as something only “natural.” It is the cross of Christ that brings the self-sufficiency of nature to its end. But “by the cross, joy entered the whole world.” Its presence is thus the real joy of marriage. It is the joyful certitude that the marriage vow, in the perspective of the eternal Kingdom, is not taken “until death parts,” but until death unites us completely.” – Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World