With an increasing emphasis being given to the personalist values of sexual intercourse in marriage, additional light can be gained from comparing the marriage act with another very personal type of intercourse, that of the encounter with Christ in the reception of Holy Communion. Both communions take place within the context of communities that are creations of God—the Church and matrimony, and these communities are so closely linked that St. Paul explains the community of marriage in terms of the Church (Eph. 5:21-33). Both are meant to be truly personal communions; both are meant to be a simultaneous giving and receiving; both are meant to lead men and women to lives of holiness.
Everyone is agreed today that of itself the act of sexual intercourse is a good and that in marriage it can be a means of expressing married love and be conducive to true Christian holiness. In marriage it is meant to be a true communion of persons whose bodily actions represent the communion of the total persons. Because this communion is likewise meant to lead the couple to holiness, it can very aptly be called a holy communion.
Result of sacraments
There are a number of marked similarities between these two communions—Eucharistic and matrimonial. First of all, they are both the result of sacraments given us by Christ for our salvation. If it isn’t just word-picking, I think we usually refer to the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our Lord as the “Holy Eucharist” as He becomes present to us through the consecration. Then when the faithful actually receive Him in the sacrament, we usually refer to this reception as “Holy Communion.” The sacrament of Matrimony is likewise a sacrament establishing a new and sacred union between husband and wife and making it morally good to express this union in the communion of sexual intercourse.
Sacrificial offerings
Secondly, both of these communions come about as a result of a sacrificial offering. In the case of Holy Communion we have the offering of Christ to his Father, an offering at the Last Supper which looked forward to and included the fullness of giving in his death on the cross the next day. “This is my body which is given up for you” (Luke 22:19). In the case of the holy communion of matrimony we likewise have a delivering of the bodies of husband and wife to each other. As they confer the sacrament upon each other, they deliver themselves to each other without respect to circumstances, i.e., for poorer, sickness and worse as well as for richer, health and better. This is an explicit and formal recognition that in the giving of themselves to each other they are making a sacrifice.
Here we can use the word sacrifice in its common connotation of enduring difficulty or of giving up something, or we can look upon it in its etymological meaning of making holy. Perhaps the best way to take it here is that husband and wife will each grow in holiness according to the measure in which they give of self in trying to build up the other person. St. Paul is explicit in his instruction to the husband to sanctify his wife as Christ gave of Himself to sanctify the Church. The current emphasis on reform in the Church is an embodiment of the Church’s belief that she must always seek to be ever faithful and true to her head and savior, Christ. Likewise are wives instructed in this spirit of obedience to a loving spouse who does not selfishly seek his own benefit but rather that of their mutual union. It is, then, this sacramental offering of self to each other, this true sacrificial offering, that makes morally good and humanly meaningful their subsequent communion in sexual intercourse.
To be continued tomorrow. (By John Kippley, Ave Maria 1967; Sex and the Marriage Covenant, Ignatius 2005)